Velcro close school shirts

[PeonyTruffle]

My August baby started reception last month and his uniform includes a tie and button up shirt.

He is super struggling with the buttons and his teacher has expressed concern with getting himself ready on PE days.

He just cannot get his head around the buttons so I was thinking about getting the shirts that close with Velcro and letting him wear those on PE days (obviously still keeping up the button practice on the other days)
Just to make everyone's life that bit easier really

I know M&S do them but they are out of stock, has anybody else seen any online? My last resort is a DIY job would rather by them ready done!

If there are no spaces in this post, sorry my new phone doesn't like MN for some reason!

Get a slight size up, just don't do the top button up (hide it with the tie) and get him to take them off jumper-style?

That is not a bad shout, thank you, we'll give that a try

Get a slight size up, just don't do the top button up (hide it with the tie) and get him to take them off jumper-style?

This is exactly what I always did. I think the M& S shirts have the top button velcro and all the others normal buttons. He can't be the only one - there were a few last year (so then Y2) who still couldn't manage it.

There is a new easy dressing range at M&S which is all Velcro, not just the top buttons but most sizes are sold out.

Will definitely get him a bigger short tomorrow and will get him to take it off like a jumper! :)

Matalan do shirts with a Velcro top button.

matalan also do no button school trousers until age eleven too.

Shirt and tie as a uniform for reception seems more than a little harsh! Not to mention ridiculous for play. What sort of school does that?

Spoon

Tell me about it! It was cute for the first day and now not so much. He has a tiny tie on elastic so that part isn't too bad but the rest is a nightmare

I'm not doubting your son is having issues but it's not that he's an August birthday - some kids are just clumsier. I'm an August birthday and got cut no slack at all!

I know that, I just thought I should explain that he's a young 4 and not nearly 5 in case I got lots of people telling me he should be able to do his buttons at his age!

I'm a July born so I feel the summer born pain :)

i replaced the top button with velcro on my sons shirts. takes less than 5 minutes

OP - DD2 is nearly 6 and still hit or miss with buttons (we had OT input recently which improved things a lot) - I still spend a good few evenings in front of the telly undoing and redoing buttons on new clothes to make them a bit easier for her to do when they're "worn in" a little bit.

She does have dyspraxia though before the outraged crew arrive.

Neither of my ever did up their top buttons right through to year 8 - the only good thing about ties is that they dishuisr this slackness. But the M&S Velcro too Hutton’s and elasticated cuff buttons are such a great idea. I think one of those big enough to pull over his head would actually work better than all Velcro which would pull open in play and still have to be matched up correctly.

My son is seven with dcd and we’d be pretty screwed if he had to do buttons.

I've always replaced the top button with Velcro myself. Easy to do and cheap.

My Nan has come to the rescue and has adapted some shirts with Velcro for me.
They are on their way and hopefully be here on time for pe on Wednesday :)

I've also ordered some chunky childrens tweezers, little buttons, pom poms etc so I can get him practising with fiddly things to see if that helps him

DD2's just had a course of OT sessions and one of the things they were working on was manual dexterity and just generally strengthening the muscles in her hands. Couple of things they were doing with her was putting two small objects in her hands and asking her to give them a specific one, using only the hand the objects were in so she had to rotate them and manoeuvre them in her hand to get the right one into her grip to hand it over. Likewise clothes pegs - pegging them onto something one-handed (do both hands) and then handing her the peg the wrong way around so she's got to rotate and move it around in her hand to get it the right way around to do it - just a couple of easy things to do with stuff you've got to hand (pardon the pun). Also practising with large well-worn in buttons and button holes first, getting smaller as time goes on.

We are in the same boat except the tie isn’t even elastic! It’s ridiculous. My son is August born as welll. At his school they only have to change out of their uniform and into PE kit, which they wear for the rest of the day, so we get the M&S shirts with the Velcro top button and take it off over his head. In the long run I wouldn’t worry about this at all. My older DS had the same issue and now he’s 7 and does everything himself including tying his own tie. It’s not a bad idea to get the fine motor stuff you have mentioned but I wouldn’t make it into a “thing,” IYSWIM. Ask the teacher if his handwriting is at roughly the expected level for an August-born boy (totally illegible in my experience :) just to keep an eye on it but honestly I wouldn’t worry about any of this stuff before the child is even 5.

(For those who asked what type of school it is, it is an independent school in West London. The uniform is way OTT but the school is excellent so we consider it a small trade off.)

I'd tie the tie, cut it at the back and put an elastic bit in (and catch the tie knot with a few stitches to keep it tied)!

When I used to teach in the independent sector ours came to school IN school tracksuits on PE days - much easier if you had the littlies... slightly more fragrant by hometime if you had year 6. Sadly, I had year 6!