The uniform shop is run by the parent teacher association in the room beside the gate, open three afternoons a week and every day in the fortnight before term.
It sells everything on the list at cost: shirts, trousers, pinafores, ties, sports kit, and shoes in the common sizes. Nothing is marked up. It also keeps a second hand rail of outgrown uniform in good condition, priced at ten rufiyaa an item or nothing at all, and about four hundred items move through it a year. Nobody at that rail is asked anything.
The canteen runs in both sessions and sells a plate at twelve rufiyaa, fruit, bread and water. No fizzy drinks and no crisps, by an association decision after a parents' vote. Children with food from home eat in the same hall.
What the school charges for: nothing by way of fees. Families pay for uniform, shoes, stationery and the canteen if a child eats there. Clubs, sport, the support team, the house programme and interschool matches are free.
The hardship arrangement. Any family who cannot manage the uniform, the shoes or the stationery should speak to their head of house, who has a fund for it and does not ask for evidence or paperwork. It is used by about seventy families a year. Nothing about it appears on a child's file, no teacher other than the head of house is told, and the child is never spoken to about it.