.. to find school shoes just unbelievably expensive?!

[joster]

Decent shoes are important, sure, but almost 40 pounds a pair for fairly "standard" Start Rite shoes for my son and daughter...?? How is that?! Can someone justify it on behalf of the shoe manufacturers?! Husband groaned as he walked through the door and saw the two boxes on the hall stand and I don't blame him, I got the jitters putting in my PIN number at the shop!

My Dh just got school shoes for DS for £20 at the Clarks discount store. They are from the range from last year, but as Clarks shoes all look so similar I can't see that it will matter.

Katisha, I will have to look in there. I know he so so wants name brand trainers but i think they are going to have to wait a few months with school shoes at the price they are.

£34/each for Start Rite shoes.

My girls have C width and D width feet.

Plus they had to buy Start Rite plimmies because everything was too wide for them. £11/each.

DD1 a birthday in June and I did Gold2Pounds.

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I dont begrudge spending on school shoes either, children spend a lot of time in them (unless the school policy is plimsols inside) and they need to fit correctly.

Its no more expensive than buying a decent pair of trainers or a nice jacket/jumper, trip to cinema etc.

Well I have just spent nearly £200 on three pairs.EEK.My dd's have freaky wide feet with high insteps so their shoes always cost the earth.But then feet and teeth are the things you really have to take daily care of I suppose.

I had nothing but Clarks shoes to the age of 13. It appears to have done very little good to my poor misshapen feet.

My DSs have always had cheap shoes, except on 2 occasions when my Ex to show off bought them Start-rites or similar. They wore out the expensive shoes in a month playing football etc at school, just like they do with the cheap ones. So now they just have the cheap ones, as if I'm buying x6 pairs each a year then I'm not paying £40 a time!

TLE - I second sports direct, they have some brand name trainers for £10-15, not always the latest style or the best name (ie more Kappa than Nike) but my DSs are always happy enough with them!

helly were they gold plated? Where on earth did you get kids' shoes that expensive?

Have a look at this website www.shoesforkids.co.uk.

Sells discounted Clarks, Start-rite, pus other less well-known brands. I was especially interested in what they have to say regarding width fittings; we're the only country that have them & that an 'F' fitting will be ok for 80% of children.

Have to say I've lost faith in Clark's since I got ds measured in two different branches & had two completely different shoe sizes. I'd rather use Start-rite's online guide on how to check the fit yourself.

Incidentally, both Clarks & Start-rite also sell online & you can get some real bargains in the sale. I recently bought some Start-rites online in the next size up for DS for £9.60 - reduced from £32! First time I've bought Start-rite & I thought te quality seemed better than Clarks.

Hates, I am off to sports direct with him on friday....he will have to have 2 pairs from there. Whoever thought up this 1 pair for inside 1 pair for outside plus school shoes is mad!!!

But still having probs finding plain black shoes..with the right sole on......

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No, I'm really not buying into this one.

The whole bally human race has been wearing no shoes/ill-fitting shoes/second hand shoes for a very, very long time, & without discernible ill effects.

I'm waiting for anything approaching evidence that having carefully-fitted Clarks shoes protects against some - any! - problem caused by shoes from a supermarket fitted by me ('Are they comfortable? Do you like them? Great.')

I fell for it with ds - he had his first 3 pairs fitted by Clarks. I took my money elsewhere after they tried to sell dd1 'crawling shoes'. Honestly. Tsssk. Didn't help that they referred to her as 'your other little boy' because she happened to be wearing a non pink t-shirt.

I think really badly-fitting shoes that squeeze the foot tightly will obviously cause foot problems over time (think Chinese feet-binding) and that used to be a problem years ago when people often had to wear hand-me-down shoes or nothing at all.

My gran & her sister (born 1901 and 1903, think white pinafores and black lace-up boots) both had terrible bunions as a result of wearing their older sisters' hand-me-down boots as children, and then squashing their adult feet into little pointy-toed stilletoes all through the Fifties.

But that was years ago & I don't think there are many kids today forced to wear shoes that ill-fitting, so I think on the whole the width-fitting thing is scaremongering. If they look like they are not too big/small & they child says they are comfy then they're probably fine. If width fittings mattered that much, why isn't the rest of the world hobbling round on deformed feet?

i used to moan about dd shoes and price from clarks ,Ds dont wear clarks shoe now since here a size 12 and a size 9 and they are only 15 and 12 .

