My child school has recently requested unwanted pants and socks. I am not sure why they didn't specify. His school is for older children so I think the risk of accidents shouldn't be an issue. I am assuming its perhaps due to children going without. The very thought makes me sad!
Blisters - I had it with a pair of shoes bought with the then available school clothing grant;
they were bleeding by the time I got to school and by the time I'd walked home, there was a squelching noise from the amount of blood. Naturally, I was told I had to keep wearing them because there wasn't any money for another pair until I grew out of them. I lied and said that they'd been stolen when I was in PE, so wore hideous Ā£4.99 pink trainers from the market for the next term, getting the piss ripped out of me by kids and threats of detention from teachers..
Period arrival.
Some bladder/bowel conditions.
Injuries.
Outgrowing things.
and some who are going without clean or properly fitting/non holey clothing, whether due to neglect, poverty or living in unsuitable accommodation.
We managed to get the OK/budget to buy new ones and the head of PE used a huge chunk of their budget to buy and install a washing machine and tumble drier in their office, supposedly for washing match kit, but more because it's easy to stick a kid in spare PE kit whilst their actual clothes are in the wash. There's an awful lot of 'Oh, I forgot to note down who had that donated school shirt, silly me'.
Call me a raging socialist if you like, but I think it would be a really good idea if schools were funded to be able to issue a complete set of uniform for kids in their first term, all the way down to a pack of socks. Still wouldn't solve everything, we'd still be either officially or unofficially giving kids stuff on the side, but I'd bet uniform policies would be properly affordable for all the other years if all the Year 7s' came out of the GAG.