Related to the shoes/bags conversation: I’m a teacher and something happened in a lesson on Friday that really surprised me. I was showing a Year 11 class a clip from a documentary about poverty in the UK, and a woman was saying that when she was at school, you had to have a new bag every September or you’d get bullied. All the kids immediately started talking so I paused the video and asked what they thought of it. They all said that no one cares what bag you have - a few of them said they’d had theirs for a couple of years.
The video continued and one of the statistics it gave was that the average cost of school uniform for parents is £340 per year. Again, that set off a lot of conversation and they all started adding up the cost of their uniforms. One girl said that it’s probably the shoes that are the most expensive and I agreed, saying that my (very young) children’s school shoes have cost me around £40 each from Clark’s. A boy at the front was like, “what?!” And held up his leg so I could see his shoes. He said, “these were £13 from sports direct! Can’t go wrong!” They were just nice, plain black shoes. And the rest of the class agreed. These are all 15/16 year olds and I teach in a pretty affluent area. And they don’t give a shit what shoes they have on. Also, most schools don’t allow any sort of trainer to be worn. So buying Air Force Ones would be pretty pointless.