School jumpers/cardigans with the school logo on them

[sarak20]

Hi, would really appreciate your help. The primary school my child attends has a requirement that children are expected to purchase the school jumpers with the logo on it. The price of the cardigan is £15. Do any of you just buy one jumper/cardigan (with the school logo)? I feel like it is far too pricey when you have multiple kids to buy for. Anyone have any advice please? Have you ever sent your kids in without a jumper with a logo when their jumper ripped and needs replacing but cannot be done urgently?
Thanks 😊

This is nonsense.
A plain red or whatever is fine.

We got a place and a vaiiiiiry niace faith school... it's giving private prep meets village school vibes...
Its insanely well funded due to the area (the PTA bought i think 60 chrome books last year?!?!l)
Anyway even there they put zero pressure to buy branded and were clear plain is fine too

Legally I do not think they can make you and I think its nonsense to pressure parents.

Fwiw We bought one branded cardigan and 2 bog standard m&s block colour ones (the red, blue, green type ones)

Just buy one branded cardi for the school photos and any special assembly’s then buy the same colour ones from a supermarket if you need multiple!

Also school or PTA may well organise second hand sales.

All of ours are from the PTA. I know noone who bought them new, aside maybe one or two for reception.

Agree with others.

DD has 2 logo cardigans that see the light of day for school photos, school trips and special assemblies only.

otherwise I buy multi packs of polo shirts and single colour cardigans in Sainsbury's. Marks or John Lewis.

DD2 is a muck magnet. She goes into school looking immaculate and comes home from school looking unkempt.

In the winter months I also buy her plain school colour soft jogging bottoms, so much easier to wash and dry, easier on PE/ swimming days changing wise.

I buy six of each non logo school uniform items for my children. I cannot be faffing about washing school uniform mid- week.

Don't even get me started on why school felt it was a bright idea to put a bunch of young primary school children in white polo shirts!

I buy the non logo jumpers from Asda. Both kids are in primary and the uniform requires a logo’d jumper, it makes no mention of an alternative, But ds is going into year 4 and dd year 2, and in all that time, no one has ever said a word to me other than ‘isn’t it good Asda are doing the jumpers in our school colour now?’ They each have a logo one for photos and special events but if one logo jumper is £16 and two non logo ones are £5 then of course I’m going to get the cheaper ones. Have you seen what six year olds do to school clothes!?

Agree with all of this, especially having enough not to have to wash during the week. Who has time for that?

£22 for a jumper here and is HAS to be the branded one. Absolute madness.

My eldest loses all her cardigans, easily 6+ a year. Gave up buying branded ones a long time ago. Very annoying as her little sister doesn't lose stuff and now I have to buy new ones for her due to no old stuff to pass down. Secondhand cardigans seem to be like hens teeth at school fairs (I'd happily buy secondhand if I could find some)! No one has ever criticised us and if they did I'd tell them that it makes no sense when the child loses so many cardigans.

I never got logo ones

Well my school was stupid as it was two colours/the piping was a different colour 😐 so no generic available which clearly is intentional?

So I did buy a few new and most from the PTA second hand sales
The school also wanted logo polo's, but only bought a few and kept them in generic - even though again the shade was slightly different from the branded ones!
All my kids were brainwashed and loved having branded everything, including caps or pe jumpers 😅

Plain and affordable every time. Mine had special black and orange reversible sports tops for PE at £50 each. They wore plain black polo shirts from Primark. I don't think it held them back educationally, and schools
need to give their heads a wobble, frankly.

I used to buy jumpers and tops with the school logo for my eldest until I realised I could just buy cheaper jumpers/polo tops and take them to the uniform shop to be embroidered for £5 each so I would get two jumpers for price of one if bought directly etc.

Everything else is generic at ours apart from the jumper/cardi so I dont mind buying 5 at a time. Found once they go to school you need so many fewer clothes in general so thats a money saving.

Never got a 2nd days wear from a worn jumper/cardi and I'm not stressing about mid week washing so needed plenty.

I dont think anyone would clock if we had a supermarket non logo alternative though.

Check the school policy. Some require logos.

I thought the rules were that they couldn’t insist on branded clothing anymore but I’ve just googled it and it’s a maximum of 3 items with logos. Mad! Does yours definitely insist it must be a logo one or can you get a plain one of the same colour? My kids’ school say the logo one and then make it clear that plain is also fine. I don’t like the official ones as the cardigans are much thicker and fade in the wash. We bought them for DD1 and then stopped very quickly.

We have a branded jumper which has to be worn (unbranded isn’t allowed). It is about the same price as yours. It is exceptionally well made. I got 2 jumpers for my eldest in reception and it lasted him to the end of year 1 AND his younger sister to the end of year one.

I don’t mind £15 on a jumper I get that much wear out of.

Buy one jumper now, and another one later in the year. Chances are they won’t be wearing a jumper often until late Sept anyway.

Mine would have been filthy every day in reception / Yr1. Not bothered about pen etc but it would have been food, mud etc so I always needed lots of everything to avoid endless washing

Thanks everyone for your replies! Yes my children's school say it's a must to have the cardigan with the school's logo on it.

Locally we have 2 primary schools where there's no uniform. All the others are really strict about uniform and the nearest to us has a PE kit that also has to be bought from the school. Anecdotally, it's been said that uniform of any kind can't be enforced at state primaries. But hereabouts Ive not seen anyone trying that

I don't think they can actually enforce it. I stopped buying branded school uniform when our school went over to brigade. It takes weeks to come once you've ordered it and the quality isn't anywhere near as good.
I won't buy anymore from there and I just stick to plain stuff now.

Did they hold an information evening last summer? Uniform expectations usually come up then. Most primary school policies will state logo jumpers as the official stance, but they're more than happy to accept supermarket bought plain.

I agree with everyone else. Buy one new logo for special occasions but stock up on plain, or secondhand logo jumpers. You won't want to be washing jumpers everyday and it's highly unlikely you'll be lucky enough to get away with the same jumper two days running while they'll in Reception.

The new ruling, that schools can only insist on a maximum of three branded items, will likely be reflected in policies where logo is stated, but in reality most primary schools (except private and those with annoying non-generic colours) are happy to accept plain. Secondary is usually a different issue, where they insist jumper and/or blazer and PE tops absolutely are branded and the kids get in trouble if they're not. The new rules were mainly bought in to stop secondary schools doing this. At most primary schools it's fine, even if the policy states logo.

We are allowed to wear unbranded so slightly different as I chose branded but....
I get the majority of branded uniform second hand. Either summer fayre the year before, through PTA sales or on Facebook locally. The first year our first was in school we did buy new but that was it.

I do have a backup stash of unbranded items for if the few branded items I have got dirty or torn.

When mine were at primary, logos were introduced instead of non branded jumpers. Had parents bought standard grey jerseys there would have been no need. But the children had scalloped jerseys/cardigans, coloured buttons and fleece started appearing. It was a sea of 50 shades of grey and the children looked an untidy mess. It was an affluent area and the introduction of logos was brought about by parents ignoring the rules.

Our logo one is mandatory too. For dc1 I have 2 in rotation and that's enough as they don't get dirty and I don't have to wash after 1 use.

Dc2 is messy so I have 3 but from the pta second hand shop.

We also wear pe kit all day on pe days which reduces the quantity we need.