Bloody School Uniform

[gscrym]

I'm all for it. I think the kids look great in it. I've just got the form in for it and it costs a small fortune. I'm surprised and I've only got 1 to kit out. How do people do it with more than that? They're charging £7.50 for a polo shirt. I've seen them, they're not up to much. Do the school make money for their funds on this? I've just totted up what DS'll need and he's over £100 and I've still got to get trousers, shoes, gym shoes, bag, lunch box and other gubbins.

I'm sure once I see him in it, I'll feel better and forget about it until next year.

Also what size in inches does an age 5/6 need?

ohhhhhhh, I can't WAIT to buy all this crap

really truly

I wait agog for the postman to bring forth my list

dd1 starts in September and it is a new Project For Me

Olive - have you ordered name tapes? You can spend many a happy afternoon sewing or ironing them all (including socks). Then arrange everything in the wardrobe and spend the whole summer holiday showing it off to everyone.

Lovely!

oooooooooooooooooooooh

name tapes!

I forgot about those

can you iron them in or is that common?

oh Olive, join the nametape porn thread and get some with her name in gold lurex on rose-pink tapes - dd1 will love you forever and it makes the sewing that much mroe glamourous...

Olive - laundry pen. Scrawl on any available tag. Done.

I'm tempted just to scrawl his name in black marker across his clothes. I'm off to the name tape site now to finish things off.

I did ask about he second hand stall thing and they don't do it. They keep anything that's handed in incase anyone needs a change of clothes. I also asked the nursery and they said 'what a good idea, we hadn't thought of that'. So on behalf of DS's nursery, I thank you!

Olive - iron-on labels are common but those long name tapes don't fit into small socks very well. So I confess that I now use both types!

the logo / supplie thing doesn't apply in wales

Mine wear a basic navy unifirm, not too bad, except that none of the school in this area wear navy bar ours! So we have to go to this weird sports shop where you step back to the seventies as you crss the threshold. They use the same trick for PE shirts- you are free to rpovide your own. Oh, except that nowhere else stocks the exact required shade.

There's no Nursery uniform thankfully.

The best bit is that I bought the entire uniform for both of themm, using the list, and then we get notes home requiring attendance in uniform joggers, or tracksuit, or fleece.

Eh?

Thats noton my list!

Son has the M&S wool trousers and they are fine. I only buy cotton jumpers and cardigans usually from m&S they last forever and seem to grow with them!

M&S polo shirts are by far the best as they don't shrink the way some others do. Woolthworth ones seem to become shorter but end up twice as wide, so don't bother with them.

Adams do nice girly polo shirts that wash quite well.

My daughter never complains about the feel of the dresses, she has them from everywhere tesco, adams, woolies and M&S and she is the supersensitive type who finds everything itchy.

Got to buy senior school for September but thankfully I think most of it comes from M&S.

i always used to get my ds basics eg trousers, polo shirts, pe stuff from woolworths. the trousers always fitted brilliantly and were quite trendy.

If there is no official secondhand shop / uniform sale then you need to get in with the Mummy mafia and find the unofficial ones.

DS's (private) school has a system where if you put uniform back into the shop with nametapes on they split the proceeds with you - or you can take name tapes out and "donate" proceeds to the school. They don't exactly advertise the availability of second hand uniform though - you have to be brave enough to ask - DS got almost all new when he started in September - no more, though.

Do they really need 5 of everything?! DS has 3 lots of shorts & tops and one jumper and we cope OK (possibly because he is so warm-blooded that his jumper rarely makes it out of his bag )

spidermama - I do not need to wear teflon because I do not go rolling around in a muddy field. I shall ask DS his opinion on his school trousers. This is a boy whose preferred mode of dress would be football strip 24/7/365 so he is obviously not very discerning re fabric. And tbh the polo shirts are probably not that different a fabric than what he would wear anyway.

I think the reason the Op's bill is so high is the 5 sweatshirts. I bought 3 first term, then added to this as we went along. I also didn't buy a fleece until the spring term and we do not have school waterproofs. DS's jumpers/shirts that were bought at the beginning of reception still fit him now at nearly the end of Y1, but some are marked (with marker pen) and some are quite worn.

The middle class people who like school uniforms so much clearly were never poor as kids.
Let's do economics for Daily Mail readers shall we ?
Firstly, all school uniforms come in different levels of quality. They are never 100% uniform.

Secondly, because they cost more than normal clothes, they get replaced less often. That means poor kids get to wear worn out clothes more, and of course outgrow them.

Washing is an entertaining game if you're poor and made to buy extortionate cloths for your kids. How many spare sets do you have ? Some uniforms require dry cleaning, yes, really.

If your kid doesn't arrive in full kit because some is in the wash, or being repaired, do the teachers have a go at them ?

Yes, they do, and the kids pick up on this, that it is "all right" to pick on the kid who doesn't have the perfect school uniform.

Interestingly enough the teachers who are "into" school uniform do not have a go at the parents because they fear a robust response, so they bully the kids.

Actually I think dc that I am your middle class (just about) parent who was poor as a kid. I wore my fair share of jumble sale clothes.

