prep school uniform cost: tell me the worst

[brushyourteethNOW]

We have just accepted a place for ds at a prep school. At the moment he goes to a lovely state school where he needs a couple of logo-ed jumpers and a pe shirt and some bits and bobs I get from m and s.

He's off to a school where the uniform list specifies regulation everything (except pants). There's pe kit for rugby and football and hockey and cricket and swimming.

Anyone got a ballpark view of how much the first-time uniform set up is? Gulp.

About £500. The blazer was the most expensive bit at £100, but pinafores and cardigans and summer dresses are all approximately £40 a pop so it quickly mounted up. I plan to just replace bits as and when she needs them so as not to be hit by a big bill every august. We are also onto second pair of school shoes this school year.

We got a list for pencil case stuff. My daughters school request they have two cases with different things in each, and every pencil named with a sticker.

Does the school have a uniform shop on site?

We spent around £250 when DS started reception (including blazer at £60). However, for the start of Y1 I only had to buy new shirts (£20 from Tesco) and trousers/shoes that I would have had to get anyway.

I bought jumpers for reception that DS never wore as he hated a jumper so I won't bother buying again. We will need new sports kit next year but a lot can be bought secondhand and, ime, a lot of parents make use of the secondhand shop - there's no stigma attached to it.

We were also given an extensive stationery list and everything down to the pencils had to be labelled I didn't know what some of the items were and had to phone the school to clarify! All are kept in a pencil case.

I've just mentally recalculated what we spent and I think it was closer to £400 than my previously stated £250-£300. I try to not think about it!

I guess it depends on how prescriptive the school it.

We have had a couple or real doozies (one was all from Harrods, and one where all the sports kit was from a particular supplier - owned by a parent I believe - and was very, very expensive!).

We are usually spending £350-450 at the start of autumn term for all the 'new' bits - so shoes, school bags, boots, sports equipment, hat, any new items (uniforms change as they move up the school) then you need to buy bits and pieces as they original ones get lost/damaged/destroyed. Its about £800 a year!

Of course there's the summer uniform to come too (white shirts - white!!????, I will need a million of those).

I usually try to pick up jumpers and raincoats from the pta second hand sale. One school was selling all itmes for one pound, not its much higher (with most money going to the donor and a % the school).

They all get trashed...

Make sure the supplier has loads in stock - Harrods would have a massive rush at the end of summer and you weren't always lucky!

Find out which bits you can buy from the high street, for my DS we can get trousers, shirts, tracksuit bottoms and PE shorts. Everything else has to be bought from the specialist supplier, jumper with a border, blazer with piping etc.
As everyone else has said, find out when they have a second hand sale, I got a hardly used blazer for DS for £45, less than half price!
I think we spent about £600 when he first started.
I object to the school introducing new items on a regular basis, £50 for a rugby shirt, now waiting for the new design cricket shirt.

We have very distinctly patterned shirts (not bad actually, I'd wear them!) and badged polos in summer. The trousers/bermudas can't be matched for colour/faric either!

I have found that if house colour t-shirts aren't badged, you can get the correct house color off Amazon for less than £1.50 each (jerzees or fruit of the loom) when the schools sell them for £7-8 each for the smallest sizes (dont forget to order one for you for sports day!).

I am so glad our new school doesn't have badged bags and coats. They are plain and not prescribed. They cost half of what the previous school demanded.

About £350 including shoes and trainers. The blazer was £95 of that though, for a 3 year old! I nearly fainted, I pay less than that for work suits for dh in the next sale.

It will be more when we have to start with football kit etc as he gets older. The quality of it all though means it is all as good as new for when ds2 starts this sept.

I reckon I only spent about £150, the main expense being blazers, football boots etc - I got virtually everything I could second hand for very little at school sales and on the high street. If you're canny about it, it's not too bad. I refuse to buy upgraded versions of kit, don't care if my dcs are the last in the entire school wearing the "old" rugby shirt or whatever.

Most prep schools will have a 2nd hand uniform shop and there is no shame in using it.

Definitely this. My dc tend to have one "good" set of everything at any given time and then everything else supplemented from the second hand sale. I also regularly donate stuff to the second hand sale, or just give directly to people. You will find a thriving secondary market and absolutely no shame about it. I gave a whole load of stuff (my child was leaving Y6) to someone recently who I'm sure is extremely well off and they were genuinely delighted and gave me some wine, (win win!) plus we get stuff directly from friends, som of which is on its third or fourth owner. The plus for ours is that while expensive it does seem very well made - I have literally never had anything wear out and my dc are fairly robust.

Think we were lucky with DS prep. No blazer which saved us a small fortune and the only items brought from the school shop were most the PE kit & day shirts and jumpers. The jumpers were cheaper than his old state school and the other items were extremely reasonable. We paid about £150 compared to the £300 we were also paying for his sister's senior school bits.

Most prep schools have thriving second hand shops - seek these out especially for things like blazers!

Managed to buy extensive sports kit and uniform (including blazer and coat) from 2nd hand shop for £150. Think it would have been about £800 new.

Seller receives 75% of price received and school25%. Only good quality stuff accepted and also a guide of what to charge, which tends to be about 20% of the new price.

Only thing I could buy from elsewhere were white school shirts and shoes and trainers.

Guess I was lucky as DS school didn't have blazers or ultra expensive kit. Cricket items were expensive though but I brought these bits online and not through the uniform shop. Also brought DS shirts online. He needed striped ones which are not available in M&S/Next. A bit of hunting meant I found the exact make of shirt online for £4 less than the price charged by the school uniform shop.

There's always ways to make a few savings.

Yes, yes, yes to second hand uniform DS2 had a blazer where his was the sixth name tag in it! perfectly OK £15 instead of £60+

PE kit came to £84
Winter uniform £109 (for 1 set)
Summer uniform £89 (for 1 set)
Blazer £90
Coat £76
Book bags aprons etc £30

so it came to £478 for 1 of everything, 160

sorry, posted to soon, was about £700 with enough to only have to do washing twice a week, plus tights which are a stupid colour that no supermarket sells and uniform hairbands that are also a stupid colour that no one other than uniform shop sell. Oh and shoes that have to be a certain brand and style.

Then I discovered the second hand shop so this years has come to £200.

Also for things without logos it's well worth shopping around, DDs pinafore for example is £5 cheaper in harrods than it is the uniform shop (which really says something about the uniform shop) and I can get her shirts for £4 online instead of £12 through the school.