How much school uniform do I need?

[BrokeTheToddlersHeart]

Please solve this (probably very simple) dilemma for me.
My daughter is starting pre school in September.
She has to wear uniform 4 days a week and PE kit the other.
Ideally I don't want to wash mid week I just don't need the worry of forgetting and then not having any.
How many of each would people buy please?
Currently I've gone massively overboard on the cardigans and have ten but I assume they will go Walkabout by Christmas.

I'd get 4 full sets- polo shirts, pinafores and socks/tights. You never know whether they are going to pour spaghetti bolognese down the front, paint without an apron or dive into a muddy puddle.

5 full sets of Bottoms/tops/jumpers and 2 full PE kits.
means you have 1set always clean for the inevitable spilled breakfast/accident that will always happen when you are on the last clean day!

My youngest has just finished reception and still needs a clean set every day, even my 8yo isn't reliable at not spilling tea down his. So id go 4x normal 1x pe.

However, I've been surprised by how few items have been lost. I put rainbow colour sew in name labels just below the collar, so they're very noticeable, and jumpers etc have always found their way back (stuff with more subtle lables tends to just be thrown in lost and found, whereas if they see a name easily it gets handed back to the kid). Occasionally they disappear for a bit, then two weeks later they come home with a school bag full of jumpers, if someone's been tidying.

DD needed a clean shirt every day as she always got something down it. Her cardigan was rarely worn and even when she did wear it, it never got dirty. When DS started 2yrs later, I learned from this so got him a clean shirt for every day and just the one jumper. Except DS felt the cold and so wore his jumper every day so his lunch ended up spattered down his jumper rather than his shirt!

This is a really daft question but under the pinafore dresses do you always put a little blouse/polo?

Are they plain polos with no logo? I’d get a 5 pack or 2x2 packs

Yes

Yes, their quite a course material so wouldn't be comfortable against bare skin.

Thank you!
That makes sense now it's been said.

I would have 6 tops (they came in 3 packs) 2 jumpers/cardigans, 3 skirts/trousers, 6 tights and 6 pairs socks. Never lost anything as sewed in names

Yes our school is really good with that and don't expect children to wear the logoed clothes just certain colours.

One set per day.
Label anything you want back.

10 Cardigans?! Seriously, see if you can swap half of those to the next size up.
A polo shirt for every day of the week is fine but you really won’t go through as many cardigans as you think.
3-4 skirts/dresses.
One PE kit if they’re only doing it once a week.

My two had a pack of 5 shirts, 3 jumpers/cardigans, x2 dresses/trousers, numerous black trackers/shorts for pe but only coz they came in multipack and could be used out of school too. Two pe tops, one branded and one not (sometimes they’ll have pe one day and another day in the week they’d be doing a workshop/sportsday/beach trip where they’d need casual wear too.

I think for little ones a full set every day helps. We are a household where cardigans have gone walk about but 10 is a lot unless you’ve got mixed sizes. I also found in reception, kids just take home other people’s stuff by accident but that did get better as the children got older. Find out if you’ll need to keep a spare set of clothes at school. Id have thought that would be important for pre school kids. For reception at our school, the pe kit was kept there all the time and was used as a spare set of clothes if any of the kids had an accident.

State primary uniform tends to be cheap so getting extras to avoid washing makes sense. My eldest is now moving to a private school and the uniform is outrageously expensive in comparison so will be having to do some midweek washing but I hope she’s also now less likely to spill her lunch/get paint down her.