school uniforms in Glasgow

What did you do?

My name is Leanne McGuire and I’m the Chair of Glasgow City Parents Group. I felt this year many families may find themselves in a position they have never been in before, worrying about how to afford school uniforms if their income had been drastically affected by Covid-19. I wanted to make it easy and discreet for families to access the support they needed and give them one less thing to worry about.

 I approached two local organisations that I knew were already providing similar services but on a smaller scale. Thankfully, they agreed to get involved. We set up the service in a matter of days and started to promote it across the city via social media.

 The service relied on donations, so there was an appeal to wash, fold and bag up donations of school uniform, jackets, blazers and footwear, with many donations being dropped off at my front door. All donated items were quarantined for 72 hours in line with infection control guidelines. The response from Glasgow was fantastic!

 Since Glasgow schools were closed, families were unable to access uniform from school run uniform rails and so this service provided a discrete and supportive alternative access point. Families emailed me their request. I didn’t ask anyone about their financial or employment situation. If someone emailed asking for help, that was enough.  

During the four weeks the service was running, we received almost 400 requests from families. With uniform packages averaging around 12 uniform items per child, we reused over 4000 uniform items.

 We gathered feedback on the service and asked families if they would be comfortable sharing further detail about their request. This information has now been used by me and one of our partners to submit a report to Glasgow City Council asking them if they would consider supporting this as an ongoing service rather than a Covid19 response only. We have yet to take it to the committee but we are hopeful this is not the end of a worthwhile service that not only eases the financial burden for families but promotes the reuse of school uniforms and reduces our city’s clothing waste.

What can we learn from you going forward?

Reusing school uniform should not have a stigma to it. It should be promoted as a good thing to do to help our environment. It should be promoted and encouraged more throughout Scotland to reduce the stigma from families who choose to use a recycled school uniform.