Vent! Flaming School Uniform!

moggylover

Googlewhacker wrote: »

Those prices don't seem that bad compared to normal clothes and also bear in mind it is economies of scale and a school will only require a limited amount of product from it's suppliers and as such the costs would be higher than if they were a major retailor.

Well I don't know what you earn or what you would consider spending on a rugby top, but take my word for it, I would not be looking to spend that much on one for a 15 year old lad to grow out of;):D

The whole point of my vent really is that the uniform should be designed (as guidelines suggest) around ease of availability and affordability, so that the majority of items should be freely available from chain stores and logo badges (if necessary) available from the school for items they feel "must have" them, and common sense should be applied to that so that they are not required just for lessons where the childrens appareil will not have any affect on their performance or willingness to learn.

I would also, not be so cross at the prices if it weren't for the fact that I'm involved in the procurement and sale of kit and associated items for the local rugby club and therefore I know just how cheaply we can buy in such items. I have offered to do the same with the entire uniform for the school, and set this up as an on-going business for them, so that they can make a small profit per item so that they get additional funds and the parents do not get eternally ripped-off (as always) by the small local shops who are incapable of running competitively and are only sustainable because of the poor mugs who end up tied to the over-priced tat they have persuaded the school is "good quality":(

I'm 52, I can remember when those that ran small local shops, usually lived above the shop and had only a slightly better income than any other working person. In those days they were worth supporting. It is their own greed in wanting a gold plated lifestyle from their small business these days that has caused their demise and I am loathe to keep any of them in their executive build boxes and BMW's by wasting my hard earned money in their shops;):D

badmumof1

This comes around every year yet still people moan abot the cost of buying school uniform.
My sons blazer costs £45 from his school and I have only purchased 2 of them since him being there.
He goes into year 11 september and if i have to buy another one in 6 months time then so be it.
It works out cheaper to buy school uniform than putting them in ordinary 'designer' clothes which the kids end up giving in to peer pressure.
As for embroidery logos and copyright the school have every right to do this as they do 'own' the logo.
My uncle embroiders these logos on for over a 1000 schools and clubs alone and the set up fee to do one of these logos is very expensive.
Some simple school logos have in excess of seven thousand stitches with mix of colours and this takes time to program in and set up.
Just go and look at one of the badges on a blazer and you will see what i am on about.
He has a tajima embriodery machine and the logos are put on to a floppy disk that go in the side of the machine.
The cost of these garments are mainly due to suppliers cost, then the embriodery is put on top, which they earn very little and then of course the school is entitled to earn a couple of quid per blazer on top.

moggylover

lolly1981 wrote: »

i remeber starting high school and needing all sorts of things (luckily no blazer) for P.E we needed the most things....socks, wrap around skirt, P.E briefs and white polo shirts. or normal uniform was shirt, tie (not a clip on one a real one hehe) skirt and sweatshirt. we never had any logo uniforms growing up mum refused to pay the money for them...we either went in jumpers we had or not at all.

she did buy the PE kit but they lasted me the 4 years in high school, embaressing wearing a P.E skirt that just got shorter and shorter every year lol by the time i left in yr 11 you could almost see my briefs without me bending over

i bought my son a logo'd jumper for his reception year but it bobbled and looked awful very quick so i now just get him asda ones in the school colour! and he has teh option to wear shirts or polo shirts...we opt for shirts they look smarter,

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:


I remember many of my school uniform items being like that, and also having marks around the hem where they had been bought "big" and let down as the years went by:D:D

moggylover

lincroft1710 wrote: »

When I passed 11+ and went to "grammar" school it cost my parents about £30 to kit me out.

Not bad I hear you say. But this was getting on for 50 years ago and that sum was nearly 2 weeks salary for my father.

But lincroft, that is the whole point! My Grammar school uniform was just as expensive and the blazer alone (in 1969) cost £30 in Caleys in Windsor. However, it was an eletist school and the cost of being there was part of the eletism.

Those days are gone, my sons don't have the choice/opportunity of a Grammar school, and I can remember lots of media items in the intervening years about uniforms becoming more affordable AND more suitable.

