Start Them Right with Start Rite!

Every year I fly by the seat of my pants when it comes to getting the kids ready for the dreaded back to school. I wonder if it’s in part because I’m lazy but also because I really hate the thought of them returning after such a lovely summer. I wing it and wait and then most of the time everything is fine when i finally get around to my eleventh hour shopping but last year, as my Mum said would happen, I had just left everything far too late for a post COVID locked down world and though uniform was fine in the obtaining, I came majorly unstuck when it came to shoes!

I like to get my children proper school shoes, the thought it always there and by proper I mean leather, well made ones from almost all the time, StartRite. StartRite is who I always had shoes from as my feet were always too narrow for anywhere else and they catered to my slimline toots and as they are local to me (there’s a LOT of StartRite history in Norwich, if you want to see and read more then do visit the Bridewell Museum which is part of Norwich Museums) and the factory outlet is close by we usually go there. Shoes are a little bit less expensive in the outlet at times but money isn’t really the problem, it’s dedicating enough time and thought. So, last year… We’ll go back there shall we?!

I had 3 days left and when we found the moment to visit without appointment (they were very accommodating about that) we were just, as I like to call it, “unlucky” (Gram calls it like it is and reminds me it’s all down to my bad planning) when we found no shoes left in the sizes we needed. There ensued a massive panic around John Lewis (nothing), M&S (nothing) and then finally the supermarket where Jimmy got some cheap black trainers (I never mind annoying the head so I was good with that) and Florence had to settle on £3 plastic (vegan leather I called them at the time) pumps. They were not good. They did not last until Christmas. OF COURSE they didn’t!

Now I hate, hate, hate shoe shopping but I pledged that this September, especially with Florence starting high school, that I would be on it and when StartRite approached me to work in collaboration with them it was the boomf up the back side I needed to make that plan come to fruition. An appointment was booked for yesterday and we got all shoes required (not just for the big kids but some boots for nursery for Raffie and pre-walkers for Posie) within half an hour. Oh. My. Goodness it was easy!

You don’t actually HAVE to make an appointment of course but it’s the way forward I tell you! We didn’t queue, we just went in and were seen (by the lovely Theresa), measured and choosing within minutes. Even the choosing wasn’t hard. Florence took a fancy to the shoes the staff were wearing (gorgeous ones at that, I’d have a pair myself), Jimmy found his almost immediately too and Raffie set his heart on the blue boots in an instant. I mean how lucky is that?! All I had to do next was find a pair for Posie to grow into as she’s not quite a size 2 yet reminding me very much of Florence who was in pre-walkers until she was about 2 because literally nothing else fit. Posie got some superb Mary Jane’s for me to look at and try on her daily until they fit because at some point them will and we know her width – like me, all the kiddos have that slim foot (what a thing to be slim eh, couldn’t have been my bum?!) so… Here we are, not even half way through the holidays and my kiddos are totally ready for the day when they go back to school. Now shhh about that as it’s enough. For now we go back to barefoot and fancy free because I don’t like thinking about school until I absolutely have to!

Book your appointment at the Norwich StartRite shop here!

Collaboration.