Shopping for school shoes

Jesus **** Christ!

Now I know why MrsMC was keen to swap roles and go to work full time.

Just under an hour to be served, only to find that they didn’t have what we liked/wanted/could get away with in their size. For either of them.

It was rammed, and I was the only Dad going through the ordeal – lots of yummy mummys on their mobiles cancelling playdates/lunches due to the delays at shoe shop, one cow walking out in disgust after her darling son couldn’t possibly wear school shoes on his first day at school as they were so much heavier than the trainers he was used to, entitled so and sos “not realising” that they needed to take a ticket and be served in order of arrival. Then bitching cos 6 families had come in after them but remembered the tickets

And I’ll have to go somewhere else tomorrow and try it all over again… 👿

Can you still get Clark’s Commandos?

Go to Clarks, purchase sensible black shoes.

Job jobbed.

pretty sure the Op is talking about Clarks. You can make an appnt onlin with clarks now and waltz in ahead of the rest. Or just get them measured there and purchase online at your liesure.

Buy this:

Clarke Junior Shoe Gauge

Then never have to visit a bricks and mortar shop again.

Wasn’t Clark’s – LittleMissMC is quite hard on shoes and wears out Clark’s quicker than she grows out of them. Start Rite for us…

Clarks is also bedlam similar to the OP’s description – round our way anyway.

Buy a clarks / startrite foot measure and then buy the shoes online.

So pleased to hear that someone is keeping up standards and purchasing good shoes from Start Rite 😀

WTAF??
Asda for school shoes.
Just as hard wearing but at a 1/5 of the price!
Went through the “Clarkes last forever” phase a number of years ago.
They scuff them, mark them and they still only last a term until they’re wrecked os usually too small.
Fine when there are smaller siblings but what happens then?
£10-15 for a pair and when they’re trashed/too small they get binned.
Thats with 2 fashionable teenagers now btw – they know how fast they kill shoes are and choose their own now.

Try having to buy school shoes for a teenager with size 14 feet. Last time round they cost £95. They did last the whole year though, they were a little threadbare at the very end.

Clarks have an unspoken monopoly where kids shoes are concerned. My girls (6 & 10) have had two or three pairs a year since they started school. They are going to get measured there again on Saturday. Youngest will be getting another pair as usual but eldest is starting to break free of Clarks at last. Wants Kickers this time and her ‘summer’ school shoes bought last spring were black Vans, much to the consternation of the wife.

I suspect that 90% of the kids on the school yard on he first day back will all have Clarks on.

We did the Clarks ting Sunday morning x3 kids.

Ridiculous money for shoes but the wife is convinced they will end up with rickets if we don’t.

Our local only employs pretty ladies in very low cut tops who insist on kneeling in front of you for your entire visit, I have to stare at the ceiling begging the Lord for forgiveness.

The ceiling is mirrored, right?

Hush Puppies last well, also the quality at asda is very good now, they must have a new qc there 😉

The Clarkes thing is down to years of mothers telling everyone that they are the best, passing it down the line.
They may used to have been the best, longest lasting, etc but not anymore by a long way.
They were long lasting because they were huge, built out of pig iron and the weight of an aircraft carriers anchor so impossible to move quick enough in them to wear them out.
However they are not always that good for kids feet.
My eldest has hypermobility (thanks to her mum) and the shoes Clarks used to recommend made it worse in her early years. It wasn’t until the specialist went through everything that she advised to never put her in a pair again due to the general weight and rigidity of them. Her recommendation was actually for a cheap light pair that could be thrown away if need be when she outgrew them with an easily removable insole that was thin and could be cut to allow her orthotic. Clarks couldn’t do this yet Primarni, Asda, Brantano, etc all had loads. At a fraction of the cost.
Her younger sister know is about to start with her orthotics and the same thing from another specialist has been said – no heavy, stiff shoes as they don’t allow the foot to move naturally, etc. No Clarks, etc – just a light shoe that can be done up to hold the foot. People forget that kids feet need to move allowing them to grow, bare feet as much as possible, etc.
Of course every kid is different but both specialists stated they wouldn’t put their own kids in Clarks shoes.

Bluearsedfly – do you children now own 30 pairs of Clarks shoes

Our local only employs pretty ladies in very low cut tops who insist on kneeling in front of you for your entire visit,

I think it must be company policy. My local also employs one token weekend boy who looks so terrified to be surrounded by the constant leg/cleavage on display but must have a lifetime of imagery saved up for quiet moments on his own.

WTAF??
Asda for school shoes.
Just as hard wearing but at a 1/5 of the price!

