Back-to-school shopping can be a very daunting prospect. And it seems to get more complex as your kids get older and move up to different schools.
Get ready by making a list, drawing a budget, and getting the kids involved. Read on for our top tips.
Start back-to-school shopping now, and get prepared
We’re into August already – you’ve got a couple of weeks at most before the shops start running low on back-to-school stock.
Start your back-to-school shopping with a nice big list of everything they need for the new term.
We’ve included a handy sample list at the bottom of the page to get you started!
We recommend involving your child in the list-making process – it can help them feel more in control if they’re nervous about the new term. It can also give them a sense of responsibility they simply won’t experience if Mum/Dad handles it all. And you never know, they might think of something you’ve overlooked.
Next, cross off anything on the list that you don’t need. You might already have a perfectly good calculator in the house. Your little one might have been saving a nice stationery set they got for their birthday – adorable. It could be that you bought a new set of polo shirts two months ago because they grew through the last ones so quickly (and if that is the case, make sure you check, two weeks before the new term starts, that they still fit!).
It’s a good idea to draw up a budget next to your list. It will give you an idea of total spend, and means that when you return from your back-to-school shopping trip, you might be pleasantly surprised by how much you’ve saved... rather than aghast at how much you’ve spent.
Shop supermarket for non-branded school uniform
Buying school uniform can be a massive household cost. Especially if your child is moving up to secondary school: the pressure you feel to buy them all-new, school-badged uniform can be immense.
But more often than not, if you buy the logo’d polo shirts from the official stockist, you’ll read the label inside and find they’re the same brand sold in the supermarket. And yet they’re three times the price.
Happily, we’re seeing a definite shift to making uniform more cost-effective for parents. In the UK, from September 2026 there’s new statutory guidance that a school cannot require more than three items of uniform to be branded.
And all major supermarkets now offer their own lines of school uniform: the likes of M&S, Sainsbury’s and Tesco all offer high-quality ranges for a good price.
Invest in nice things that they'll want to take care of
We live in a material world. Teaching your kids the value of their possessions, and encouraging them to take care of them, can have a real impact: it can make them more environmentally-conscious, more careful with money – and, just maybe, more grateful for what they have.
Buy something nice once instead of buying something cheap twice, especially with things like stationery and lunchboxes. Make it clear to your child that you expect the item to last for at least the next two years, so they need to look after it. All being well, you won’t have to buy it again this time next year.
Added bonus – good-quality pencil cases, pens, and doodling books can be a great way to tempt kids away from their screens!
Check what kind of bottle they need for school
When this writer was at school we used to get through the hottest days of summer with nothing more to drink than a single carton of sugary blackcurrant juice. It was a different time.
Nowadays almost all schools require you to send your child with their own water bottle. But some schools are quite specific about the kind of water bottle they allow.
We love our triple-insulated water bottles to keep drinks cooler for longer. But if your school specifies a clear bottle, we recommend Tritan™ – it’s a robust, safe and glass-clear plastic that resists odours and stands up to frequent dishwashing.
Our Tritan™ drinks bottles come in two sizes – 450ml and 600ml – so they’re suitable for all ages, from the start of primary school upwards. They have an easy push-button opening, a spill-proof soft silicon straw top, and an easy carry handle.
We also have a sport spout bottle, perfect for school and extracurriculars. It has an extra wide opening so you can pop ice cubes in.
Choose their back-to-school lunchbox with care
If your child is taking a pack-up to school every day, think about what that means for you.
Many modern lunchboxes have fussy little sections that involve a lot of cutting up and arranging, and are a pain to wash up.
At b.box, our mission is to make life easier for parents, not more difficult. Our big bento lunchbox is designed to fit everything in with no extra work: the sandwich section easily fits a whole sandwich (with a gel cooling pack underneath to keep it cool), there’s a movable divider so you can put in a whole banana if you want to, and, one of our favourite innovations, a flexi silicone section so you can close the lid on an apple.
If your child has school dinners, can we recommend our snackbox for breaktimes and for extracurricular activities? It’s got that flexi fruit section again!