If I purchased the ENTIRE school uniform now, it would be around £200 per child, and that is still quite close to 2 weeks take home wages for the majority of parents in this area;)

Lifeisbutadream

At my childrens primary school, I set up a 'Uniform Exchange', which basically means that parents donate second hand uniform (good condition) which we then sell on at £1 an item. The money raised goes to school funds. Good for the environment and saves money too !

My DD is going to Secondary school in September and if there is nothing similar already there I will look into joining the PTA and setting up something similar - too late for DD this time, but maybe when DS gets there I might be able to save a bit of money.

If you dont have anything like that, why not look into setting something up, or even just talk to other parents about whether they have any second hand items they would sell?

moggylover

badmumof1 wrote: »

This comes around every year yet still people moan abot the cost of buying school uniform.
My sons blazer costs £45 from his school and I have only purchased 2 of them since him being there.
He goes into year 11 september and if i have to buy another one in 6 months time then so be it.
It works out cheaper to buy school uniform than putting them in ordinary 'designer' clothes which the kids end up giving in to peer pressure.
As for embroidery logos and copyright the school have every right to do this as they do 'own' the logo.
My uncle embroiders these logos on for over a 1000 schools and clubs alone and the set up fee to do one of these logos is very expensive.
Some simple school logos have in excess of seven thousand stitches with mix of colours and this takes time to program in and set up.
Just go and look at one of the badges on a blazer and you will see what i am on about.
He has a tajima embriodery machine and the logos are put on to a floppy disk that go in the side of the machine.
The cost of these garments are mainly due to suppliers cost, then the embriodery is put on top, which they earn very little and then of course the school is entitled to earn a couple of quid per blazer on top.

I had typed a long reply to this! But my internet connection went down and wouldn't come back up:mad::rotfl::rotfl:

I'm not against school uniform, as you would see from my initial vent, at all, just the addition of expensive items unnecessarily to this list and the requirement for logos where they are not at all necessary either. Furthermore, my biggest complaint was the introduction of a "designer" named item to the list of sports kit at a ridiculous price:(

I would not be complaining if we could buy ordinary off-the peg items and get them embroidered and I never complained about the £3 embroidery cost because that was perfectly reasonable for the amount of work involved. What I am complaining about is the fact that the quality of the stuff our suppliers dump on us is very, very poor compared to that of Tesco polo shirts (of which I have several that are years old) and that they are around 3 times the price for that shoddy quality;)

I would also not be annoyed if it was the school that was making a profit from these items, but the school do not sell the uniform only set the requirement and tie us to small local suppliers.

I am old enough to remember when those running small local shops usually lived above said shops and had an income only slightly higher than the majority of those using their premises and in those days such small businesses were worthy of protecting and supporting. Nowadays, the people who run these sort of businesses want a gold plated living from the local population and require executive build boxes and BMW's from their income and I don't consider supporting them to be something I want to do at all;)

I'm 52, we don't "do" "designer" items because I see that as a marketing con for off-the peg, cheap imported tat (often made in sweat shops in attrocious conditions for pennies per item) at silly prices.

moggylover

Lifeisbutadream wrote: »

At my childrens primary school, I set up a 'Uniform Exchange', which basically means that parents donate second hand uniform (good condition) which we then sell on at £1 an item. The money raised goes to school funds. Good for the environment and saves money too !

My DD is going to Secondary school in September and if there is nothing similar already there I will look into joining the PTA and setting up something similar - too late for DD this time, but maybe when DS gets there I might be able to save a bit of money.

If you dont have anything like that, why not look into setting something up, or even just talk to other parents about whether they have any second hand items they would sell?

We did do that at the primary school LIBAD, but with the secondary school the area it covers is humungous and getting the parents together (even at PTA's which appear to be run by a few rather arrogant and well heeled parents:() is difficult.

I did, when DS1 first started there, get some parents together to try to insist that the uniform be simplified and utility rather than silly, and also to arrange supply direct through the school instead of the couple of rip-off merchants that had the strangle hold in the area at that time. We ended up with a new supplier instead, who did manage to bring us slightly better prices, and a bit better quality on some items, although we were still stuck with the dreaded Papini polos because of the darned colour:mad:

TBH, the Papini polos never last long enough to be "re-cycled" and most of the parents have long since stopped buying into the jumpers, sweatshirts, and fleeces past year 1, instead buying a plain black waterproof coat from anywhere and boycotting all the other stuff:rotfl::rotfl: so I think only the incoming parents of new year 7 pupils who might be able to benefit from this.

