The summer holidays are coming to an end, which means millions of children and hundreds of thousands of teachers are gearing up for the new school year.
Here are some key numbers which shed light on the scale of going back to school, including how many teachers and students face another academic year, and the average price of school uniforms.
£1.45bn – the size of the 2015 back-to-school market
The back-to-school market was worth £1.43bn in 2013, according to research firm Conlumino. They expect it to increase by an an extra 1.4% this year, compared with 2014, to reach £1.45bn.
The rucksacks on the playground this year could be a little bit more flash. Wages are currently growing faster than inflation, which means parents have more spare cash to spend on their children.
In 2014, around six of every £10 in the back-to-school market was spent on school uniforms, totalling up to £842m. Other spending included: £225m on sports kit, £148m on stationery, £130m on accessories and £83m on school books.
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£212.88 – the average cost of a school uniform
Sorting out uniform is a key priority ahead of the new school year. According to a survey by the Department for Education (DfE), parents and carers of children aged between four and 16 in English state-funded schools spent an average of £212.88 on their child’s uniform during the 2014-15 school year.
The same data revealed it’s more expensive to kit out girls, and buying for primary schoolchildren is cheaper. On average, it costs £192.14 for boys and £201.04 for girls in primary schools, compared with £231.01 for boys and £239.93 for girls in secondary schools. Teenagers are just a bit more picky.
But what exactly do kids need to wear? While some items – such as shirts, blouses and shoes – are essential for all, others are particular to certain schools. For example, 45% of parents surveyed said their children needed to wear a tie, while just below one in ten indicated a hat was required.
The blazer seems to be increasing in popularity. When the same survey was done in 2007, 26% of parents said one was mandatory but that has gone up by nine percentage points to 35% in 2015.
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The peak in blazer-wearing may be good news for school fashion traditionalists, but it will inevitably make life more costly for parents. It is the most expensive item parents have to purchase, averaging at £34.05 in the last school year, according to those surveyed by the DfE.
Other expensive items include coats (£32.60) and shoes (£30.19), while the average amount these parents and carers shelled out on a school jumper last year was £12.36.
9.9m - the number of students in the UK
There are around 9.9m students in the UK across all school levels and in both public and private institutions. Gathering together statistics from the different education boards that translates to 8.4m in England, 708,000 in Scotland (with 31,000 of those in private schools), 475,000 in Wales and 329,000 in Northern Ireland. The chart below breaks those numbers down in more detail.
550,000 – the number of teachers in state funded schools
There are 550,000 teachers in publicly-funded schools in the UK. Eight out of ten of these are working in England.
The teaching profession is distributed pretty equally between primary and secondary schools. In England, for example, there are 215,000 full-time equivalent primary teachers in state-funded schools compared to 213,300 in secondary schools.
2.7 miles – the average distance travelled to school in England
The 2013 National travel survey for England revealed that people travelling to school were making journeys averaging 2.7 miles. Around 42% of children aged between five and 16 were walking to school. This has declined, however, from the 53% between 1995 and 1997. Figures are more dated in other parts of the UK but in 2011-12, 47% of Scottish children were walking to school.
A 2013 survey by YouGov and walk-to-school campaigners Living Streets showed one in four parents did not consider walking their children to school, despite four out of five having done so themselves when they were younger.
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