How many school uniforms

[Liviam]

My little girl is starting school next year and I want to have her uniform organised & paid for by Nov as Dec/Jan are absolutely massive bill months for us so hoping to spread some of our costs out.

I have absolutely no idea how many she will need. They wear dresses and have a sports uniform of shorts/polo.

A school bag and hat too.

Also what kind of shoes? Do they wear closed in shoes with socks or sandals? She can't tie shoe laces yet.

OMG where do I start, LOL!!!

TIA,
A very vague first time mum

[Olive]

DD has:
Summer dress x2
Short sleeved school polo x1
Long sleeved school polo x2
Skort x1 (PE)
Winter tunic x1
Long pants x1 (PE)
Cotton button school cardigan x1
Polar fleeced jacket x1
School bag
Reusable lunch order bag
Library bag
Hat
Above was all purchase through school

White socks
Tights
Sneakers (PE)
Black school shoes -Clarks- first pair were Velcro, second pair have a buckle
Black netball nickers (Rio) to go over undies under summer dress and over tights in winter

[sangie]

Hun I ordered DD's summer uniform only and I'll get winter uniform ordered early next year. If you are able to do that then it will be a lot cheaper and will spread the cost out a little bit.

I ordered through the school:
2 summer dresses
1 cardigan
1 short sleeve polo shirt
Hat
School bag
Smock
Library bag

I got 1 skort and 1 pair of shorts at target.

Shoes I'll either get velcro or buckle, not sure yet. She can't do laces yet either.
Hope that helps!

[Liz]

I'll probably get 2 pinafores and 2 sets of shorts/shirt. With a midweek wash in there somewhere it should be plenty. We'll also get a bag, hat and jacket. Winter - I haven't decided whether to get the pinafore and tights or just do trackies which is cheaper

[maybebaby2012]

I usually try and get DD enough to go 4 days without washing She has three jumpers (one seems to be missing ) about 4 pairs of tights, and I always buy her one lot of dress shoes and one sneakers. She tends to wear the dress shoes for a month or so and then refuses to wear anything but sneakers for the rest of the year. She always has a couple of hats through the year too because she always manages to lose one. Ditto to water bottles! Grr. All named etc but I guess it just happens.

[Phteven]

You can start with the summer uniform and get the winter one later if you want to spread out the cost.

The boys each have 2x long pants and 2x shorts. 3xshirts. 2x jumpers. Sandals with a closed toe for summer and proper shoes for winter (but they often waer their runners not school shoes). Sun hats plus a spare. I find that hats are thing that go missing the most. I have lost count of the number of school hats I have bought so now I usually send them to school in a non-uniform hat because people don't seem to keep them.

I label things in several places.

[Liviam]

Thanks ladies. I think I'll only organise her summer uniform at the moment - great idea to further spread out the cost. I hadn't thought about an art smock or library bag. Will add those to my list as well.
I've just been reading over their school uniform policy. Girls have the option of dresses or shorts & polo. Maybe I should get her both?
And here I was thinking picking the school would be the hardest part, LOL!!
Sneakers & school shoes I will buy early next year too.

What labels are the best - sew on or iron on???

[Phteven]

I use a cloth shopping bag as a library bag. The school bags cost $35 dollars, the cloth bags cost $2.

[Butterfly Dawn]

goodness.
how much does the uniforming cost? ave?
Im gonna need to think about this and work the cost in somewhere. got 2boys to do

[Liz]

I pretty much have a uniform for each day because I can't stand seeing kids in grotty clothes before they've even started the school day and I am not one for mid week washing.

Haha I wash every 1-2 days so midweek isn't a problem here. But yep, clean clothes each day except for jumper/jacket which lasts a few days. I also don't change DS when he gets home in the afternoon.. Don't see the point in doubling my washing load with play clothes!

As for hand me downs - I have no high hopes of hand me downs to dd. Trackies get holes in the knees, polo's are stained and have even been snipped with scissors I think! But we've had 2 yrs out of ds's uniform so I reckon that's pretty good heh.

