Those white pique t shirts that make up the majority of state primaries' uniform...

[colditz]

Is it normal for these to be stained and awful after 3 wears? Ds1 is hard on his clothes, I know, but he has other white t shirts that are nowhere near as grubby looking as his school one (he only goes once a week) and this on just is not coming clean!

Is it the wrong sort of t shirt?

3 years?? More like 3 days with my kids!

I have refused to buy the logo ones this year as last year they were all ruined in the first week by the teacher giving them non-washable felt-tip pens to use

Ds1 came out of school recently covered in paint - asked him why he didn't wear his painting t-shirt - which the school asks us to provide. He said "Miss X said I didn't need to wear it"

Needless to say the paint stains didn't come out - and of course it was a new polo shirt he was wearing that day....

They should definitely last more than three wears - where did you get them from?

I get Adams' ones for dd, and they wash and wear well and hold their shape - she's very hard on her clothes as well but she manages to outgrow them before she wears them out.

We have some from Asda as well which seem OK - and are cheap to replace if she trashes them.

get ye some of that pink Vanish stuff

in a tub

also a spray for targetting pasta spillage in this house

they do a whites one as well

probably full of chemicals so doubt bother if you are a green lentil knitter

x

Thankfully they are allowed red ones at our school.

we started out using white ones but i very quickly swapped to red instead as they are also acceptable as her uniform. i think the red ones look much smarter as the kids look cleaner, it doesn't show the dirt anywhere near as much as white

the shop that supplies the logo ones, have just agreed to put it on red polo shirts too, finally!.

3 WEARS not 3 years! a total of 4.5 hours!

Yes they also do a royal blue option - so I may change my mind after reception, and get him the blue ones instead, but I have bought loads of white because they look so cutchy

i will also recommend adams ones too, dd's red ones still look as good as new

hmmm, Adams.

colditz, you didn't get yours from kidzone in melton did you?

we've got a kidzone here too and the school has complained to them about the quality of the polo shirts they sell.

the adams in both loughborough and leicester had a decent range of school wear

Get over to Sainsburys in Nottingham when they have them on special 2 for 2 quid and bulk buy. Make 'em eat anything with tomato in naked from the waist upwards. Soak in cold water with vanish if you want but I just wash at 60 and they come up ok. Over here we were stupid enough to pick a school which insists on WHITE SOCKS even for the boys. Madness.

I recommend John Lewis ones. Ds has had his since January and they are still white.
They are around £3 for 2, wash really well and are still soft to wear. Hate M&S ones though.

dd's supposed to have white socks, but i put her in red ones.

i'd love to know who thought white was a good idea for a school uniform colour

I didn't, LK, I bought it from the Stork, and it was very cheap. I have bought others from Sainsburies, because they were 100% cotton, but I had to by them age 6 although he's only 4 - they seem to come up very small.

I don't go to Kidszone because it was only 3 years ago my mum was buying my sister's uniform and she says they are crap!

dd1, my neat and tidy child, has white ones.

dd2, my grub bucket mud attacting dirt magent filthy child, who comes out of a bath looking grubby despite being scrubbed head to toe, is having red ones when she starts reception

LK where are you?

oakham

"dd2, my grub bucket mud attacting dirt magent filthy child, who comes out of a bath looking grubby despite being scrubbed head to toe"

lol, yes, i have one of those too

At our school "only girls" wear white shirts! Or so I am informed by my year 1 ds - who will only wear royal blue ones, despite my stash of hand-me-down white ones! It is actually true - at our school you can wear white or royal, after reception the girls wear white and the boys wear blue. Don't know how this happened - some sort of groupthink!

strongly suspect that after reception,most mums of boys look at the ragged and stained remnants of the lovingly bought white shirts, and say to themselves - "NEVER AGAIN"

And most mums of girls do what any mother would do with moderately UNwrecked shirts, and use them again if they fit, which pique t shirts probably do.

And after that, even though the little boys may calm down, it has become a uniform for them.