Are you ready for your children to go back to school?

It is that time of year again, have you checked everything off your list?  

School Hair Cut ..... check! New Uniform ..... check! School Shoes ..... check! School Bag ..... check! P. E. Kit .... check! Plimsoles .... check! Bag for P. E. Kit .... check! School Bag ..... check! Swimming Costume..... check! Swimming Hat ..... check! Swimming Bag ..... check!

The list is endless and of course you must not forget the all important stationery!  

Pens in blue, black and red, rulers, protractors, compasses, calculators, rubbers, pencil sharpeners, felt tips, pencil crayons and of course pencil cases!

I guess it depends on the age of your children as to whether their stationery is functional or fun, the older ones of course need to have the right kit, but might still like to have some fun novelty erasers and pencils, while the younger children can still enjoy fun novelty stationery items all around.  

In my day the craze was stickers and metallic pens, all of our folders were full of stickers which we bought mostly from the tiniest little store in town, but they did a roaring trade, with roll upon roll of different sticker designs we could purchase four or five little stickers for just 10p!  The shop was always packed and I remember it very fondly.  With the metallic pens we would cover our pencil cases and covered books with graffiti.  I had an A4 sized clip board style folder the front was neon yellow and slightly padded, totally covered in stickers and "  I heart ..... " graffiti!  Very "Rat Pack" 

My own high school days are well and truly over now, but I am only a year away from reliving them again vicariously through my children, as yet, I am not completely sure whether I am looking forward to this particular treat or not!  The one thing we didn't have in my day was the all important decision about which three schools are on the list and in what order, I think we are pretty much decided but there is still time for that to change!  For those that aren't aware, the deadline is much earlier than you think, I would aim to have your applications in by the of September if you can.

We have a another challenge this year as well as we are also changing primary schools so it really is all change for us at the start of this school year, the school uniform is very new!  And for the first time we have a choice to make about school bags, our previous school provided a school book bag, which is a doubled edged sword on the one hand it is one less thing to be concerned with but on the other hand ... they all look very similar!  The children of course have all personalised their bags with bag charms and key rings and the school were always trying hard to limit the number of charms on each bag as some of them were ... shall we say a little charm heavy!  We have always stocked a good selection of key rings and bag charms as I know there are many primary schools who do this.