How to spend £1300 on British Prep School Uniforms?

 

 

It has been six weeks since my family and I moved to the UK. I am finally sitting down to start my blog. I am not sure it will be good, funny or even long lasting, only time will tell. It certainly will not be perfect and I will learn as a go (setting up was a trickier than I planned!). Aiden started school this week and we are still living in our temporary accommodation at Seaview Cottage, Fawley, UK and really anxious to get settled in our permanent accommodation. Things seem to move slowly here…..husband says it is a bit like Glace Bay, Cape Breton.

We have the privilege of sending the children to a private school whilst here in the UK. I wanted to tell the world about getting the school uniforms together, which is less about school uniforms and more about some of the madness in moving overseas.

We settled on Stroud School as it seemed to be the warmest and less formal of the schools we visited. Nonetheless it has a uniform for both kids: Aiden in Year 3 and Allie in the Nursery. The uniform lists for both kids included no less than 85 items, I kid you not. There are the everyday uniforms and the sports uniforms or sports kit, which for Aiden will be football (aka: soccer), swimming and rugby.  Cricket and field hockey uniforms are later. The number of items I cannot even identify is close to fifty percent and I basically ignored it for a few weeks: legionnaire sun hat, velco plimsolls, swimming costume, pinafore, wellie socks, Mistral jacket, gum shield, rucksack, trainers and scrum hat (which thankfully is optional, because I still have no idea what that hat is). Take a look for yourself: https://www.stroud-kes.org.uk/admissions/uniform

 

Thinking that it would be easier to go in person to the uniform shop was the driver for going to the seaside town of Bournemouth for a few nights with the kids.  You know – try on the clothes, figure out the UK sizing, purchase all 85 items in one fell swoop versus going to fifty shops. However, that would assume that the uniform shop actually had a clue and inventory, which were big assumptions on my part.

 

When we turned up I am still optimistic as we are assigned our very own lovely teenage salesgirl named Beth who grabs a binder, basket and looks keen.  I explain that we are new here, need everything and essentially want five of each of the day to day uniform. Beth comes back to the dressing room with one shirt for Aiden, which is too small. I reiterate in my nice Canadian way that we are new to the school, have nothing on the list and we need everything on the list, and suggest maybe she could bring two sizes of the items at one time, for both kids.  She comes back with one more shirt for Aiden. It fits and I say, “Great, I’ll take five!”.  It is at this point Beth goes to the stockroom, which seems to be located possibly on a different planet and tells me that is: “Out of stock”.

 

This goes on for about another hour with the stockroom trips getting longer and longer while the kids slowly turn into Children of the Corn and I am in a hot puddle of sweat and rage, until I grab the basket as is and beeline to the cash.  Another name I considered for my inaugural blog post was: How I nearly went to jail for killing Beth. For £300, we came home with one pair of trousers, two different sized PE shorts (for the same kid), one dress, one pinafore, two blouses, four different kinds of jackets, a kit bag, and a water bottle and in the end – I ORDERED THE REST OF THE SHIT ONLINE.  £1000 later, we still have a few items to purchase.

 

Like the uniforms, many other things required to get settled are just as complicated. Some days it feels like nothing is easy, e.g.:

• I need a physical card reader machine sent from the bank to do any electronic transfer online- for security reasons.
• You need the seller’s and buyer’s real estate agents to view a property, there are no key boxes (possible employment strategy).
• Paying to park at the grocery store or mall, paying for shopping trolleys, paying to pee at the train station.
• Four trips to the Post Office, three sets of passport photos and still no ID card for miss Allie Bear.
• Possible 45 roundabouts on the current school run from Fawley to Romsey, four times a day (this will be much better when we get our house..).
• A disturbing lack of Starbucks drive throughs and Vietnamese nail salons.

 

But I digress.  We are learning to laugh about it and coming to expect things to be bit a bit more complicated. Aiden survived his first day of school and on day two I forgot the track suit and water bottle, of course, and was late. On his first day, he was up before 7:00AM asking for his uniform and tied his own shoes. I was so proud of him – this is his third new school in three years so lots of mom guilt here.  Allie starts the nursery next week after her mandatory transitioning sessions (see, nothing is straightforward).

 

Note: I tried to italicize some of my new English language. Please do not think I’m a poser for using it so soon but really you must if you want to communicate with people here.  If you ask someone for a bathroom you will get the raised eyebrow or strange look. It’s a toilet here, possibly a loo, with toilet roll not toilet paper and you may have to pay 25p to use it.