School uniform - sole suppliers

[pointythings]

Found this online today:

your.asda.com/2010/8/22/petition-for-parents-to-end-the-school-uniform-monopoly/comments/17111#comment-form

Now obviously ASDA are in this to get a bit of good marketing for themselves - but they have a point.

How many of you are being forced to buy school uniform at inflated prices from a single supplier working with the school? What are the price differences? Are all the schools in your area at it? And what do you think we parents should do to end this practice - or do we think it's all just fine?

Just to get started - my older daughter starts middle school this year. At her primary school the uniform was not dictated, just the colour scheme - white or light blue polo shirt, grey or black trousers, skirts or shorts, blue gingham dresses for girls in summer. Even school book bags were not compulsory. What the school did supply was good quality, affordable and practical - I could kit out my children for about £20 each in logo'd gear and supplement from elsewhere.

Fast forward to now - I'm having to pay £8.40 for a single logo'd poloshirt, which is 65% polyester (my daughter has eczema, this is going to cause her problems). The school sweatshirt is £12 in her size and not very nice, and she has to wear foul nylon football socks for all PE lessons as well as another logo'd poloshirt (this one in health and safety bright yellow).

Add everything up and I've shelled out £52 just for her - and I can't afford to buy her a clean polo for every day, how do you think that makes me feel?

I'm looking into contacting local embroidery firms and seeing if they will copy the school logo for me, and getting other parents on board. Meanwhile I think ASDA are onto a winner here, whatever their motives. Am I alone?

I'm also quite fed up about the whole thing. DD is at middle school and the rubbish quality school jmpers are £19.50. A friend of mne has found an embroiderer who will do a logo for £4 which are going onto plain £5 jumpers from Asda.

School shirt £12.00. Pullover £16.00

The alledgedly white shirt looked slightly pink as if it had been put in the wrong wash.

The jumper sheds blue fluff everywhere.

I don't mind the school making money but
I would like a reasonable product.

Read this from the Office of Fair Trading - which is against schools entering into monopoly arrangements - and then start a campaign!

This infuriates me. So much so I had a stand up row with the headteacher during a new parent's evening a couple of years ago.

We 'have' to buy the compulsory school blazer and jumper (and tie for boys) from the school. The PE kit is only available through the local independent sport shop.

Schools manage to get away with this, despite guidelines, because the equivelant is not available in supermarkets or other clothing shops. You cannot buy the navy shorts (and all other compulsary items) with the school logo on anywhere else.

So I will sign any petition but while there is still get ut clauses for schools I don't think it will make any difference.

Infuriates me too. Our DSs are at a private school and TBH the parents have rebelled.

At the senior school all sorts of trousers and shirts are worn that are vaguley in line with school uniform policy an dit look messy. Most people go to any old shop for trousers and shirts, people refuse to buy the school overcoat, hats, scarves, gloves at all.

I think there are some easy sensible solution. If schools just said that people had to buy say M&S grey skirt/trousers and white shirts then the school went direct to a supplier for say jumpers and blazers and ties and then sold them direct to parents.

That way they would not put parents in the hands of a local school uniform shop that holds a monopoly as is the case with us.

Schools just dont care.

it'll be interesting to see if the ASDA unifom test clothes will be at all acceptable to school. I know the jumper won't but I will try.

At our secondary school , the children are not allowed into the dinner hall , even with a packed lunch if they are not wearing the schools logo- ed fleeces with house badge.
They cost £28 each.
Thank god the primary schools havent started this , or else i`d be bankrupt !

My DD is in state secondary and will be in year 11 next week. All years up unto this year wear white polo shirts, with or without the school emblem.

Year 11 get to choose the colour of their shirts and have decided on purple , available only of course from the school suppliers at £13 each. Oh joy!

They also "must", on pain of detention, wear the supplier-only sold school rugby shirt for PE at £17 each.

The school was going to introduce hideous supplier-only available skirts too but capitulated to responses from parents who said that they were just not going to buy them.

A long time ago I went off to prep school.... Dad was army officer.... anyway I still remember the look of horror on his face when he found the school outfitters was...... HARROD's!!! They had quite a large uniform dept and serviced loads of private schools. It was right next to the fur dept! Not sure they do it any more.
The worst bit was we had to have maroon hats that were like a Wee Willie Winkie hat.... with a long tassle that hung down. Ugh!!!!

You realise, of course, that the reason why schools engage in crap expensive uniform deals is a combination of (a) kickbacks from the suppliers and (b) expensive uniform keeping fsm pupils out? So it's a mixture of corruption and snobbery. How wonderfully British.

i don't buy the distinctive school clothing - it isn't lawful to insist. I also have the brilliant excuse of severe eczema child who cannot wear artificial fabrics so has to have 100% cotton - so it's M&S and John Lewis for us sadly. I couldn't even get a separate badge to sew on.

The uniform isn't compulsory anywhere and it cant be. Continue to push for a basic colour eg black, navy from anywhere ad a solid colour jumper that a badge can be sewn on!

