Writing this title almost seemed a bit crazy, as we still have over three weeks left of the summer holidays and no one wants to wish it away. The reality however is I do not want to be stressing about uniform and shoes on the weekend before they go back to school.
Therefore I thought I would get organised and also share my 5 top tips for getting ready for back to school.
- Buy enough uniform so that you only need to wash it once a week – I make sure all the kids have five sets of everything just because it takes the pressure of me in the week, and I make sure to do all their washing on a Friday evening, ready for Monday.
- Label Label Label – good labels are the key to your kids uniform not floating around in the abyss that is lost property. We were kindly sent a Back to School Easy to Use Iron on label pack for each of the kids from Labels4Kids. Each pack contained 27 iron on labels, 2 bag tags, 26 stick on name labels, and 26 shoes labels with covers. The iron on labels went on amazingly well, and seem very secure, and are perfect for clothing, whereas the stickers are brilliant for naming things such as water bottles, lunch boxes, pencil cases and stationary. They retail at £24.99 per pack and you get more than enough to do more than one school years worth of clothes and accessories.
- Get in there early for school shoes – now a lot of people question me on this – ‘Don’t your kids feet grow?’ but I had an experience a few years ago when the diva that is Izzie didn’t get the shoes that she wanted. It was nightmare and I didn’t hear the end of it! Also I’m very specific in what type of school shoes I like – I find patent works best in girls shoes, as they do not scratch at all. I always make sure I have their shoes purchased by the second week of the holidays to take the pressure off. If they are at the top end of a size I will also insist that they go half a size up, and will use insoles if necessary for the first few months. Izzie is now starting her 4th year at school, and we have only had to buy one pair of school shoes a year for her.
- Check all correspondence from the school for any admin bits and pieces you need to do. For example Izzie and Ollie’s school meals now need to be ordered online the week prior. I have gone ahead and booked and paid for their meals up until half term. Its just one less thing to think about on a weekly basis.
- Update your diary/calendar/phone calendar with events for the next few months. You can check the schools website to find this out, but it means you are less likely ro be caught out by a random non uniform day, or a special assembly.
Those are my top tips for going back to school – this year I will be taking and dropping both Izzie and Ollie in one place in the morning – it will definitely seem very strange. I feel like I will have to be even more on the ball now to keep on top of washing and homework and playdates for two of them, and so any easy way to get a head start is winner with me.
What are your top tips for preparing for back to school?
Labels4Kids have kindly offered my readers a discount off of their products – you can get 10% off by using the code BLOG on their website.
Disclaimer: We were kindly provided a pack of labels for Izzie, Ollie and Mason by Labels4Kids, but all opinions and photographs are my own.