I don’t know about you, but I dread buying school shoes. It’s such a lot of money to fork out in one hit and let’s face it, if you’re going to drop a couple of hundred bucks at the mall, school shoes probably aren’t at the top of your retail wish list!
However, they’re something that must be purchased at the beginning of every school year and after doing it for 10 years straight as a parent, not to mention the 3 months I spent working as a Christmas Casual in the Children’s Shoe Department at Myer Carindale back in 1991 AND the 15 years I spent teaching children how to read, write and tie their shoe laces, I’ve got a few tips up my sleeve that will help you when it comes to buying school shoes!
5 Tips For Buying School Shoes:
1. Do Your Research Pretty much every major shoe and department store put their school shoes on sale in January. Most will offer at least 20% discount, some as much as 30%. If you need to buy both school shoes and sports shoes, keep an eye out for buy one pair, get 50% off the second pair. That’s always a great offer and one I usually head to.
2. Get To The Shops Early If you need your child’s school shoes to be fitted, getting to the shops early is essential. Otherwise, you’ll be faced with a) not being able to get a carpark (frustrating) and b) having to wait as long as 30 minutes to be served once your actually inside the shop (annoying, especially if you have young children in tow!) I usually get to the shops bang on 9am, which means finding a park isn’t a big deal and you’ll be one of the first people served, which of course leaves more time for a soothing vodka latte cappuccino once you’re done.
3. Bring School Socks Make sure you take your child’s school socks with you. If they wear different socks with their sports shoes, bring those too. Trying on school shoes wearing the correct socks will ensure the shoes fit comfortably and properly!
4. Measure Both Feet This is a crucial step in getting school shoes fitted as most people have one foot slightly bigger than the other. If you’re getting school shoes fitted, make sure whoever is doing it measures both feet (length and width) and selects a shoe size based on the biggest foot.
5. Ensure There’s Room For Growth Unfortunately for our wallets, children insist on growing throughout the year, so when you’re buying school shoes, make sure there’s about a thumb width of space left between the top of their big toe and the end of the shoe. This will ensure the shoes will last for the entire year (hopefully!)
6. Wear The Shoes In If you can, get your child/ren to wear their school shoes and socks each day for an hour or so in the weeks leading up to school starting. This will help with a) getting your children used to wearing shoes again, after 6 weeks of fun in the Summer sun where most kids go barefoot or wear thongs and b) help break the shoes in a bit, which will help reduce the likelihood of blisters forming on the first day back at school.
7. Don’t Stress About The Laces If you’re child is starting Kindy/Prep/Year One this year and has to have lace up (as opposed to velcro) shoes, and can’t quite do their shoe laces up yet, don’t stress! Early Childhood teachers are basically shoe lace tying ninjas and will not only teach your child how to do it themselves, usually by the time the Easter Bunny arrives (that’s Teacher Talk for the end of Term One), but will also tie as many as 30 pairs of shoe laces each and every day until the children can do it on their own. Feel free to thank your child’s teacher for his/her shoe lace tying efforts with copious amounts of wine and chocolate throughout the year!
Today’s school shoe haul. “That’ll be 4,762 dollars thanks Ma’am” Excellent. I didn’t want to go on an overseas holiday this year anyway.
Where do you buy your kid’s school shoes from? And does your chest tighten when you have to hand the money over, or is that just me?!
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