Another point there really, we are allowed only a plain black coat for outer wear! No colour on it! Which plonker decided this when many of the kids will be getting off their coaches in pitch dark in the winter months and walking home along lanes which have absolutely NO street lights:eek:? Is it, do you think, a pre-requisite of setting school uniform requirements that you first switch off ALL vestiges of common sense?:D

Sports kit has always been quite minimal really, any black shorts, black and red stripped socks (which I have managed to get on line as cheaply as £1.00 per pair although they are £4.50 in the shops) a white polo (unfortunately with unnecessary logo) and a rugby shirt of non-designer brand at around £20.

It's the Samurai rugby top that has really got me annoyed tbh! Cheap and nasty polyester rubbish at "designer" prices just to learn a sport makes no sense to me at all.:(

Indie_Kid

moggylover wrote: »

Another point there really, we are allowed only a plain black coat for outer wear! No colour on it!

And how likely are you to be able to get hold of on of these? I have a plain black one with a small logo on. A lot of my clothing is the sme.

Sports kit has always been quite minimal really, any black shorts, black and red stripped socks (which I have managed to get on line as cheaply as £1.00 per pair although they are £4.50 in the shops) a white polo (unfortunately with unnecessary logo) and a rugby shirt of non-designer brand at around £20.

My PE kit at secondary school was like this. I just needed a light blue polo shirt, navy trousers / shorts / skirt, white trainers and either the school rugby shirt or a blue (not school jumper) sweatshirt.

Mupette

badmumof1 wrote: »

This comes around every year yet still people moan abot the cost of buying school uniform.
My sons blazer costs £45 from his school and I have only purchased 2 of them since him being there.
He goes into year 11 september and if i have to buy another one in 6 months time then so be it.
It works out cheaper to buy school uniform than putting them in ordinary 'designer' clothes which the kids end up giving in to peer pressure.

I wouldn't mind but i don't buy ordinary 'designer' clothes for ds


As for embroidery logos and copyright the school have every right to do this as they do 'own' the logo.
My uncle embroiders these logos on for over a 1000 schools and clubs alone and the set up fee to do one of these logos is very expensive.
Some simple school logos have in excess of seven thousand stitches with mix of colours and this takes time to program in and set up.
Just go and look at one of the badges on a blazer and you will see what i am on about.
He has a tajima embriodery machine and the logos are put on to a floppy disk that go in the side of the machine.
The cost of these garments are mainly due to suppliers cost, then the embriodery is put on top, which they earn very little and then of course the school is entitled to earn a couple of quid per blazer on top.

Last year ds pe top which was another polo shirt but in dark green with logo embroidered on the chest.

Again i had to buy this at John Lewis, i was appalled by what i saw, the embroidery was a shambles, it was all snagged up in the top, i noticed this before i bought it so asked for another instead and showed the assistant why, they get another, its the same, so she gets another and another, they are all the same, John Lewis accepted these and they were all snagged, i felt because i thought i had to i bought one, even after a wash and a gentle push and pull i could not get it in a decent shape.

so not only was it over priced but a poor quality as well. :mad:

moggylover

sh1305 wrote: »

And how likely are you to be able to get hold of on of these? I have a plain black one with a small logo on. A lot of my clothing is the sme.


My PE kit at secondary school was like this. I just needed a light blue polo shirt, navy trousers / shorts / skirt, white trainers and either the school rugby shirt or a blue (not school jumper) sweatshirt.

It isn't easy finding a totally plain black coat, but I just get one as plain as I can, but always with something on the back and sleeves that makes it visible in the dark. If the school want to make an issue of that with me they will regret it, because I have already told them how disgustingly stupid it is to require plain black outerwear due to the safety aspect:D

I would happily go the LEA and the local press if they wanted to really insist on that, but they seem not to be taking that up with the kids cos some of them are even wearing stuff that has quite a few light colours on it.

I do appreciate that the idea is to still keep the "designer" rubbish out, but it isn't realistic at all.