School shoes or trainers

[missorinoco]

Which do you get for your children? I have previously sent the DC in school shoes that are hard wearing (or as hard wearing as you can get for a girl with DD). They have indoor shoes anyway and need trainers for outdoor PE.
Given that the shoes are only for walking to school in and playing in the playground I am starting to wonder if I am being unnecessarily pedantic.

They always go in school uniform, but there is nothing in the policy about footwear.

I am quite keen to enforce that you wear school clothes at school, but I'm in two minds about shoes.

If my kids' schools allowed trainers, I would never buy another pair of "school shoes". Trainers are far more suitable for the kind of stuff kids throw at their footwear, and don't look significantly less smart than the scuffed, falling-apart black leather shoes that grace the feet of most school kids I see.

Sadly, I am stuck with a policy that enforces black, polishable shoes at both daughters' schools.

I used to get my children's feet measured and made sure they had shoes that fitted them properly. One had narrow feet and the other had wider feet. Trainers were for games and nothing else in our house but I have girls who were not kicking a ball about all the time. I think trainers are too casual and certainly are not good for differing widths of feet as they tend to be quite wide and children's growing feet are not adequately supported by them. My girls had buckled shoes from YR so no Velcro either.

This range from Start rite for girls are mostly very hard wearing.

Out school makes it clear that trainers are only allowed for sport clubs during lunch break.

I personally don't like trainers as main shoes. DD always wears properly fitted smart shoes as I think trainers are for sport, outdoor activities or very active clubs

I buy boy's school shoes of a trainer shape for dd. Many boy school shoes would be called "trainers" if they weren't black. She wears them as both, never mentioned it to the teachers and have not been pulled up on it. Indoors they go barefoot for PE/ dance.