The end of school holidays

We're bored, we want to do something, we want to go somewhere?

Where can we go and spend money, where can we go and spend your money??

How many parents have had conversations revolving around these statements over the last 7 weeks or so? How many parents have lived in fear of what would come next if the holidays carried on much longer!!

As we sit here, most of us have spent the last week doing the "uniform thing". Buying sports clothes and new shoes and making sure that everything is named so it can be easily identified, when, in the first week it is lost!!!

But why do schools still play the game of trying to be unique and making their pupils have uniform that can only be bought from certain shops and not from the usual budget haunts that are used, not purely because we are "cheapskates" but because our children will - 

• grow out
• ruin
• lose
• refuse to wear
• never have to wear
• swap

A large proportion of this so called bespoke uniform, so I do not feel it unreasonable of me to be happier if this is happening to a £3.00 shirt rather than the £20.00 shirt that the school insists upon!!

So I have a theory here, a theory based upon a certain amount of experience, learned from many years of business. One made without prejudice, so don't come after me with a big stick, but I sort of smell a rat here.........

Why would a school insist I buy uniform at an over-inflated price from a specific shop? 

1. The aforementioned uniform is not of such a stunning quality it is unique.
2. The clothes are not of a material that grows with my children.
3. The clothes do not have a homing device fitted so they cannot be lost.
4. If they are "borrowed" by another, they don't cover a new owner with a permanent ink.
5. They are not coated with some sort of coating so they can't be ruined.
6. They don't have an auto-wear facility so they must be worn.
7. They always stay in fashion, so they are never threatened with not being worn.

All of these make you ask why I can't purchase shirts from Tesco or Blazers from Matalan??

Well here is a possibility, it is not proven and only a thought, but it is a possible one and does make sense - 

If we have to use the shop that the school says, and we have to pay the stupid prices as told by the shop, is it not a reasonable assumption to make, that the school is therefore receiving a healthy back hander from the shop, or if not the actual school, maybe the head, secretary or selected other people who are telling us to go to the shop!!!

So if my theory is correct, and because I have a thing about under handed methods, I would rather pay the school fund £20.00 up front and then shop where I want. I appreciate this is controversial, but that is my view!!

Any others?????