Children’s School Shoes – 7 crucial mistakes every parent should avoid when they buy their child’s next pair of school shoes!

Choosing your child’s school shoes can be a bit of a mine field. There are lots of brands, designs and prices. There are also often school uniform and dress code requirements too.

How active your child will be at school largely depends on how comfortable and supportive their footwear is. Therefore, getting your child’s footwear right is crucial to their health and wellbeing.

In the first 11 years of a child’s life, feet can grow through up to 17 shoe sizes! This is one of the reasons it can seem like you’re needing to get a new pair of shoes every few months.

It can be tempting to go for the bigger size to allow for ‘growing room’, however, having ill-fitting shoes can lead to problems in adulthood.

So what is the right footwear and should good school shoes cost a bomb?

Mike discusses two of his preferred options – Ascent and Clarks with Athlete’s Foot Store Burnside owner Byron Davis in the video below…

Here’s the 7 most common mistakes that many parents unfortunately make when buying school shoes for their children (and they’re all avoidable!):

1.  Expecting one pair of shoes last the whole year
2.  Leaving Your Child at Home
3.  Buying shoes for school that are not ‘school’ shoes
4.  Not having both feet professionally measured every time
5.  Not allowing room for ‘toe wiggle’
6.  Accepting ‘hand-me-downs’ or ‘slip-on’ shoes
7.  Buying shoes first thing in the morning

So how do we choose the right School Shoe?

Unfortunately there is no perfect shoe that will suit everybody. Finding the right combination of features and most importantly get the right fit will set you up for success.

Mike’s Top Tips for buying school shoes:

• Buy your schools shoes in the afternoon. (Feet can can swell across the day and this can ensure you get the right fit).
• Always get both feet measured and shoes professionally fitted each time.
• Ensure the foot fits snuggly into the heel of the shoe
• Ensure the shoe is your child’s thumb width longer than the longest toe (this allows for growing room without making the shoe too big)
• Check the widest part of the foot should correspond with the widest part of the shoe.
• Quality shoes do last longer so spending a little more on a quality shoe like Ascent or Clarks School shoes is worth it.

Bonus Tips:

If you notice uneven shoe wear or one shoe wearing down before the other or your child has foot pain, please don’t ignore it, seek professional help. You can learn more here!

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