The school coat problem.....?

[Whippet]

-3 C when DS left for school this morning...... in his BLAZER

What do you do?
Is there a solution?
He is only in his second term of secondary, so this is a new phenomenon for me...

There is no 'official' school coat as such, but it has to be plain black or navy and long enough to cover his blazer apparently.

He already has a NEXT black moleskin jacket, and a more casual black jacket too... bu won't wear either...

Help.

Dd wears a padded navy blue Next jacket with her blazer in her bag and changes when she gets to school. Does he have a locker at school - could he stick a coat in there during the day?

My DS whose in yr 10 left this morning without a coat, no blazer just a sweat shirt. He has a twenty five minute walk to school and I live in a rural area and it was -4 this morning. I told him to put his coat on which he choose and loves but he declined. I take the view he's old enough to make his own decisions, I wore my coat this morning when I walked the dogs so it was not me that was cold!
I do think that when at school there is no where to put it, he has a locker but its not that big and as the school is heated to the same temp as Barbados they find they're lumbered with carrying it around and sometimes a jumper as well. I picked him up tonight as he'd been cooking and I noticed none of the children had coats on.

My 16 year old son wears a black coat that covers his blazer: it's this one from John Lewis

My Ds never wore a coat through the whole of secondary school , he couldn't be bothered to carry it around with him all day

DS has a school-approved John Lewis navy coat which I think he has worn precisely twice since I bought it at the start of year 7 (he's now year 9; I bought it large, but he's probably grown out of it anyway by now).

Mostly he just wears a blazer over school jumper and shirt, but sometimes (if it is absolutely tipping with rain) he will let himself be persuaded to wear his black North Face raincoat over the top. It was zero degrees here this morning, but he just went in blazer/jumper as usual. He has a 15 minute walk to school. Coats are just not cool. Woolly hats are sometimes OK though .

Oh yes, my ds wore a woolly hat , scarf and gloves just not a coat

Nice coat MrsJ my DS1 has a huge thick trench coat because he's trying to look like Tom Baker out of Dr Who complete with 20' stripy scarf. His choice not mine! As I said I'm warm when I go out.
P.S. did he choose his coat? DS2 wears his everyday he boards and walks from his house to school and back 6-8 time a day and now has a black umbrella with a wooden curled handle but wont wear a scarf. He very carefully choose both the coat and the umbrella. I suspect in these image conscious days these things matter

My more-money-than-sense brother bought DS2 an Abercrombie and Fitch incredibly cool black coat/jacket thing for Christmas. DS2 wears it constantly. Coat problem solved.

But I do see some of the local High School lads walk home in their polo shirts - it is madness.

Hmm. Happygardening has just given me an idea. Any idea where Sherlock Holmes' coat comes from? That might possibly be acceptable. But probably way outside my budget.

What do you do?

Fuck all. DD never wears a coat, just trundles along in her blazer. I spent her first year thinking she would expire of hypothermia, then shrugged and let her carry on with it.

They generally can't be arsed. teenagers innit.

Ah. Just googled. Apparently Sherlock coat is from Belstaff and costs £1,350. Maybe not, then.

DD 11 and I have had a coat stand off, she chose a coat in the summer and insisted she would wear it for school, she wore it once then said the only coat she would wear would be Pauls Boutique or SuperDry.
I am prepared to pay for neither of these when she has a perfectly good coat in her wardrobe so she has worn no coat but does wear thermals under her shirt and a scarf and gloves, she also has an umbrella.
Although I am being all Mumlike with her, I can remember being exactly the same when I was at secondary school although perhaps a bit older than first year.
Also in the school I wanted her to go to they couldn't wear a coat anyway, just a blazer.

In my teenage years the school coat of choice was an old man's tweed one from Oxfam. Probably annoyed my mother even more than not wearing one, but it had the added benefit of keeping me warm.

I did tell DS1 that if he lost the expensive trench coat then he'd have to pay for a new one perhaps that influences his decision not to wear it to school.

My DH wore an old silk Moss Bros DJ through a large part of his school life my MIL hated it and threw it in the bin one day when he wasn't around so he burned her coat on the bonfire!!

I just saw a girl on her way home from our local secondary in just a polo shirt It is freezing here, in a down coat and thick gloves.

No sense, no feeling, as my mother used to say.

Ds1 wears either a superdry hooded technical windcheater (second hand off eBay) or a black padded dc jacket from rollersnakes.co.uk. I found it was letting him choose what he wants to wear and as close to the school uniform list as possible. Which luckily for us just states plain black.

There is a superdry coat similar to the Sherlock one but still around £150 I think it's called jermyn?

Ds 1 is 14 by the way.

Ds2 is just coming up to 10 and has a grey gap parka and a Barbour wax biker type jacket both of which fit over his blazer.

Whippet - I feel your pain. DS1 is at exactly the same age as your DS.

He has a plain black coat. He chose it. We have compromised - after I thought me and DW thought might have a thrombosis arguing with him.

He wears it to school. He wears it home again. We know he hides it in his locker when he gets there and walks about in his blazer in the rain. As long as he goes in the coat and comes home in it I feel he is unlikely to die of hypothermia so I stopped worrying. I have done my parental duty.

From my observation, the older they get the less they wear coats. The girls are worse. I can see they are freezing cold shivering and wet through but insist on not wearing a coat.

There's no point buying a coat if he's not going to wear it. Make sure he has t-shirts that can go under his shirt so that he has an extra layer. Offer him a thermal vest (and then stand back and watch the display of outrage).

@ happygardening's DH!

OP, you are lucky he was wearing his blazer. My DS thinks it's fine for him to stuff his in his bag. He does however wear a jumper. He refuses to wear the white T-shirts I bought for him to wear under his shirt and the Superdry coat I bought him. (Apparently that is the only type of coat you can wear to school)

What did he wear at primary school my DS's had to wear blue Barbours at prep and now wouldn't be seen dead in them.

DS(15) wears a black coat that just covers his blazer when its very cold unfortunately he has come home this evening without it. He thinks he left it in the music block

't-shirts that can go under his shirt"
Only in my dreams!

My Ds left his coat on the school field , he was using it as a goalpost

No experience of my own yet (DD is 10), but my house is right at the bus stop where loads of kids get the bus to school.
Very few wear coats, and when I say very few I mean perhaps one or two out of 30.

The boys wear hoodies, the girls wear trendy looking cardis (no blazers here).
On their return, the boys are wearing just shirts, and the girls are wearing the boys' hoodies.
Ah, young love!