@overthemill - where can I find something in writing that I can show the school so that I can at least get my daughter out of the crap mostly polyester polo shirt they want her to wear? She has eczema too - not severe, but it flares up in hot weather or when the central heating goes on, and artificial fabrics are definitely an aggravating factor. I'd love to send her to school in a plain white polo but don't feel confident to just do it without something to shove under the head's nose (politely, of course).
I've managed to find her cotton school trousers - they are technically speaking joggers from M&S but they are boot cut so I'm going to assume that counts as 'tailored' (and if anyone says anything about them I'm probably going to rediscover my assertiveness, it's just that all this makes me so angry that I get inarticulate).
And what do I need to do to get people on board with this? I looked up if there had been any petitions to the government about it and there had - it got a whole 29 signatures. Don't tell me there are only 29 people in the UK who have had it with this? How do we mobilise parent power? It was done with the OFSTED madness around the two ladies who cared for each other's children, so why can't we do it about this? Thousands of parents are being fleeces of tens of thousands of pounds so what can we do about it? I'm up for starting a movement, but not alone...

pointythings DFCS guidance issued 2009

"considers carefully, once the uniform/appearance policy has been agreed, any request that is made to vary the policy to meet the needs of an individual pupil because of temporary or permanent medical conditions. For example, pupils with some skin conditions may be unable to wear specific fabrics, and pupils with foot or leg injuries may be unable to wear school shoes"

from here

Its really hard to find things on the new DE website (mainly because there is no search box). I am really really furious about school uniform (my background is in child poverty work and it is one of the huge problems lower income families face). I would be really happy to help you campaign - surely MNHQ would help?

Good luck.

I have just spent £300 on uniform and I am also cross the school only has its uniform made by one supplier who didnt even make enough stock for aged 6-7 years this year I have only got 1 polo shirt and 1 jumper until they have more in stock

DS1 at secondary blazer £42 but strangely you cant just buy a badge and sew it on any blazer you have to buy the whole thing - even the pe shorts at his school are logo'd

I'm glad someone started this.. I have raised this with our school and local newspaper FOUR years ago when the secondary school started insisting on logo'd everything.

You may either order uniform from the school or go directly to the ONE shop ( which isn't even in the town of the school ).

I have spent all holiday going back and forth trying to get Ds1 his uniform... They don't have his size in stock.. They don't know when it will be in stock... oh and because he's gone into year 11 he can't wear last years uniform.. So he has gone in unlogo'd.. With a cover letter from me so he doesn't get sent home due to lack of correct uniform.

that aside. Ds2 has just started the same school .. We managed to get his sizes.. But we have an issue with the embroidered area and sensory issues!
Can't bloody win!

Our costs this year were ( or will be when the right sizes come in)..

£130 for two children!

now the school do sell a badge.. But it is an instant bully badge! trust me you don't want to be putting that on your dc's.

without the rugby kit and the indoor pe kit ( all logo'd oh and those are slightly different logos).

You looking at £ 100 there abouts to kit out 2 dc's with 3 polo shirts each and two jumpers each ... So not excessive amounts of uniform... Litterally enough so your not washing it every evening!

sorry but this is my soap box issue.. if for any reason I lost work, there is noway I could afford to send my dc's to school.. or they would have to wear the bully me badge!

Oh and the quality of the polos and jumpers is awful, nasty and washes really badly! Polos go grey after 2 months on a White only wash and jumpers break at the seams, cuffs fray, and they have this weird shiney ability... Even if you don't iron them...

Let alone the obigitory fluff.. Weeks at the begining of term ... Jumper fluff everywhere.. On everything.
( they go shiney soon as your out of the fluff era!)

what I hate is the 100% polyester jumper (with badge) £19 is hard and shiney and totally nasty looking and it doesn't look smart. Put it next to my JL jumper (cotton, soft, lovely) £13 and it looks awful - my dc is the smartest and she does get bullied/comments/nasty comments from teachers too!

she also can't swim at school cos they wont let her shower afterwards (no time). Raised DDA and they backed down but have now stopped lessons (dont think that was my fault ...)
wonder what Child Poverty Action Group says about uniform these days?

child poverty action group's 2skint4school campaign

WE have just spent nearly £400 on uniform!!! my daughter is starting secondary school next week. There are 2 shops you can get it from and the blazer alone cost £83 and thats the smallest size it goes up to £110!!! the shirts are £22 each!! the only thing i have been able to get that is not compulsary is her skirt and some jogging bottoms even her PE hoodie had to be ordered from the school as it has her name embroided on it!! Its a lovely looking uniform but omg the prices are a joke!!

I would also love to see a national organisation take this up - someone like Mumsnet, rather than a retailer.

My issue is that the secondary school my dd will attend in 2 years has logo'd school shirts that you HAVE to buy, and they don't even do girls blouses, just shirts!!!! And it's a mixed sex state comp

ok, have put a request here

but presumably we all need to show the strength of support from MN first!

Well I've popped my name down.. Hopefully enough parents start standing up, it might stop the schools doing this.