Stupidity of white polo shirt for infant school children

[Newbie887]

Been up since 5am despite it being a Sunday and am already on 2nd load of panic washing before Monday morning.

This has sparked intense fury at all my kids uniform consisting of a white polo shirt, despite them all being in infant school still. Who on Earth thought it was a good idea to force 4-7 year olds to wear pure white on a daily basis?? All their shirts bought in Sept are completely trashed and stained. Wouldn’t it be more logical to make the uniform a navy or bottle green shirt?? And is a white shirt standard in most primary schools or is there’s an anomaly??

the school they were at before had light yellow shirts so no better. In fact almost worse as they went discoloured really easily.

refuse to replace shirts as they still fit and we are only in January. School will have to put up with looking at my trampy kids instead. Hopefully they will smell that they are in fact clean 😂

Oh I wasn’t up at 5am for the washing, my son refuses to sleep past that time! So I thought I better start on it. The actual washing isn’t the issue it’s the extra effort that has to go into cleaning the white clothes (treatments, pre wash, hot wash, longer wash etc). The rest of the uniform is grey and bottle green, and is super easy and cheap to get clean

I use a stain spray on the pasta sauce/beans stains and a Dr Beckmans sachet in with the wash. The other stains, the pen ones I don't care about.

How do you bleach?

Vanish granules / gel / bars aren't cutting it?

I'm 7 years into this fight and many more to go and the stains are winning 7-0

I'd buy bottle green polos and see what's said or even grey if they exist

Have you tried ace bleach? I found it better than vanish for white tops.

Also buy the cheap astonish (I think it is) stain remover in home bargains/B&M

What are they getting down them that’s not coming off?

When you treat a stain you need to treat the back and the front of it. I use either Vanish or Shout spray. Leave for a a couple of minutes before you wash it. I, always, use bio powder and a scoop of oxi stain remover if there’s heavily stained items going in. I put the powder in the drum before I load the machine. It’s rare I can’t get stains out.

All of mine have had white polos- I was endlessly thankful that they generally run colder and hardly ever took their jumpers off. We had dark and very stained sweatshirts that still looked alright with pretty clean white polos.
I gave them clear instructions to remove the jumpers for school photos- then they were free to wear them as much as they wanted.

I totally agree!
Our school is white or red polo-shirts. We have one white one, which comes out when the school asks for a white polo shirt and jumper combo for a singing concert or something similar. The white polo shirt is on its third child. The kids moan that they only wear the red ones but I’m not getting white when red is an option.

White shirts are my preference.
Chuck them in with white sheets, towels, socks.
60 degrees wash with Napisan.
Dry in sun.
Everything comes out pure white.

We use sodium percarbonate, it's relatively cheap and doesn't fade colours.
moralfibres.co.uk/cleaning-with-sodium-percarbonate/

Yanbu

My younger son has dark green and they are amazing!

Tramp here.

White polos get washed at 40 degrees same as everything else. If they're stained or discoloured, I don't give a toss. Nothing gets pre wash or stain remover or ironed.

You really need to care less!

I agree, highly impractical choice for little ones, I have been there and done that.

At this time of year they don't even take their jumpers off, right? So who cares?

I pop a bleach tablet or two into the machine on a pre wash.

My sons school wear navy polo shirts. They are amazing. I bought 5 in September 2021 when he started reception and he is still wearing them now!

Also. Why aren't you waging school uniform before Sunday morning??? That would stress me out. Uniforms in on Friday night. To give me time to do a long wash overnight and dry them and get them put away (I don't iron)

*washing

I dream of white polo shirts flapping on the line while the sun deals with all the filth on them.
Reality is horrible pale blue that’s faded to a weird grey tone and that still has black marker pen all over them.
I don’t know what the answer is op, but at least you have bleach as an option!
Looking at the kids on their way to school, I’m guessing most parents here don’t care much as they all look like tiny hobos.

I do school whites on a long 40 wash with napisan which helps with brightening whites, plus a scoop of vanish too.

We had navy blue polos for reception but it only went to white shirts in Year 1. My son Y4 is coming home with sharpie stains on his shirts!!! By then you won't care!

When my fussy little girl was at primary school, she always wanted a clean one every morning!
But it was ok as I only ever bought 5 or 6 of the cheaper ones, and I would do a white wash very week end.
Spray any stains with vanish, scoop of vanish powder in the machine, they came out fine.
Any really stubborn stains will come out if hung in the Sun ☀️

If you have girls, a pinafore rather than skirt/trousers covers up most of it and prevents tomato pasta sauce and white board pen getting on the front of it at least! My daughter wears a pinafore and I haven’t had any issues with stains on her plain white polo shirts. Her PE top however was £15 and they never come up second hand - I now see why. She came home in January with what looked like a grass stain on it?!? And also a load of whiteboard pen. I was shocked that all those stains came out with vanish soap bar rubbed on and left for about 3 hours and then a scoop of vanish powder in the main wash.

I agree they’re a pest but I do like the white collar against the darker coloured school jumper. Was handy having DDs as any stains that wouldn’t come out could be hidden under a pinafore. However I always apply a little spot of bleach to any stain and rub it in before washing in the machine and it works a treat. Also handy for my teenaged DDs fake tan stained white things which annoys me a lot more!! Shame bleach can’t be used on the black school trousers of my DS which come home covered in mud!

DS has always worn white shirts.

To get them clean I put them in a bucket with old fashioned washing soda and near boiling water, to soak over Friday night, washing machine on Saturday morning and then onto the line to get rid of any tomato stains.

The whole school uniform needs modernising. What's wrong with t shirt in school House colour and leggings? Or a nice comfy tracksuit. Making kids look like mini bank managers in uncomfortable ties and trousers is ludicrous in 2023.