School Uniform Snobbery?

[CookingDinner]

I have a horrible feeling that the competitiveness between parents about their primary school children has started even before our kids have started school.

I live in an affluent area, but I am not affluent myself. First a couple of parents snorted when I said that I was going to skip buying the checked summer dresses for my DD starting Reception in September, because they will soon need the winter wear and it's a waste of money. Now they are name dropping where they got their school uniforms from. I got mine from ASDA, and it seems they are going out of their way to let people know they got theirs from John Lewis or M&S.

Every supermarket sells school uniforms - who would go to John Lewis? Except to tell people they went to John Lewis. Oh, and apparently the 'stripey ones' are more impressive than the checked. Yawn.

No at independent everything was labelled and lost property could be several years old PE skirts. Obviously they didn't take it if they knew the owner's name and matron was quite good at returning recently lost property

Wouldn't it be lovely if everything was named at independent schools. With the best will in the world mine started off with everything named and then I rushed in to pick up a new pe shirt that they needed for tomorrow, or a summer dress at the end of the school day because the old one was hovering around knicker length and kept meaning to label them and never quite got round to it. So much stuff in independent schools un-named. The teachers even gave my DD an un-named blazer, £85, from lost property.

Isn't it always the way, that those who are really well off are happy to choose second hand, or to buy good quality and then to use it and use it until it is absolutely threadbare. Parents in independent schools are often very happy to use the second hand or thrift shop and to tell everyone. Having everything new is seen as a bit....nouveau!

I hate to agree with this because it feels more like a recycled MN urban legend than the truth, but it is actually the truth. My kids have both gone to a London prep and the second-hand sales are absolutely heaving (and they're 1x per term, and further broken down by older and younger sizes). They need about 20 volunteers to run it. Their bar for stuff they will accept is surprisingly low. My oldest is now at 'famous' public school and the boys all look terribly scruffy.

Agreed. Indeed, at the Eton-feeder prep school I worked at, there was a certain eye-rolling about anyone who insisted on all new.

How the rich stay rich, lesson 1.

Equally true at state schools ime - mine have all been at very mixed, inner-london state primary and comprehensive schools, and it was invariably the lawyers', medics' and academics' kids who were the ones rocking the bedraggled jumble-sale-left-over, dragged-out-of-a-skip look.

I swear this is a true story: a child from a very deprived, rather troubled family in our inner-city primary once tried to insult my dd3 and her friend (child of a hospital consultant) by saying, "Ner ner, your mum shops at Oxfam". Dd3 and friend were genuinely baffled by this, as much as they would have been if the child had said, "Ner, your mum shops at John Lewis".

I meant at the independent my children went to - anything unlabelled was labelled with sewn in labels by the highly effective matron. I do mean everything was labelled.
Apparently at Exeter (and I suspect other Unis) you can tell the ex public school student because even their thongs have a little embroidered name label sewn neatly along the top edge.

When I was a school matron we labelled anything without and charged for the privilege.

Some parents got wise to this and stopped doing their own

Can I ask a really naive question about all this? Do state schools not specify a uniform, do they just give you an approximation e.g. White shirt, grey trousers, check dress? Doesn't any part of the uniform have a school emblem or logo that you have to buy at a particular shop? How do they refer to the summer dress - is is just "buy a check dress" or "buy a blue gingham dress"? Do you end up with lots of different types?

Every school is different. Some are strict on uniform and some just are not at all.
Near us most have logo options but you can wear non logo etc. One has wierd colour that means you are almost forced to have logo one. Some state schools do insist on logo but certainly not all by a long way.
Most say 'green/red/pink etc' summer dress and yes loads of types. Our school just say any grey / black bottoms and school colour tops and logo stuff is optional; and some just wear what they like.

Dumb questions below, maybe off topic.

How is a uniform, uniform, if they are bought from different places?

Or is it that all schools have the same uniform?

I grew up overseas and could only buy the uniform from the actual school, as each school had a custom uniform.

Doesn't the school end up with kids with different "uniforms" if everyone buys in different places?

Argh sorry just saw that I'm not the first person to ask this!

At dds school you can have the logo clothes if you want, but any navy skirt/dress, blue or white polo and navy cardigan or jumper is fine! Most people buy generic stuff in a supermarket or M&S- I see very few kids with the official stuff.

Our uniform is quite relaxed - any blue polo shirt, any grey trousers/jumpers/cardigans, any blue checked summer dress. Even the official logo ones are available from two different suppliers and are quite different shades of blue/grey. There are many shades and styles, but they still look uniform and different from the other schools in the area because they're basically grey and blue not black and red say. I really like it, it's low cost and flexible.

Most primary schools around here use the term 'uniform' to mean every child wears the same colour combination, usually grey or black trousers/skirts/pinafores, specific colour polo shirt and specific colour jumper/cardi. They all have a logo option from school suppliers which isn't compulsory but most parents have at least one for photo days and school trips and the local supermarkets & clothing stores all stock cheap generic uniform in the local school colours.

So for my children they wear grey trousers or shorts, white polo with or without logo, blue jumper with logo, black shoes. They all look broadly the same but no-one is forced to pay silly money for specific items.

I have no idea which shop any of their classmates uniforms came from and neither do I care. DS1 got everything new, DS2 will make do with new cheap polos (because 4 and 5yr olds wreck them) and shoes and everything else is hand-me-downs. I thought that's what everyone did.

Can I ask a really naive question about all this? Do state schools not specify a uniform, do they just give you an approximation e.g. White shirt, grey trousers, check dress? Doesn't any part of the uniform have a school emblem or logo that you have to buy at a particular shop? How do they refer to the summer dress - is is just "buy a check dress" or "buy a blue gingham dress"? Do you end up with lots of different types?

Some schools are very relaxed - our local primary is red T-shirt or polo shirt plus red sweatshirt with any dark trousers, shorts, skirt or pinafore. Jeans or leggings plus trainers are fine, wtih any red and white checked dress as a summer option.

Most schools will specify that trousers must be not jeans or leggings, ie. standard school trousers in eg. black or grey. They all look pretty much the same tbh, wherever you get them from. Schools at the stricter end of the spectrum will ask for more logoed items, and some insist on a proper collared shirt and tie rather than a polo shirt. Logoed items can usually be bought from the school or online.

It does seem to vary regionally and from one school to another. Locally to us there's no particular correlation between the strictness of the uniform code and how sought-after the school is, some of the most desirable schools have no uniform at all.

I find Sainsbury's are best for quality over Tesco and Asda. Can't comment on m&s or John Lewis as I'd never bother spending that kind of money on something dd will grow out of before she wears it out...

By this point in the year we have 50 shades of wrecked stained and washed out coloured polos. Jumpers with holes in and grown out school shoes abandoned for trainers.... who cares? Come Sept they will start a bit smarter again !

I use m&s or Sainsbury's. They're not expensive and ours our yellow and white so one year the Tesco ones were see through!

Our school is quite specific about colour of each item of uniform, and say gingham or striped dress for the Summer. The school policy documents contain the company/web-link that you can buy logo uniform from. This was re-inforced at the parents Welcome evening as well. They mention that you don't have to buy the logo items, but everyone knows that there is some expectation that you at least buy a couple of items - most people get a logo jumper/cardigan or two at least.

I wouldn't have said John Lewis & M&S were name dropping.

M&S was the traditional go to shop for uniforms & have much more choice than our Sainsbury or Asda.

I don't think anyone with money would be thinking they were showing off buying an £8 skirt from M&S.