‘Keeping up appearances in school can be a costly business...’
AS the new school year starts, many parents, especially of those starting high school, will be wondering how they can afford all the uniform and kit their children and teenagers will need.
The media is flooded with stories of cheap supermarket uniforms and there is a £125 school uniform grant available from the Welsh Government to help less well-off families.
But that’s not quite the whole story, as parents, carers and guardians will know.
Pupils are eligible for the grant if they get free school meals or are looked-after children starting reception class in primary school, starting Year Seven in secondary school, aged four or 11, or in special schools, special needs resource bases or pupil referral units.
It’s great to help children starting out but, as they have a tendency to grow, the chances are that they will need new uniform and kit at least every school year, not to mention uniform shoes, trainers, and football and rugby kit for high school.
It’s not uncommon to spend £250 a year per child on all a pupil needs for high school.
There seems to be a general consensus that school uniform is a good leveller. Because pupils are required to wear the same clothes, there is less scope for being bullied and teased, or to feel left out and inadequate, if your family cannot afford designer labels and the latest trends.
This is true to a point, but shoes and footwear for PE are not generally regulation and there can be a lot of banter around trainers and studs, as anyone who has a passing acquaintance with young people will know.
Then, of course, there are also bags and coats. These are not generally regulation and you can send a message with the labels you buy for these, too. This may be why some children choose not to wear coats at all, even in the worst weather.
With most schools choosing black, grey or navy blue for trousers, skirts and dresses, it would seem that cheap options should be available.
This is not always the case. Most schools have a logo. And, while primaries do not demand it, pupils may want the more expensive-looking regulation sweatshirts with logos. At high school most require tops, skirts and blazers with badges and logos, not to mention regulation ties.
Then there is the bewildering array of sports kit that may be on your child’s school list of items to buy for secondary school.
Some require different rugby, general sport and running tops. As if that were not enough, schools randomly opt to change sports strip colours or add the option of having a pupil’s name embroidered on.
While none of these may be compulsory, many pupils and parents will feel they are, because they don’t want to be the odd one out without the newest colour or add-on available.
So who is benefiting from all these clothes our kids wear to learn? The companies asked to provide them. Schools do not run their own uniform factories, instead they offer the names of shops which are the preferred, and in some cases the sole, provider.
There is little doubt that clothes and appearances send powerful messages and create heated feelings.
The long, very hot summer was punctuated with rows over boys not being allowed to wear shorts to school, girls complaining they were too hot wearing the required tights and the now-annual sight of photos of boys in the heat wearing skirts to school in protest.
Pupils at Cathays High in Cardiff last year asked to have a smarter uniform with a blazer because they felt it would make them look more grown-up and professional and might even lead to improved performance.
On the other hand, there are pupils in all schools who will go to any lengths to just about get away with breaking the uniform policy. Skirts will be hiked up, shirts untucked and ties pulled short or at jaunty angles.
Does any of this really matter? For parents, and probably pupils, having a uniform means no-one has to think too hard about what to wear on busy mornings, and it can be a leveller.
But the cost of uniform can be a genuine drain and stress on ever more hard-pressed resources, particularly for the least well-off among us.
Last week a single mother from Cardiff, surrounded by her teenage son’s near-perfect and expensive uniform, which he had outgrown, decided to set up a donation service for those struggling to meet the cost of school wear.
Rhiannon Thomas had such a massive response to her Cardiff and Vale school uniform donations page on Facebook that she has had to enlist the help of two fellow mothers to collect and deliver hundreds of items donated and offered via a Facebook page she set up.
This resourceful project is long overdue. While friends and relatives cheerfully pass on uniform, there are others, myself included, who, as time goes on, suddenly know no-one personally who needs it.
I had tried to persuade my 16-year-old son to wear his two teenager sisters’ hand-me-down skirts, as they’ve now left school, but he’s having none of it, not even if the weather hits 30C again.
Rhiannon worries she has no way of knowing whether donations she is collecting and delivering will go to those most in need. In a sense, this doesn’t matter Some of it will, and the rest, if it is going to more well-off families, is at least being recycled.
It’s a win-win situation for parents and the planet, at least.