If you ask me, there should be a government-mandated spec of uniform, in a range of, say, 5 colours.
Schools can choose what colour they want to use.
All uniforms would be made to the same spec, purchasable basically anywhere (i.e. not just from the school itself), and can be mass produced by anybody. Doesn’t matter where you buy it from because they’re literally the exact same.
Prices would drop like a stone.
The issue is the branded tat that schools insist upon such as blazers, jumpers, skirts, etc. Its almost always overpriced compared to the basics from Asda and Tesco.
Ban the branded shit and you fix at least half the problem.
Yes, but then how can people in the supply chain grift?
Its probably more a case that each school needs to work out what is reasonable to get on a budget. I’ve heard alot of schools are dropping the PE kit or its just a t-shirt for sports events. My school had a football and a rugby top. But the football top was only for the team and was kept by the school.
Just scrap school uniform entirely and don’t allow any obvious branding on clothes. It’s such a fucking waste of time.
Agreed. The argument that it’s an equaliser is delusional and clearly made by people who didn’t have to wear 20 year old hand me downs for their uniform.
Recently saw the average parent has to pay £350 for secondary school uniforms.
That is more than I spend on food for the whole of winter for myself, and more than my entire wardrobe.
If they’re mandatory they should be provided free of charge.
If schools want to be precious about logos, they should just be forced to offer iron-on patches.
Lol… This is the UK, they hate the poor with passion.
Poor’s struggling to provide for the kids is the feature, not a bug
My school did that, but it didn’t make much difference to the affordability if we’re looking at the impact on the kinds of families who regularly have to skip meals
Branded school uniforms, how did it even get this far. Fuck, I need to stop reading anything online for the rest of today at least… and its only morning here.
It’s been this way for decades. I had logo’d uniform when I was in junior school in the 80s. My brother had the same in the 70s, and it’s existed long before then. If anything schools are somewhat more flexible now than they used to be, my daughter starts school for the first time next week, and her school just needs the right colours, logos are not mandatory. I’ve heard of other schools just wanting the top most layer (jumper, blazer, whatever) having the logo.
Also, if you are poor, your kids are going to get more shit for having off brand or unfasionable clothes than if everyone is wearing the same.
All clothes cost money, and if you wear your street clothes to school they wear out quicker and get replaced more often. So the focus should be cost of uniform, not whether to uniform or not. Branded logo items are mentioned in the article, and this is the way to break school uniform suppliers’ monopoly and cost control. Uniform only needs to be guidelines and type of clothes. Only a tie needs to be a certain design to be that schools’ ID. And those you can hand down through generations.
Fzuk wearing a tie to school
Clip ons for safety, but it’s quite standard
why is it standard though that’s so silly
When I was at school we had one logo patch that got transferred to new blazers as we outgrew them and two ties - one for the first 4 years and another one just for year 11. That worked out at about £5/year, for ‘branded’ items. And there was even a monopoly on these patches and ties, which was the haberdashery on the high street.
[…] more than a quarter (29%) said they had forgone food or heating to pay for uniforms.
‘The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone’ shows that in unequal societies people will priorities things which communicate social status over basic needs.
Mandatory school advertising on your children. And people say advertising in the US is out of control…
