Cost of kitting out kids for school hits £240 per child – totalling £2.5bn

The investment doesn’t stop there, as the cost of keeping under-18s in school once term begins adds up to £50 per child per week. This regular expenditure includes everyday costs such as packed lunches, bus fares, school trips and after-school activities – comes to a total of £526m a week across the UK.

The research, by Santander Credit Cards, is published as parents across the country face the costly task of preparing their youngsters for the new school year. Costs have increased since last year, when the average parent spent £224 in preparation for the new school year – an above-inflation rise of 7% compared with 2013.

Excluding private education, parents with children at grammar schools spend the most, an average of £265 in the run up to school term plus an additional, ongoing £64 a week. This is followed by parents of children attending foundation or trust schools, who spend £261 getting ready for term time and £56 on a weekly basis. Corresponding costs for community schools are £250 plus £51 per week and for academies, £232 plus £41 per week.

But the costs for school uniform could be even higher for some parents, given that those with children attending schools demanding specialist and high quality uniforms (and often branded blazers and ties) have been forced to shell out as much as £500 to kit out one child.

According to the Santander research, school uniform (£39 per child), school shoes (£29) and jackets and coats (£28) are the biggest outlays for parents in advance of school term time. And once the school term begins, the biggest regular outgoing (per child per week) is school trips (£10) followed by packed lunches, extra-curricular activities, and school meals all at £8.

More than half (54%) of parents with children of a school age drive them to or from school at least once a week, with the average number of journeys being three per week.

As a result, the average parent who drives spends an estimated £220 on fuel each year and clocks up an additional 1,285 miles, the research found. Many parents relying on local authority-provided school transport or private alternatives are facing steep annual rises.







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