School uniforms overpriced???

N9eav

Schools warned over uniform costs

School governors usually set dress codes

Schools in England that unfairly profit from uniform sales face the threat of prosecution under a new crackdown. The Department for Education and Skills says the Office of Fair Trading could act against exclusive deals with outlets to sell over-priced uniforms.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6369213.stm

About time! Our school has only basic uniform such as polo shirt and sweatshirt, but they overprice the basic things because the school logo is embroidered on them.

1 polo shirt with the words Poltair on it costs £9. I can get 2 shirts in ADSA which are better quality of £3 the pair.

alba37

Totally agree, it's about time this was raised. Not only are items way over priced, it's exactly as you said, the quality is very poor.

Only hope Scotland follows suit...

Becles

I stopped buying the school branded stuff. It's £15 for a jumper with the school badge embroidered onto it.

This year I got them jumpers for £1 each when Sainsburys were selling them off in September

pianeet

totally agree ,,but if the government did not keep making cuts the schools would not have to go hand in hand with local shops just to make a few more quid for the school coffers,

georgina_fenwick

The uniform my kids have to wear HAS to be bought straight from the school, it has the school initials embroidered on it above the school badge, a different colour for each starting year, for my eldest it is red and my youngest is green, they keep these colours right through school, so i couldn't even pass them to the youngest when they no longer fit the oldest, they charge around £10 each.

There is no other place to buy these either, just the school, same with the fleece jackets (they don't have blazers).


georgina

N9eav

I have always wondered if an embroidery machine would not make a few quid during the run up to strat of term... if I can get a good quality T-shirt from ASDA at £1.50, how much can it cost to embroider letters on it?

badmumof1

i have in the past thought that they were over priced and have got into some discussions with other mums about this at the school gate ( school gate chats dont appeal to me but on this instance it did)

one of the mums harping on about being unable to afford them yet her son was wearing nike trainners to school !!!

one of which the school was very much against but she was the type of mum to say stuff you to the head and get away with it.

my son is in high school now and we had to pay out 70 quid for his blazer, tie, pe top, rugby shirt, pe socks and apron for tech lessons.
i went into marks and spencers to get his trousers at 8 quid a pair and i got him his shirts from asdas. so i guess it was just under a hundred for the lot.
i saved the money up from his child benefit and i guess it took around 5 or 6 weeks to do this.

my point is that he will be in his blazer for around 2 possibly 3 years as its is quite big ( advice from the lady at school who sold it to me) The sleeves are rolled up inside about 2 inches. So unless he has a massive growing spurt i have saved myself 35 quid for one next year. the same goes for the rest of he gear i bought from the school too
Trousers i will buy anyway in september along with shirts.

when you look at it like this the prices are not as bad as people make it out to be. i know its the inital pay out in one go that bothers most people but they dont mind this when they are spending the cash on designer trainers or clothes that their kids will grow out of equally as fast.