Parents hit out as school uniforms become ‘unaffordable’

With the cost of living crisis tightening its grip, parents are finding that school uniforms are not just a uniform expense—they're an unmanageable one.
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School uniforms should be a badge of belonging, not a burden on the budget, but for many families, the high price of branded school attire is turning education into an expensive dress code rather than a level playing field.

With the cost of living crisis tightening its grip, parents are finding that school uniforms are not just a uniform expense—they're an unmanageable one.

Anna Sabine, MP for Frome and East Somerset, addressed the Minister during the second reading of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. Raising the issue of the cost of school uniforms, Anna welcomed the Government’s commitment to limiting the number of branded items a school can require as part of a uniform but suggested they needed to go further to help ease the burden on struggling families.

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Stating her own experience with two teenagers and the ever-changing needs of growing children as they progress through a succession of schools in their school career, Anna recognised the positives of implementing a uniform which “allows pupils to go into school with the same appearance and not be discriminated against or bullied for what they wear.” However, she pointed out that school uniform remains one of the biggest costs in sending kids to school along with stationery, shoes, and school trips.

In a time when we are seeing families struggle with costs of energy bills and there is a rise of school breakfast clubs which recognise the strain some parents are facing to provide nutritious food for their children, it’s imperative that extra burdens around unnecessarily expensive uniforms are not added to their hardships.

She said: “From my experience of sending my daughter to state school, branded school uniform items are being sold from monopoly suppliers for an inflated price, compared with the items bought from high street and charity shops.”

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“The bare minimum of three branded items of a jumper, a polo shirt, and a skirt for my daughter’s [state] school costs more than double that from a high street shop. For a family with three children to have two sets of three branded items per year costs more than £300, compared with £108 from my local supermarket in Frome—nearly three times as much. That does not even account for a sports kit and shoes, or for the fact that children often require new items each year as they grow.”

Anna suggested to the Minister that uniforms can and should be implemented in a way that allows parents to purchase them in the most cost-effective way possible. She pointed out that in many areas, such as Frome in her constituency, schools operate on a three-tier system, meaning children go through three different schools and therefore require three different uniforms across their school career.

“We should aim to strike a balance between students looking smart and not making uniforms overly complicated and exclusive. The simpler the uniform, which is based on staple and easily available items and colours, the more reusable it is. We should foster an environment where school clothes can be easily handed down through families, regardless of gender, and exchanged between families, either through the school or through charity shops, instead of focusing on brand new items for each child. That also reduces clothing and textile waste.”

“State schools should represent a level playing field for children of all backgrounds, where pupils are treated with the same respect and given the same opportunities.” And whilst the concept of uniforms is one that aims for inclusivity, if the cost of attending even a state school is becoming increasingly exclusionary as parents are unable to afford the bare minimum requirements for attendance, we have to recognise the burden this places on families already dealing with a cost-of-living crisis. “We cannot allow something as simple as uniforms to become a barrier to entry.”