Surrey school uniform pop-up shop sees queues out of the door
Walton Charity hosted two school uniform pop-up shops where they saw twice the demand compared to last year
Charities are having to divert more of their funding to support parents buying uniform ahead of the start of term, according to a Surrey charity.
Department of Education figures have the average cost of a primary school uniform shop being around £350, and nearly £450 for a secondary school pupil.
Recently Walton Charity hosted two school uniform pop up events, where they served twice as many people compared to last year and saw queues going out of the door.
Rob Mills, who is the CEO of the charity, says that he wasn't expecting the demand to increase as dramatically as it did.
"We had people queuing out the door. We were opening at ten o'clock and we had people from half nine queuing out for that, so word of mouth got there.
We thought we might get more people, but I think we were taken aback that it was so many more people."
Mills says that a key difficulty facing parents is school's policies on branded uniforms. He says some parents are having to turn down perfectly good options due to it not fitting with school rules
" I think one of the challenges is the branded uniforms that the schools insist on. We're having people coming in and in some cases, to me a shirt looked okay, it's a really nice white shirt, but they were saying that we can't take that because the collar's not the right shape for the for the school uniform."
Mills says that he's noticed more schools being picky, however suggested a solution to part of the problem.
"Rather than having an embroidered badge on the blazer, perhaps they could have a sew on badge. So you could buy the blazer from anywhere, but then just sew on the badge rather than having to go to particular suppliers to get it.
We have seen an increase in schools insisting on certain branded uniforms."
Mills added that it's a great feeling being able to help out so many families in a tricky time.
"We know from the news, just the general cost of living is going up and food inflation is carrying on as well. So school uniforms is just one element that people are struggling with day in, day out, but particularly this week.
The look on the children's faces when they picked up a backpack and many of them just put it back straight on their back and walked out of the shop with it and it's so so powerful"