No labels here as everything came with a space on the tag for their name so just did laundry marker on the tag.

[Mum2SweetCs]

Subbing.
I bought dd summer uniform at orientation but I got her 2 summer dresses but 1 a size up. Now I regret it as the normal one is already huge. Doh. 300 bucks after and I still get it wrong!

We also need to get shoes (school rec clarks) and the joggers need to be as white as possible.

So many items and thats just summer uniform.

[Astrid]

Our uniforms are dirt cheap, I can get them from Target, Best n Less, etc Which really is not great, as the quality does suffer and I can see DD1 in year 6 getting to smelling in all that poly. I would much rather fork out more for clothing that will last, as I doubt what I have bought will last till DD2, certainly all the polar fleece stuff wont, the bottle green looks greyish after wash or 3.

[Novella]

My DD has 3 polo shirts and 3 pairs shorts 1 dress for summer. Winter 2 pairs trackies, jeans and 2 jumpers.

I would get one jumper for the occasional cool days that come in summer

I refuse to let dd change after school, I do enough washing too!

[Liviam]

I am already having to hold ack my tears thinking about her first day. So sad but excited at the same time.

They are going to be si damn cute

[LuluHB]

Just wait though Dan. You're going to have tears when you drop her off, but then tears when she proudly tells you what she said for news, and when she gets a merit award, and when she comes home and tells you that you're the best mum in the world - and she knows this is so because none of the other mums do parents' day as well as you do ;-) As sad as it makes me that my girls are growing up, I'm bursting with pride watching their achievements and advancements at school.

Miss I is so excited because next year they stop wearing the sports uniform as her day to day uniform and she "finally gets to wear a pretty dress".

[Ginger]

i think im just going to start with buying the summer uniform- also need a separate sports uniform. this is going to cost a packet!

[Gigi]

i saved up for my DD starting school, and i easily went thru $500 (and that is public school, so no blazer, and being able to buy Best n Less/Target/Big w generic pieces e.g polo shirt in school colour. i didn't buy one thing from the school, with the school logo on it (much pricier).

What i learnt in her first year of school:

the shops have a major blitz in mid January, heaps of school stuff available and heaps of sizes, specials e.g pack of two long sleeve polos for $15 at Target

i bought a BIT of winter stuff in January, thinking the winter stuff would all be available later in the year e.g winter, but when it WAS actually winter, i noticed, the stuff in the shops was very limited e.g i could not find bilby's sizes anymore and there were zero of some products. So that taught me, note for 2013, buy heaps of winter stuff IN JANUARY cos that may be my only chance of getting it. Ditto about hats. I should have bought multiple hats back at the Jan sales, cos i couldn 't find them to buy (in the right size) later on in the year.

Labels - when bilby was younger, one year we got asked "what does bilby need for her birthday" and i said "name labels", the cloth ones you sew on. So i sewed them onto her childcare stuff, unpicked them and have now sewn them into her school clothes. So the upside of the cloth labels is that you can unpick and re-sew them to the current clothes, which is saving me money, being able to recycle them. But you have another younger LO, and it is an extra thing to do, iron on ones might be more time efficient for you.

If you can't label everything, prioritise your labelling. Jumpers, jackets, the stuff they put on and off the most, that is the most crucial stuff to label. Little kids take off clothing in the playground and run off to play, there goes the school jacket you just bought! LABEL HATS!!!! and yes, people do cut off labels. The laundry textas are good for marking.

For under school dresses, i bought some school coloured bike shorts, made of cotton, that best n less and target sell. (next to the yoga pants).

i found all cotton school colour socks, 4 for $10 at Cotton on Kids. (the school ones are polyester).

best n less is good for plain cotton singlets and knickers (the ribbed ones have great coverage). all cotton, good quality, price is reasonable, no annoying skinny elastic to dig into legs.

