I emptied my PE bag onto the bedroom floor this week because the zip had started eating itself, and the pile looked like a small shop had fallen over. Logo polo. Logo shorts. Games socks with a stripe that is apparently not optional. A hoodie I am only allowed to wear on the days they decide are hoodie days. The blazer on the chair has a badge that cost more than the blazer deserved. The tie is rolled in the inside pocket, because I still cannot make both ends agree, and I have stopped pretending I will learn.
In April the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act became law in England. From September, primary schools may require at most three compulsory branded uniform or PE items. Secondary and middle schools may require four, if one of them is a tie. The government said some families could save up to about £50 per child. I wrote £50 on a scrap of paper, put the scrap on the hoodie, and looked at the rest of the floor.
The Department for Education’s own averages are still huge: about £343 for primary kit, more than £440 for secondary. Unions and the Schoolwear Association said the real saving might be small. I believe both sentences at once. £50 is a lot if you are already counting. £50 is also not the blazer, and it is not the second polo you need when the first one is wet from period four.
Here is the unofficial list, the one I could write from my locker without opening it. Branded blazer. Branded jumper — optional on the letter, not optional if the hall is cold. Tie. PE polo with the crest over the heart. PE skort or shorts with the same crest, because a plain navy pair from the supermarket is somehow not PE, even when it is the same colour and the same cotton. Trainers that have to be mainly white, which is a rule written by someone who does not wait for the bus in the rain. A house shirt for the days we are supposed to look like a team. A bag that does not have to be branded and still somehow is, because everyone else’s is, and the hook in the locker is only so wide.
The school shop sells the crest. Tesco sells a polo that looks like a polo. The difference is a small embroidered picture and a price that pretends the picture is the garment. In Business that is branding: you are not only buying fabric, you are buying the sign that you belong. If only one supplier is allowed to sell that sign, it is also a kind of monopoly. You cannot shop around for a badge. You can only shop around for the parts of the uniform that were never allowed to have a badge in the first place.
I do not hate the blazer. I hate the feeling that identity was sewn on so it could be invoiced. A logo is supposed to say we are one school. It also says we paid the one shop that was allowed to tell us that.
From September the pile is supposed to get shorter. I will believe that when the letter home has fewer bold lines and the PE polo is allowed to be a polo. Until then I am folding the hoodie tight so it fits next to the books, and I am thinking about the supermarket shirt I am not allowed to sweat in.
£50 would buy quite a few of those shirts. That is the Maths. The Business is why we were told they did not count.