Our experience was that they were not as hard wearing, or comfy when walking a mile to school each day, plus school day, plus walking home.
That and the nagging feeling someone’s 7 year old sewed them up in a backstreet in Bangaladesh.

If you went school shoe shopping in the last week of the holidays then you’re a dafty 🙂

Hmmmmm, Clarks.

Ideal for kicking the crap out of the little kids.

Um, that’ll be me then. The little kid.

We called at the Clarks outlet village on the way back from our hollybobs. Saved a lot of cash!!

Ahem, so which branch is that bluearsedfly? Just out of interest, like.

We went to Brantano in Leyland last week, you can serve yourself and they do Start Rite and Hush Puppies.

Daughter’s new Hush Puppies are way better quality and more comfy than the Clarks she’s had the last few years.

Her recommendation was actually for a cheap light pair that could be thrown away if need be when she outgrew them with an easily

Problem is that the cheap light shoes wear out in weeks rather than the 6 months the Clarks ones last.

bensales – Member
Buy this:

Clarke Junior Shoe Gauge

Then never have to visit a bricks and mortar shop again.

I think I love you!

I find that Clarks measure their feet for now, and don’t allow any/very little growing.

They get a little upset if you ask for a half size up.

We have started using other brands too, but not Asda. 🙄

Just went to buy my school shoes in Clarks. 0 cleavage, I feel robbed.

I have to take Jnr to the opticians tomorrow. Clarks is next door, based on bluearsedfly’s endorsement I’ve said to the OH that I could take Jnr to try on shoes too. At 15 I’m sure Jnr will thank me too,

Jnr has to go go the opticians tomorrow before Round 2 of the School Shoe Shop.

Our local Specsavers has a similar recruitment policy to shoe shops. 8) I fear my 13 year old son may be blind by the end of tomorrow.

Try Asda shoes. Half the price and last really well. Not sure why we are happy to buy shoes from anywhere else but when it comes to school shoes we all feel we have to traipse off to Clarks for special fitting.

Sadly our Specsavers doesn’t MCTD 🙁

Our last Asda shoes lasted better than Clarks, but daughter has really narrow feet so they can be a bit roomy for her.

Whatever never buy Deichmann. They lasted a few days before the sole started coming away from the upper.

Mrs Jay is tackling this today, rather her than me, but she used to work in a shoe shop when she was a student and seems to enjoy it.

I believe this years Master Jay is having, almost plain black Converse shoes.
Daps

Usually we buy him StartRite or Clarkes, I’ve rolled the dice with Supermarket shoes in the past and they’ve lasted weeks, this year was an all-time record and we just about made a full year on a single pair of clarks, but he’s getting a bit older and not growing so quickly and running around a bit less, the last few weeks he just wore his black trainers to school.

It’s his last year before High School, this current school is pretty flexible with ‘uniform’ they’ll allow most things, but not very heavily branded bright trainers, mostly because no one wants to start an arms race between certain circles of mums who treat the school yard as a pissing contest, so we’ll letting him have the daps.

Next year he’s going to have to suffer full strict uniform including insanely expensive blazer which he’ll hate and never wear unless forced, but not as much as I’ll hate paying for (the words “two hundred pounds for a blazer” have been thrown around with gay abandon”. I refuse to believe they’ve properly thought it through, they’ve confused causation with correlation – it’s seems that schools with very strict, expensive uniforms get great GCSE results, but I suspect there’s more to Eton’s excellent results than the clothes they make them wear…

Buy a shoe measuring thing, then buy shoes online. Beautiful experience by comparison. Lets face it, “trained shoe fitter” most likely means 10 mins on how to use the sizing thing. http://www.johnlewis.com/clarks-shoe-fitting-gauge-junior/p231603938

Next year he’s going to have to suffer full strict uniform including insanely expensive blazer which he’ll hate and never wear unless forced, but not as much as I’ll hate paying for (the words “two hundred pounds for a blazer” have been thrown around with gay abandon”. I refuse to believe they’ve properly thought it through, they’ve confused causation with correlation – it’s seems that schools with very strict, expensive uniforms get great GCSE results, but I suspect there’s more to Eton’s excellent results than the clothes they make them wear…

Tell me about it. Come september uniform issues will the the bane if my **** life because the **** in SLT cannot firstly grasp the need to be really clear about what is and isnt a black shoe and then after me getting weeks of shit from parents about what us and isnt a **** shoe SLT will climb down anyway!!
I shit you not at a previous school a member of SLT tried to give me piece of plastic to measure the distance between girls knees and skirts to tell if it was too short. I told him to piss off and would be calling my union if he pressed me on the matter!!

Tip, school shoe shop weekday evenings 4-6, mummy’s with their little ones will be at home.