The shop is open every day for the fortnight before term. And a plain notice about the hardship fund, because the families who need it are the least likely to ask.
The uniform shop beside the gate, run by the parent teacher association, is open every day for the fortnight before term begins and three afternoons a week after that.
Everything on the uniform list is sold there at cost, with no mark up: shirts, trousers, pinafores, ties, sports kit and shoes in the common sizes. Buying there is cheaper than anywhere in the city and the association takes nothing on it.
The second hand rail. Outgrown uniform in good condition, ten rufiyaa an item or nothing at all, and about four hundred items go through it every year. Nobody at that rail is asked a single question by anybody. If your child has outgrown something in wearable condition, bring it in rather than keeping it, and the shop will take it any day it is open.
And the part of this notice that matters most. Any family who cannot manage the uniform, the shoes or the stationery should speak to their head of house. There is a fund for exactly this. It is used by about seventy families a year.
The rules of it, so that nobody has to guess. No evidence is asked for and no form is filled in. Nothing appears on the child's file. No teacher other than the head of house is told. The child is never spoken to about it by anybody, and the uniform is handed to the parent rather than to the child.
We publish this every year because of one thing the student support team sees repeatedly: the families who need the fund are the last to ask, and a child who is short of shoes for two terms is usually a child whose parents did not know they could ask, or were sure they would have to prove something.
Your head of house is named in the letter that came home in the first week and on the board by the gate. They are also the person to ask about anything else in this school that is not about a single subject, because they have known your child since grade one and will do so until grade ten.
