Is school uniform a rip off?

MickKnipfler

My son is starting senior school next month and I recently bought him a nicely made well fitting black blazer in BHS for £17.

Now I find out that you can't just buy a badge and sow it on, I have to pay £29 for the official (inferior quality) blazer with the badge sown on. Obviously it doesn't stop there... £22 for a tracksuit top, £7.50 for a pair of shorts etc, etc.

Why is it such bad value? Does the school get a back hander?

BusinessStudent

Dont be ripped off ! - get down to your local charity shop.

C_Ronaldo

MickKnipfler wrote: »

My son is starting senior school next month and I recently bought him a nicely made well fitting black blazer in BHS for £17.

Now I find out that you can't just buy a badge and sow it on, I have to pay £29 for the official (inferior quality) blazer with the badge sown on. Obviously it doesn't stop there... £22 for a tracksuit top, £7.50 for a pair of shorts etc, etc.

Why is it such bad value? Does the school get a back hander?

what colour do the shorts need to be, could you not buy the same colour shorts from a sports shop and the same for a tracksuit top, id personally sew the school badge on myself, if your on a budget you have to stick to it,

does the school have 2nd hand uniform that they sell

chipmunk

C_Ronaldo wrote: »

what colour do the shorts need to be, could you not buy the same colour shorts from a sports shop and the same for a tracksuit top, id personally sew the school badge on myself, if your on a budget you have to stick to it,

does the school have 2nd hand uniform that they sell

As the OP said, you can't buy a badge.

MickKnipfler

I'm not on a budget at all. I'm happy to pay for quality but not pay for overpriced poor value merchandise in a captive market.

The shorts are black and we can probably just get a plain pair rather than logo'd ones. Other things are more difficult like a pair of football socks, plain black with 3 red rings round the top....£7.50 please sir!

Idiophreak

BusinessStudent wrote: »

Dont be ripped off ! - get down to your local charity shop.

Yeah, except they change them so frequently you've got little chance of last year's uniform being usable...

MickKnipfler

Does the school get a "royalty payment" or anything?

mountainofdebt

If its any comfort, I've just bought my son his second rugby shirt....the first having had so little wear that the first lasted 3 years!

I must admit that the official school shirts for my son's school washes far better than the ones you can get from Asda's etc and tends to last longer as well.

What I would do is sew name tags in all the gear.....my son's school had loads of jumpers etc at the end of the year that would end up in the bin as they couldn't identify who they belonged to.

MickKnipfler

I wonder if I should start a revolt by sourcing better quality equivelents and then getting all the other parents to buy them.....

C_Ronaldo

Id buy a pair of black socks and so what if they dont have the 3 rings round the top,

mountainofdebt

C_Ronaldo wrote: »

Id buy a pair of black socks and so what if they dont have the 3 rings round the top,

In fairness, I wouldn't want my son hauled up for having the wrong uniform - especially by a PE teacher! - especially as he's in the first year. Best to leave this until the 2nd year!