Since the beginning of their school lives in the UK, our children had worn school uniforms. Every year my husband would take our daughter shoe shopping to get ‘sensible school shoes’. He did the same before she started school in France. However, French schoolchildren do not wear uniforms, nor sensible shoes. After 3 days of school our daughter said that she needed more clothes. “Why?” we asked. “Everyone wears different clothes every day,” she replied. Selecting a new fashionable outfit each day, had never been a problem in the UK. The ‘sensible shoes’ were never worn, but they fitted me, so they did not go to waste.