But ds3 bootshave just cost me £250
as he needs special ones to go over splints goes of and sobs in corner

I have bought startrite shoes in the past but this year I have bought them from M & S . Apart fdrom the fact that in two Clarks shops on the same day my son was given a different measurement , I also hate the way they push those stupid shoes with toys in them .

It annoys me beyond any reasonable amount but I really think the stupid toys should be banned

What is the point of them ? The teachers must love it that in the first few weeks of school the children want to keep talking their shoes on and off to fiddle about with a bit of plastic tat .

talking their shoes on and off ?

Now that would be a clever trick , I might even buy them then .

I can't see what the branding thing lots of people have mentioned has to do with anything. Branded shoes are not any more likely to fit well or last longer than cheap ones. IMO you might as well have the cheap ones. You can fit the shoes yourself but it involves much more than just asking the DCs if they feel comfortable, you have to check the length, the width and the instep.

Children wear shoes out very quickly, I'm not sure that they would get through clarks any slower than other types of shoes but this is not necessarily what you buy them for. You buy them for the fitting. Like I say my DS has and H width fitting and my dd has a D, standard shoes never fit either of them.

To those who moan about clarks measuring children differently on different days, this is not really anything to do with the fit. Clearly you can't expect clarks to always get it right but this is why you need to learn how to check the shoes as a parent.

Clarks measure as a guide then fit the shoes on the child. I have had this before and still ended up with well-fitted shoes. The only problem I've found with clarks is that the weekend staff are not as well trained as the full time staff. The best way to get well-fitted shoes is to be knowledgable yourself, visit a shoe shop which measures and fits shoes on the feet, get the shop to fit them and check the fit yourself before you buy them.

This website is good for learning how to fit shoes. If your child has standard width/shape feet you would be more easily able to buy cheap shoes and fit them yourself. Bear in mind however that children's foot width changes as they grow and width measurement can be affected by the height of the instep - my dd has thin feet but a high instep so certain styles pinch her feet.

hatesponge - Children's feet are still developing until they reach 18 and can be affected by wearing poorly fitted shoes until this time. Wearing clarks/well fitted shoes until you were 13 was not really long enough to give your feet a chance in that you didn't wear them for the recommended length of time. It is very possible that you just have unrelated problems with your feet though. I'm with miss sunny in not really understanding your logic. If i were me I would worry that it was more important to have fitted shoes for my DCs because they might inherit your foot problems.

I do think correctly fitting shoes are importantm, but I have founf that on more than one occasion my dd's have been measured incorretly in clarks and I've had to return the shoes.

Last time I bought Hush Puppies for dd1 which cost me a fortune but didn't last very well at all.

kslatts - yes, I think it would ridiculous to say that a. you can ONLY get well-fitted shoes from shops like clarks or start-rite or b. that expensive shoes will fit better or c. that clarks or start-rite will ALWAYS fit the shoes well. I think it depends very much on the shop and the staff, mine are very good.

Same here, Reality! DD1 has a high instep and that skinny foot. The rest of her is lanky beyond belief, too.

How worn do you let DC's shoes get before replacing? I have to see holes (in the plural) .

I spend as much on my shoes as I do on DC's shoes; I have to because my feet are such planks and having tried cheap shoes, they gave me corns and all sorts of problems, not worth it.

Some kids have standard size feet, you can get away with cheap shoes if they fit well enough on that partic child. I know a lot of people who have resorted to cheap shoes for their DC and are delighted with the results. I do a mix of cheap and expensive for DC (all have wide feet with high insteps, too).

Very adjustable sandals in the summer are generally a cheap and economical option, some are suitable for a few months wear at school, too.

ds has never had a pair of shoes fitted well by a shop - from clarks to the independants.

Last time I fitted them myself - they're the first ones that haven't blistered or caused problems

I'm not buying into all that 'properly fitted' shit anymore - I do it myself.

We bought NEXT shoes last year for £18 for ds1 after a thread on here about Clarks being a rip off!

Within a week Ds had peeeeeeeeled his fakey leather upper like a banana!

Took them back and got a refund and went a bought a £36 pair of Clarks which lasted him for a whole year.

I would be cross if I needed shoes each term but if they last a year then it is money well spent!

Do you have a CLarks outlet near you? I buy all ds's school shoes from there, for about £18. Last years ones lasted all year in fairness so cant complain