To be pissed off with school about football boots and complain?

[PyongyangKipperbang]

Got an email on Tuesday telling parents that DD's PE class is doing football until half term and please make sure that they have shin pads and football boots by.....today!

Several issues with it.
Firstly financial. We all know that things are tight for a lot of people, and boots are not cheap. I know for a fact that there are a lot of kids at that school who's parents wont be able to simply drop the money on them. I would have to put them on the credit card as I dont have the spare money right now. Its so fucking tone deaf to expect this just after new uniform has been bought by a lot of parents. DD rather selfishly allowed her arms to grow so she needed a new blazer that she will wear for about 6 months before she doesnt need it anymore!

Secondly, the short notice. Basically one day to get them, err.....I have a job and deliveries around here are not at all reliable!

DD has no interest at all in football so these will go to waste afterwards, I can't imagine I would get much for them if I put on marketplace. I am not prepared to lose that money, especially when......

DD has a medical condition that means she can't actually play most (and especially team) sports. She can do the training but not participate in the sport. So why the hell would I pay out for basically no reason?!

I will be emailing the teacher back tomorrow (already replied once and got no acknowledgement) but am thinking about pointing to out to year head/HOD how this lack of notice especially is not on. WIBU to do that?

That’s mad for 6 weeks. They can play football in trainers

Yanbu. Op, I remember buying DD football boots when DD signed up to play footprint in year 11 as her German teacher was the coach and they were short of players. She had decent hockey shoes but apparently they were not good enough. They were only the third XI.

One season, then they sat in my garage for years before selling them for about 20 quid.

Another vote for just outright refuse. I'll be doing the same, it pisses me off enough that they've decided they want them to have separate PE trainers (ours are allowed all black trainers), I'm not paying for boots he will wear maybe twice before his feet grow again as well!

I was fortunate that the charity shops had all the pads and boots from all the wealthy families who'd bought them and never or rarely worn them so DC always had some for Autumn term. I lent them my hockey boots from school 😂.

So much wasted equipment.

Some local grassroots football clubs have a boot box where people donate outgrown boots for others to get use of. Might help someone.

Surely for PE purposes any trainers are fine. Kids seem to manage a kick about at the park without specialised football boots. If the child is playing on an actual team, sure, for school PE definitely ignore.

When I was in secondary school I'm pretty sure we wore the same trainers for tennis, hockey, football, netball, rounders, track - everything! We didn't fall over an inordinate amount.

Casually informing you of the 'need' for specialist equipment the day before is taking the piss.

Indeed. It's the arrogance of PE teachers deciding that, because specialist equipment exists for people who play a sport seriously, every child must be made to buy it - especially when it's different equipment for each sport they briefly do over the space of the year.

There's all of the new legislation about schools having to cut down on the number of branded uniform items that are demanded, to help families who are struggling financially; but it's seriously undermined when you're told you MUST buy this...and this... and that... for PE, over and above the actual kit.

A mandatory gumshield, for goodness' sake - for an utterly non-sporty child who is only there because he has to be, when he'd much prefer to be doing some actual learning rather than being told to run around. It sticks in the craw even more now that he's started his options, meaning that he had to drop some interesting academic subjects; but they're still forced to do PE... and we have to pay for kit that he doesn't need in order to fulfil that obligation.