What do you think about the price of school uniforms these days?
Given that you can snap up a school uniform for as little as £4 from Aldi and £3.65 from Lidl, would you describe the cost of school uniforms as 'unmanageable'?
Some 95 per cent of parents do think school uniform costs are unmanageable, according to research by The Children's Commission on Poverty and support by The Children's Society.
Parents with children in state maintained schools said they spent £316 per year on school uniform for children attending secondary school and £251 per year for primary school children.
Unsurprisingly, school shoes were cited as the most expensive school uniform item for children in both primary and secondary school, followed by coats and bags.
Blazers were also deemed to be one of the most expensive school uniform purchases, with parents spending an average of £42 on a blazer per child for those in secondary school.
When setting uniform policy, schools are expected to adhere to guidance, set by the Department for Education, which states that uniform must be affordable.
Yet many schools insist that parents buy specific items of school clothing from specialist shops, which adds to the high cost of buying school uniform. Consequently, parents say they are spending an average of £151 per year more than they think is "reasonable" on school uniforms.
The report states:
"Parents say that this is leading to children going to school in ill—fitting school uniform, being sent home from school or to families cutting back on food or other basic essentials. Based on responses to our survey, we estimate that 1.2 million school children go to school in incorrect, unclean or poorly fitting uniform as a result of the cost. 400,000 children have been sent home because of wearing incorrect uniform as a result."
We'd like to hear your views on this story. Do you agree that school uniform costs are unreasonable, or do you think that supermarket bargains like Aldi's and Lidl's bargain basement uniforms mean there's no excuse for complaining about the cost of school uniform?
And if you do think school uniform costs are unreasonable, do you worry about the possibility of your child being bullied for wearing ill-fitting or incorrect clothes to school?
Let us know what you think by leaving us a comment below or join the debate over on our Facebook page.
primary school uniform you can get very cheap these days which I'm very happy with its secondary school that's expensive the one in my town you got to buy the Pe top socks and tie in there house colours from the school and I also got to buy school jumper from the school one jumper is 23 pound I just had to spend 46 pound on 1 jumper 1 pair of socks 1 Pe top and 1 tie still have to buy trousers shirts shoes bag and other stuff where as for my daughter at primary she's pretty much sorted and I only spent 30 pound on her i think secondary school uniform should be a bit cheaper
I've always thought that schools should allow generic uniforms from the likes of aldi etc. The jumpers there are only £4/5. I was shocked with my son and daughters primary school in the UK. I purchased my son 3 compulsory crested jumper for reception year at £9 a pop and then the next year they switched to crested zipped fleeces that were £15 each. They were no longer allowed to wear the old jumpers and in an area where a lot of people were single parent or low income families, a lot of pressure was put on the children and families. To make it worse my daughter started nursery at age 2 and also had to have a full uniform compulsory including the crested fleece. Because she was so small the only place that did her size skirt etc was M&S and Clarkes were the only place for shoes. It cost me a fortune and her fleece was a different colour for nursery to reception so she couldn't even use it for a few years.That being said I have just moved to Rep of Ireland and my son has to have a compulsory crested tracksuit for his two PE days which is 35 euro and a crested jumper at 20 euro so I'm worse off now.