Uniform questions

[Agador18]

Hello, we are relocating to the UK this fall from the US and new the uniform requirement. I wanted to ask how many of each items do the students needs and whether everyone always buys new things or is there a place for gently used second hand things? Or is that not done?
Thanks very much!

A shirt per day, one blazer, one tie, a couple of skirts/pairs of trousers. Second-hand sales may be run by the school, especially if it's an expensive private school uniform. Many state schools will have uniforms that can mainly be sourced from supermarkets or high-street shops.

What sort of school are you looking at?

My son starts primary school in September and the headteacher had advised 6 shirts ( in case you have a busy weekend and don' t get through the laundry, and polo shirts tend to come in packs of three anyway), then three trousers/skirts and three jumpers/cardies, although, she said, girls may only need two!

It sort of depends on your DC, how old they are, and how frequently you want to wash things

In primary (age 4-11) two of mine could never keep anything clean so needed, a fresh shirt, jumper and trousers everyday. But the the other two, a jumper and trousers might last a two days.

In secondary (11-16) clean shirts everyday all round. DS2 would play football everyday so often come home muddy and needing trousers everyday, but the others were not as messy.

A lot of children wear second hand, including many younger siblings who have had stuff handed down.

As Earnshaw says, many uniform items can be bought quite reasonably from the larger supermarkets or department stores. A few items have the school logo on them and can only be bought from either the school or special uniform stockists.

Are you looking for primary or secondary school? I usually buy 3-5 shirts, 2 pairs trousers/skirts and 2 jumpers/sweatshirts per child. If there's a regulation tie, then unless your child never loses anything, you should buy two.

2nd hand is especially common in private schools they will have their own on-site 2nd hand uniform shops typically. Otherwise the PTA (or "Friends") and local charity shops often have bits of uniform you can buy for dead cheap, it's worth asking about.

We get by with Something like this
1 blazer
1-2 ties
*3-5 shirts
*2-3 jumpers
*2-4 trousers
*1-2 shorts/skirt (primary only, probably)
1 pr shoes
1 single set of full PE kit (usually just trainers or plimsols, white shirt + *dark shorts in primary, it's secondary PE kit that gets very expensive, embroidered items only etc)

Typically the * items will NOT be branded and don't have to be the logo-featuring item options that the school probably also offers, so you can buy them in any supermarket for a cheap price, or Primark (bit like Walmart/Kmart). Schools are fussy about shoes, though, that's more of a faff than the clothes ime.

The school office at the prep school where I work is filling up with bags of clothes to be resold at the uniform shop from children who have just left. There is no shame in 2nd hand in independent schools, there does seem to be in some state schools though! No-one really knows whether the blazer you have in is 2nd hand or not, we'd never sell 2nd hand something really tatty!