You know family routine is back to normal after the long summer break when school sweatshirts turn up in the laundry basket.

If there's one job the laundry fairy in our house hates doing, it is the weekly washing and ironing of school uniforms.

Now our eldest is in post-16 education, he no longer has to wear one.

Instead, he sports jeans and an array of T-shirts and, while I still put his clothes through the wash, I leave the ironing up to him, so I don't have to worry about what he will put on come Monday morning.

However, the two younger Redgrave boys both have smart school sweatshirts, white polo shirts and black trousers. As the youngest has just moved up to high school, I had to furnish him with all the gear, including a full PE kit, and while I was at it, I treated our middle son to new sweatshirt and trousers at the same time.

They looked very smart when they headed off for the school bus last Tuesday, but by Friday, there were already grass stains on trousers knees and what looked like ketchup on one of the collars.

Despite the laundry routine, I approve of school uniforms. When our eldest was at a city middle school, his liberal-minded headmaster allowed the children to come to school in whatever they liked. He felt it encouraged their creativity and independence and absolutely refused to accommodate parental requests to introduce a school sweatshirt.

The boys tended to stick to jeans and T-shirts but the girls were considerably more imaginative. I remember arriving at the school gate one morning and watching what I thought was a young woman in an incredibly short skirt, platform shoes and a tiny crop top, walk into the playground. When she turned around, her face was covered in
make-up and I realised, to my horror, she was in my son's class and aged ten.

It was clear that some children spent far too much time worrying about their appearance, while the one-upmanship over who could or couldn't afford the latest designer gear, on occasions, sparked bullying in the playground.

The great thing about everyone wearing the same clothes is that it puts everyone on an equal footing. It's one less thing for our over-pressurised kids to worry about, so a little extra washing and ironing is probably a small price for the laundry fairy to pay.