A Year in Reviews-Kindergartner's School Uniform clothing items

School's out!

It seems like just yesterday we were attending Preschool graduation. Tomorrow is the last day of school for our daughter, and I can't believe how fast this school year has gone. During her first year at elementary school, she has made new friends and learned many new things, probably most importantly reading and writing simple sentences and basic addition and subtraction.  Socially, she made new friends and learned how to hold her own on the playground with the big kids at after school care.

Since she started Kindergarten at a school with an established uniform dress code, she doesn't know any different when it comes to school clothes. I've become a fan of the uniform dress code because it makes getting dressed for school each day very simple.  After I learned which stores carry uniform collections, shopping for her clothes is simple.  I've become a fan of several brands that have held up well for her this past school year.  Some items didn't work so well, and we'll skip over those during next year's shopping.  I've learned when things go on sale and learned to spot a bargain on the quality items.  

As we wrap up the school year, I thought I'd look back at the items from my daughter's Kindergarten wardrobe that I've reviewed this school year. Last fall, I set out to buy a week's worth of school clothes and hoped to pick items that would last the full year.  Each of these represent lessons learned- some good and some bad.

• Izod School Uniform Bermuda Shorts
• Cherokee School Uniform Pants
• Izod Flat Front Skirt
• Cherokee School Uniform Scooter
• Izod Short-Sleeve Woven Shirt
• George brand long-sleeve polos
• H&M's Organic Cotton T-shirts
• Lands End Girls Uniform Pleated Twill Skort
• Cardigan sweaters (Land's End, Cherokee and French Toast)
• Lands' End Knit Ruffle Front Dress
• Children's Place Active Skort and Fold-over Active Pants
• Myself Belt's Navy Canvas belt
• Lands End Kiki 3 Strap Skimmer shoes
• Saucony Radar LT LTT Sneakers
• Stride Rite Carla shoes 
• Cherokee uniform shoes (Falda Ballet)

(photo used with permission from Microsoft)

H&M School Uniforms - Retail Round Up Series

A few weeks ago, I was in H&M when I noticed a rack of uniform clothes tucked in the corner of the girls department.  Their simple offering included the following items:

• pleated skirts in navy, khaki, and gray
• a knit jumper in navy and khaki
• short sleeve polo shirts in navy, light blue and gray

Photo by Uniform Mom

I am unsure if this indicated a corporate effort to get into the retail space of offering children's clothing for kids in schools with uniform dress codes or if this was an effort by a local store manager to organize and display the inventory together. If it was the effort of a store manager, I'd give him or her an A for effort.  But I'd give corporate a D plus. Here's why.

The Spend - our actual cost for School Uniforms

So after reflecting on the school uniform items we purchased for our daughter's first year at public school, I wondered how much it all cost.  I tend save my shopping receipts in a box during the year, so I dug through the box to find the receipts for all of the items I mentioned in our Kindergarten Wardrobe post.

According to Statistics Brain, the average annual cost to parents for school uniforms is $249.  Unfortunately, this source doesn't provide any background on what they include as school uniforms.  If I don't include items such as shoes, coat, backpack and lunchbox that we'd need regardless of dress code, I come in right under the average at $234.  If those big ticket items are included, my spend is way above average adding an additional $146 to my annual spend.  So here's how it breaks down:

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Tops:
Izod short sleeve polo $7, Old Navy short sleeve polo $6, George Girls' Long Sleeve Polo Shirt 2/$11, H&M short sleeve t-shirts (2) $6, H&M long sleeve t-shirt (2) $10

Bottoms:
Lands End skort $20, Izod skirt $7.50, Cherokee Uniform Pants (2) $12, Children's Place Yoga Pants $5, Circo leggings $5, Izod shorts (2) $7

Dresses and Sweaters:
Lands End dress $22.50, Lands End sweater $22.50, Cherokee sweater $10, French Toast sweater $10

Accessories:
French Toast Tights (2pk) $11, French Toast socks $7, French Toast bike shorts $8, French Toast belt $9

Other necessities:
Lands End lunch box $14, Lands End Backpack $26, Oshkosh jacket $30, Stride Rite sneakers $30, Stride Rite shoes $46

All items are rounded to the nearest twenty five cents.  In some cases, I could not locate my actual receipt, so I then substituted the retail cost of the item that I could verify online.  In most cases, I purchased items on sale, used a coupon code and/or received free shipping.

(photo used with permission from Microsoft)

Related Posts:

Our Kindergarten Wardrobe
Modesty on the Playground
Building a Boys School Uniform Wardrobe

H&M's Organic Cotton T-shirts

On PE days, my daughter is required to wear "navy sweat pants, skort or shorts, and a plain white or navy t-shirt or sweat shirt". As we started the school year, she had several plain white short sleeve Organic t-shirts from H&M. They were a staple in her preschool wardrobe. She wore them with basic navy shorts when it was warmer. As the weather grew colder, I returned to H&M and found the long sleeve version of the same shirt. She paired them with basic navy leggings from Target and Children's Place. Today during the heart of winter, I found the turtleneck version of this same organic t-shirt. Two for $14.95.

Although our school policy allows the basic t-shirt (think Hanes), these have worked as a more stylish and comfortable alternative for our daughter. They have a feminine fit, are soft and have the right amount of stretch to them.

Most of H&M t's kids shirts are sold in a 2 pack; however, it seems I've bought some of these as individual items too. And not all of their t-shirts are the same. I just browsed through my daughter's dresser and found that the ones we like better have "Made in Bangladesh." printed at the bottom of the sewn in tag or printed in the shirt on the tagless variation. We have several of a similar style that are "Made in Turkey". Attached to the sales tag was a green tag that encouraged me to visit hm.com/conscious. I checked it out and browsed the site that summarized H&M's "...vision is that all business operations shall be run in a way that is economically, socially and environmentally sustainable." This lead me to click on a link to read more about H&M's Bangladesh Development Plan. It was nice to see a brand acknowledge difficult issues in the clothing industry and present a plan to let us, as consumers, know that they are working to make things better for those folks who make the clothing items that my daughter enjoys wearing.

H&M's online store is not available in all areas. Here is their store locator.