I think you are arguing the case both ways - that there are different qualities of uniform available and that it is expensive. The uniform for boys at DS's school is white polo shirt, red sweatshirt, grey trousers. So I can go to Asda and get this at rock bottom prices (and there truly are no cheaper clothes) or buy the logoed stuff from the school, costing me more, or mix and match which is what a lot of parents do.

Also I doubt any really poor children have uniform that has to dry cleaned.

I am that poor kid made good too. I went to a primary school where there was no uniform - it was hell. My mum did not have 'plenty of non uniform things in the drawers waiting to be worn' so I wore the same couple of outfits every day. The other children picked on me for it. Then I moved up to middle school, where there was a uniform. Problem solved, I loved it. No more bullying.

The reason I know that some uniforms ought to be dry cleaned was that mine had that on the label, so it does happen.
didn't get dc'ed of course which made it look pretty grungy after a while.
Your argument is that the uniform can be bought at Asda. I have no problem with that, but we both know that is not the way it always is don't we ?
One of the "reasons" for school uniform is that it stops kids competing on logos.
Ooops.
You just said that there is logoed and non-logoed clothes for your school, and that the logoed ones cost more.
Reckon the kids don't notice ?

I have no problem with school uniform.
My problem is that there is no such thing.
Every school has it's own, pushing up costs and crapping on poorer kids.

Why not have exactly one British school uniform for all state schools ?

I am not sure that DS notices but I am sure that as the children get older it will certainly be noticeable to most of them. And I certainly notice. I was just making that point because you were saying uniform was expensive and I was saying that it did not need to be. I agree that uniform does not necessarily become an instant leveller regarding clothing but maybe it helps? It also ensures that most children come to school appropriately dressed for the day.

DC, although I don;t like the quality of Asda uniform for cost effective reasons, Asda trousers wear out quicker than M & S the children at dd's prep school all wear a mixture of shirts and blouses ranging from Adams, Asda, uniform shop down to Asda.

I bought ds a pair of nursery trousers last week from John Lewis, not a shop known for it's cheapness I'm sure you will agree. They were £3.50 for age 3, where on earth am I going to get clothes at that sort of quality for that price from other than school uniform.

Working class made good (sort of) here too. And when we talk logos we are talking designer logoes not the school badge. No-one picks on state school children for not having the school badge but in non uniform schools they do for not having the latest "in" desgigner brand.

And the only item I can think of which would need dry cleaning would be blazers which not many state primaries have and if they do they are optional.

besides I would just chuck them in the wash anyway unless they were wool like dd's is.

I don't buy Asda stuff either any more because the quality is so poor. I do for underwear/pjs/casualwear/PE clothes but the uniform just wears out too quickly. I was looking at DS's shorts and he had a pair from Asda that I bought him at the start of reception in Sept 05 and the bottom is totally worn and fluffy. The pair I bought from Matalan (not exactly top of the range shop) in April 06 look like new. They have been worn for just one month (Sept 05) less.

My DS wears bits of Asda to his private school, and yes the quality is lower. I don't mind that so much since he's more likely to outgrow than wear out most clothes.
The private school stuff is a gratuitous rip off, and they even insist on "uniform" swimming trunks which cost more than serious designer gear.
OK, that's not as bad as the issues my mum had where a school rig out cost a couple of weeks wages, but is still pretty shitty.

But even that is not as bad as the idiot "headmaster" of the state school St. Johns in Buckhurst Hill, who apparently stands at the school gates sending home kids who aren't in full (expensive) uniform.
I don't know what is worse, his demented ideas on uniform and wish not to have maths taught in his school, or the way the other parents drooled over how good he was.
He likes sport apparently.

I agree with the pro-uniform points made and am very pro uniform myself. My problem with all suppliers is when it comes to summer dresses why the hell are they all polycotton. My dd has slightly sensitive skin and gets very itchy in non-natural fibres. The only place I have been able to find 100% cotton uniform dresses is in a catalogue for people suffering with eczema and they cost £20+

I agree, my DS probably doesn't need 5 jumpers. There'll be 3 kept here and 2 kept at my mums (he'll be going to school from there and staying for a couple of days while I'm working). I'm sure next year he won't get the same. There's probably a bit of it being his first year and me being daft. I bought everything for his first term at nursery. The following yeat he got 2 polo shirts and 2 jumpers. I know DH's parents weren't well off and his clothes (in his opinion) were worn and tatty (handed down from his 2 big brothers). He remembers worrying about that when he was growing up.

I decided against the fleece so that'll save a bit.

Why do people say school uniform costs more than normal clothes?

Just bought DD 2x shool dresses and 3x polo shirts (all cotton btw) from Sainsbo's for £4 (dresses) and I think £2 (polos).

Hmmmmm I call that cheaper than most of the clothes she wears. (apart from pass ons of course - but then we pass uniform on here as well lol)

gscrym btw 5 jumpers is a lot, even with the gran thing factored in.

DS1 is the messiest eater in the world and even he (or I) manage with 2 logoed jumpers. They wash and dry v quickly.

DD can wear the same cardi all week if I don't realise and decide she should have sthg fresh on by Thursday