Running your PTA

Hannah Osborne and Caroline Parsons, Chair and Pre-loved Uniform Coordinator at Brookmans Park School PTA, share their experiences and advice on selling pre-loved uniform

“ Uniform is really expensive and once they ' ve grown out of it, it ' s still in really good condition – it just seems so wasteful for it to go to landfill!”

H: Our lovely office staff took me to one side and said look, there are loads and loads and loads of bags of uniform that people have donated to the school and it’ s just sitting in a cupboard. Can you do something with it, even if it ' s just recycle it?

C: I discussed the idea of a shop with Hannah. This was after my second son started school and I realised the huge cost of a whole new uniform, as well as spares. It seemed like there was a missed opportunity to buy pre-loved through the school.

H: We set up a SumUp shop and created a new website to sell tickets for an event and I was like, actually, we can sell uniform through this platform as well. I really like Vinted and wanted people to be able to browse it in their own time. A brilliant mum called Reem has a lot of retail experience and helped set up all the products and the inventory and take the photos.

C: Working parents can access the shop when they have a spare moment such as during their morning commute to work or on their lunch break, rather than only being able to buy the uniform at in-person sales.

H: We then started sorting out all the clothes that had been donated and went through all the lost property and washed everything. I even got my sewing kit out! We also set up donation days and put bins outside the drop-off points so that parents can put in whatever they want to donate rather than leave it at the office.

C: All of the feedback we’ ve received has been really positive. Parents like the ease of being able to order and collect when they want to. We’ ve also kept the cost low(£ 2 per item) so it’ s accessible for all.

Hannah & Caroline’ s top tips

Share the load. It’ s a big role for just one parent, so have a few individuals responsible for different elements such as storage, online sales and in-person sales.

Organise your stock! There is a lot of uniform – organising it into boxes by size or category means you don’ t have to hunt through piles to find the requested item.

Keep prices low and quality high. Low prices mean it’ s accessible for everyone and having only good quality means people are likely to buy again.

Do a mixture of in-person and online sales. Some parents like to see and feel the clothes before buying, a completely remote shop wouldn’ t facilitate that.

Speak to your school. See if there are any fancy dress or themed days happening throughout the year. If there are, ask for donations to sell to parents on these days.

Illustration: Freepik. com, shutterstock. com / Edge Creative

14 PARENTKIND. ORG SUMMER 2025