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?