Parents’ annual refusal to buy any new uniform so near to the end of the school year begins again

School’s (nearly) out for summer and in playgrounds across the country children are once again emerging from their classrooms at pick-up time looking like mini Incredible Hulks.

Bursting out of once white shirts, now grey tinged and stained with Christ knows what that no amount of Vanish Oxi Action will remove.

Each playground is a sea of trousers with worn knees that end mid calf because, despite existing solely on a diet of chicken nuggets and Fruit Shoots, the crotch fruit have still managed to have yet another sudden growth spurt.

Soles are no longer fully attached to shoes and flap about more than a mum trying to get volunteers to be on the PTA committee.

More productive parents have attempted to hold shoes together with hastily wrapped round duct tape, though some parents have given up completely and are now just sending their offspring into school wearing trainers in the hope the teachers are too exhausted to even realize or care.

In Kent recently a sleeping toddler in a buggy was hit by a stray button that popped off the shirt of a pupil who exhaled slightly too heavily, whilst in Birmingham a Year 3 child fell flat on their face as their shoe duct tape unraveled and was trodden on by an oblivious mum checking Facebook on her phone.

This annual tradition that parents wearily endure seems to come round more quickly every year.

Each home time, as the end of the school year grows closer and closer, children greet their parents and all that can be heard across each playground, in hissed whispers and through gritted teeth, is “I’m not buying new ones yet. It’s not for much longer, so stop moaning!”