Socks - many kids all have identical looking socks - they all take them off to play in the sandpit - so i got bilby's socks, instead of plain white or plain navy, i got stripey gold/navy ones - easy to work out which socks next to the sandpit are hers.

I bought navy corduroy trousers for my child for winter, she REFUSED to wear them, would only wear the navy yoga pants, so that was my lesson - don't assume your child will wear everything you choose.

It's easy to get behind with the washing, so don't have so few that you HAVE to wash every few days. The good thing with the polo shirts, is that they dry very fast, e.g wash the night before, dry the next morning.

Shoes - first term we had school sandals (first buckles). Second and third term we had closed in shoes that did up with velcro, they died a month shy of term 3 holidays, replaced with lace up sneakers - at this stage bilby was ready and able and motivated to do up laces - that's an individual call, i had no idea WHEN she would have the motor skills to do that, she surprised me by wanting to be independent. Term 4, i'm sure i will have to fork out for new sandals, and HOPE that over the summer holidays, she doesn't grow out of them.

so i skimp on the clothing and buy one pair of supportive school shoes. She's always in the school colours, which is the criteria of the school. She was the only girl NOT in a summer uniform dress, something i can't get at the cheap shops - and i'm finding the "school culture" of 2nd hand uniforms, like a secret society. When i finally work out HOW and WHERE to buy the 2nd hand uniforms, i will buy her a 2nd hand summer uniform dress. I think her school does this by private networking, not on an official basis.

oh, and don't ONLY look in the school clothing part of shops. For e.g our school colours are gold and navy. I found some good stuff in the "normal" girl and boy sections, e.g plain navy jacket in the girls, plain navy trousers and shorts in the boys. School uniforms seem to start at Size 4, and as i had a Size 3 child to outfit, i found the "normal" sections very helpful, because then i could buy the size 3's she needed at the start of Reception.

if your child has hair you intend to put up each day, best n less have bulk school hairties/headbands/clips in the school colours. Price Attack has them too.

School expenses don't stop at uniforms, i saved up the year before she started school and now she is at school, i save up every fortnight, in an Education account, so that i CAN come up with the money when the notes come home for "$30 for school swim lessons" etc, as well as the big outlay in January.

i bought a LITTLE winter stuff Jan 2012, but come Jan 2013, i will take it more seriously, buy multiple hats. And a school cardigan, even in Jan 2012 i could not get Reception size..

Recently, Target was selling off winter school colour skivvies for $1.83, so i bought up her size for next winter. I'm rarely in the shops, so was glad to stumble across that clearance.

i think "pull up" clothing, like elasticised waist shorts, trackypants, yogapants etc, are great for Receptions, toiletting independently at school. My child could not go to the loo in a skirt or dress, without getting naked !!!, back in Term 1 this year LOL. She didn't have the motor skills and co-ordination to manage the clothing AND go to the toilet at the same time. So maybe it was a blessing i coudln't get her a school summer uniform dress.

If your kid can't yet do laces, don't worry, unless it's a private school that stipulates "must wear lace up shoes", you can go down the velcro sandals route or velcro sneakers. I worried about shoes too, then found out the school was quite relaxed about shoes. They need shoes to climb and run in, lots of playground time in Reception, so grippy shoes are important i think, for their safety. (but that is my own opinion, safety first).

buy the stuff, keep receipts and tags on. Try it on your child BEFORE removing tags.

Then you have the whole mindset of lunchbag/lunchbox/drink bottle to get your head around - that sounded so simple, and took me ages to work out ha ha. (to get it all fitting in the school bag).

i need to buy bilby a pair of skorts right now, can only find size 16 skorts at Target now in Sept, i doubt they've restocked since Jan!

[Tegam]

I have enough to get through the whole week without washing. Means the uniforms are being worn less which = them lasting longer.

Two hats as one always seems to wonder.

Mine wear joggers. Accent joggers are a few more $$ but have lasted the year out four times now. Where as the cheaper ones are having to be replace one a term or semester.