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Daily Mirror
14 hours ago
- General
- Daily Mirror
Thousands of parents can get up to £200 help toward school uniform cost
You could get up to £200 toward school uniform costs if you're on a low income, claiming benefits or receiving free school meals - we explain who is eligible and how it works School uniform can be really expensive - but there is help out there if you're struggling with the cost of sending your kids back to school. You could get up to £200 toward school uniform costs if you're on a low income, claiming benefits or receiving free school meals. The grants, which don't need to be paid back, are provided by some local councils. School uniform grants are provided by all councils in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and only some in England. This is because the help isn't a statutory requirement in England, which means councils don't have to offer the support. The exact eligibility criteria varies between councils. The average cost of compulsory secondary school uniform and sportswear in England for 2024 is £92.35 per pupil, according to the Schoolwear Association. School uniform grants explained England: Last year, only 28 councils in England provided school uniform grants, according to City of London council awarded £160 in help for secondary school kids, while Sandwell Council offered £25 per secondary school child. If you're not sure who your local council is, enter your postcode on Scotland: All councils in Scotland offer school uniform grants worth at least £120 if your child is in primary school, and £150 if they are in secondary school. Some councils pay more than this - for example, Shetland Islands Council offers grants of £150 if your child is in early years, £180 for primary school children and £225 if your child is in secondary school. Most councils will accept applications from July until the end of March. Visit for more information. Wales: All councils in Wales offer school uniform grants worth £125, or £200 if your child is going into secondary school. The 2025/26 scheme is open now and will close on May 31, 2026. Find more information on Northern Ireland: Northern Ireland families can get up to £93.60 to put toward school uniform costs if the child is in secondary school and is 15 years or older. If they're in secondary school but under the age of 15, the rate is £87.60. The grant is worth £42.90 for primary school pupils. The deadline to apply is July 25, 2025, through the Education Authority website. Other ways to get help with school uniform If your council doesn't offer a school uniform grant, you may be able to claim help through its Household Support Fund. It is also worth speaking to your school to see what help they can offer you. Some charities also offer grants to help cover the costs of school uniform - although again, you'll normally need to be on a low income or claim benefits. Turn2Us has a free grants search tool so you can find out what help is available to you. It is also worth keeping an eye on local buy and sell Facebook groups for other parents selling school uniform.
The Independent
28-04-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Who's to blame that school uniforms are absurdly expensive?
It is curious to me that after multiple cost-of-living crises, a surge in inflation and deep cuts to the welfare budget, parents are still being railroaded into buying horribly expensive school uniforms for their kids. Mercifully, change is finally coming, via the Children's Wellbeing & Schools Bill, currently in the House of Lords. As well as introducing new safeguards to children's welfare and free breakfast clubs in all state-funded primaries, it will also limit the number of branded items that headteachers can require pupils to wear, to three (excluding tie). As measures go, it is hoped it will bring down the cost of a school uniform and save parents £50 a year per pupil. The price of kitting out a child comes to £442 for the average secondary school student, and £343 for primary-age pupils, and can be a struggle for a significant number of parents. The Department for Education has published analysis showing that more than 4m children will benefit from the simple rule change. The Schoolwear Association is not best pleased at the prospect of its members losing some £70m a year in branded clothing sales. 'High-quality uniforms are durable and eco-friendly, lasting longer and reducing the need for frequent replacements, thus supporting environmental sustainability,' it said. Back in the real world, one wonders if anyone working for that august organisation has ever actually had a school-age child? Fun fact: they grow. At an astonishingly rapid rate during the teenage years. About that 'high-quality, durable, eco-friendly' blazer with the school logo on the breast pocket… a growth spurt could easily put it out of use by the end of the autumn term. It was the shoes that did it for us. The state of them at the end of a school year left us scratching our heads – it was as if they'd been pushed through a giant paper shredder. The law of sod means it is inevitably the most expensive kit that gets wrecked first. The Schoolwear Association's apparent rejection of generic kit, and thus the free market, also ignores another inconvenient truth: low-cost doesn't necessarily mean low quality. Affordable school clothes from a Tesco or a Sainsbury's usually last just fine. Those supermarkets have a keen eye for quality, and tend to be reluctant to sell kit that falls apart in five minutes, notwithstanding the teenager's in-built appetite for destruction. One of my proudest moments as a school governor was to enable parents to shop for uniform at Tesco, after having been restricted to a small and often obnoxious local supplier that charged through the nose and treated its customers like dirt. As it turned out, it wasn't a hard argument to win. The school took the point. One can't help but feel that the fussiness some headteachers still display over logo-spattered uniforms is little more than a power trip, a means of keeping the parents in line as well as the children.
BBC News
28-04-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
School uniforms to change for four million pupils under plans
Planned changes to school uniform policy will affect over four million pupils across England, according to new estimates from the Department for Education (DfE).The government says seven in 10 secondary schools and 35% of primary schools in England will have to reduce the number of compulsory branded items to three, plus a branded tie for secondary new rule is part of the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which still has several parliamentary stages to go through before becoming a government says families will save money, but school wear manufacturers warn the plans could end up costing them more. The average cost of a full school uniform and PE kit for a child at secondary school is £442, and is £343 for a primary school pupil, according to the latest DfE statutory guidance, introduced by the previous government, requires schools to consider the cost of their uniform so that it is not a deciding factor for parents when choosing current government wants to go further, by limiting the number of items unique to a school that have to be bought from designated government claims parents will save around £50 per child through the school uniform measures, which it hopes to introduce in September uniform retailers warn that the planned changes might increase costs for families. The Schoolwear Association says the plans could mean parents spend more on replacing lower-quality generic garments which might not last as long as branded items. They say branded uniforms also play a role in reducing inequality in schools and improving behaviour. Many parents rely on uniform exchanges to afford the full list of items required by their children's Darlington Borough Council's exchange, located on the ground floor of a multi-storey car park, all the uniforms have been donated and are free to local parents, who are able to stock up on branded items from over 25 schools in the exchange has been running for five years and has given out approximately 12,000 items to 4,000 Kay says she is worried some school uniform policies will still be too strict even after the government's planned limit on logos comes into force."Some of the schools are particular about a certain skirt, a certain style from a certain supplier - so that can cause problems and be quite expensive for parents," she she says it is a good thing that more parents will be able to buy more of their uniforms from other retailers, like supermarkets. In Darlington town centre, one mum with two sons at primary school and a daughter in secondary said she was worried about the jump in uniform costs coming when her sons join secondary school."It's just a nightmare," she said."My daughter's school is really strict on the uniform. You can't get black trousers, it's got to be grey, or pleated skirts. For their shoes alone I'm looking at £60 a year, and there's three of them. That's not including blazers, PE kits or anything else."It's a lot of money when it all adds up."Matt Perry, head teacher at The Halifax Academy in West Yorkshire, says he makes sure pupils follow the school's rules on uniform, but also wants to ensure it is affordable for school gives its pupils ties for free, and parts of the PE kit and a school blazer are the only compulsory items with branding school may cut back further if limits to branded items are brought in. The school is in an area of Halifax with high deprivation, and has a uniform bank as well as a laundrette to wash pupils' Perry says branded school uniform can bring a sense of pride and inclusion, but that tough uniform policies can be a barrier to attendance."There are so many different factors that children have to face in order to have clean and correct uniform that is used daily," he says."As long as we see the families really trying to adhere to the uniform policy that we've got, we can be flexible with how we interpret that. So if it is in the right colours but it's not branded, that doesn't matter to us."The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill is due to go through its second reading in the House of Lords later this week.
