In Zoe Wood’s article (Back to school: do uniforms really need to cost a fortune?, 19 August), Matthew Easter, chair of the Schoolwear Association, vastly underestimates the impact of requiring multiple school-branded uniform items on family budgets.
Most secondary school students spend a maximum of two hours a week doing PE. That’s 78 hours a year. On this basis, it’s hard to justify the school-branded PE shorts, T-shirts, tracksuit bottoms, hoodies and socks still required by many secondary schools. Given that children are unlikely to wear school-branded items outside school, this is not only a huge waste of money, it’s also bad for the environment.
