A graphic showing a collection of back to school supplies; pencils, pens, paints, scissors, microscope, school bus, books, globe, calculator, apple
Episode 152 – Back to School Organising

Episode 389 – Overcoming mobility challenges when decluttering with member Rory
Episode 388 – Start as you mean to go on – plan 2026 for decluttering success
In this episode, we talk about planning to get your kids back to school, what you need to buy and when.
We also chat about how to avoid those stressful mornings that are part and parcel of parenting.
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Transcript of this podcast episode
[00:00:00] Ingrid: The schools are nearly starting again in many countries around the world. The summer holidays are over. So in episode 152, it's time to get organised for the kids to go back to school.

[00:00:13] Lesley, we are talking about back to school organising.

[00:00:17] Can you believe it's end of August? Oh my word. The summer is over. 

[00:00:22] Lesley: Well, I'm not going to lie, but it's a bit sad because this is my first year in Hmm. How many would that be? 20 something years of no child going back to school. I have no school aged children anymore. So I'm feeling a little bit bereft doing this podcast because I don't, I don't need to do any back to school organising.

[00:00:44] Ingrid: No, you've got whole other organising to do and that's uni organising. We need to do a podcast about that at some point as well, Lesley, but yes, I feel your pain. I 

[00:00:54] Lesley: know, but I know what it's like to organise for back to school. So I still feel I'm connected. So I still feel like even though I've not got a school aged child anymore, I can still add to 

[00:01:04] Ingrid: this podcast.

[00:01:05] Of course, of course. Now it does feel September always feels a bit like January, doesn't it? Yeah. 

[00:01:13] Lesley: For many, many countries, we've just had our summer days. And so apologies if you're in the Southern hemisphere and you don't have your summer holidays and you're still waiting for that. But if you're in the Northern Hemisphere, typically your kids will at some point over the next few weeks, or maybe already have gone back to school.

[00:01:31] And that involves a fresh new start. And we feel like it's the, it's almost like new year again, isn't it? Yeah, 

[00:01:37] Ingrid: I think so. I think it's also because it's kind of feels like the year then runs from September to July. Doesn't it? Well, of course we all know it's from January to December, but it feels kind of like a fresh start.

[00:01:49] We've all been out of our routines and now all of a sudden we have to kind of wait. Wake up early again. We need to get kids out of the door. Kids need to either, we need to drop them off or we need to put them on school buses or they need to take the bus themselves. They need to get up early and we need to get them out of bed and ready and with all their 

[00:02:06] Lesley: stuff.

[00:02:07] So yeah, it's time for routines again. And even before we get there, we have to do some shopping. Now Ingrid, we all know that you're not a shopper. Generally you do not like shopping, but I'm pretty sure this is one time of the year that you have to do some shopping. For new school supplies, new uniform and so on.

[00:02:25] So let's talk about shopping. Yes. 

[00:02:28] Ingrid: I mean, of course, you know, but I normally do is actually, it's interesting because when the kids break up in July, I kind of make sure that then at that time, everything gets washed and everything gets ironed and everything's kind of ready to go, but it's. Most kids just do a growth spurt over the summer.

[00:02:46] I don't know what happens. They just suddenly decide to grow. So before they go back to school, I always make sure that I kind of try, let them try on the, on the clothes, the shoes, the coats, the, the PLI soles, the football boots, and the whole kind of kids that goes with it. When kids go to school here, the, the, the, the PE kids for, for sports.

[00:03:07] Everything needs to be tried on. So a list needs to be created. What do we need to buy? And especially because, of course, the kids go to school here in school uniform. You can't just go to any random shop. You need to go to the school uniform shop. And that is a whole trip in itself. It's not as easy as it sounds because you're kind of these days have to make appointments or stand in a queue or because everybody goes to the same shop at the same time of year, don't they?

[00:03:39] Lesley: Some of the uniform you can get from standard shops, can't you? But there are specialist items that come from the school uniform shop. I bet there's loads of people around the world. Well, what is this thing called school uniform that finds, find it all quite strange and archaic, but we love a school uniform here.

[00:03:53] Don't we? Cause it makes things. so much easier, apart from queuing at the school uniform shop. You're absolutely right. That is the kind of, Oh, we've got to do that whole school uniform shopping thing. But anyway, so I'm glad that I don't have to do that anymore. Kind of glad I'm kind of for reference that, but anyway, so school uniform shop absolutely needs to be put in there and we need to schedule that because it's typically, it's typically difficult to get there, to get an appointment.

[00:04:17] We definitely need to put that in our diary ahead of time. Exactly. The same goes for shoes as well, because again, we typically for, uh, for school once, but our kids in some good quality shoes, we have certain shops in this country where we can get those shoes, but everybody goes to those shops as well. So it is.

[00:04:36] It is nothing short of complete mayhem. If you leave that to the last minute is literally you've never seen so many last minute people. There'll be swarming around in Clark's, which is our sort of typical school shoe place. And it's crazy. You have to take a ticket. You have to sit there. You have to wait.

[00:04:55] It's madness, isn't it? Madness. So yeah. Is to go there early and not leave it to the last minute, which quite often to be fair is what I have done in the past. I'm not going to lie. 

[00:05:07] Ingrid: Yeah. Well, I mean, school shoes, I'm relatively okay. My problem is to find football boots. So here the kids in secondary school, they have like their sports lessons.

[00:05:20] And a lot of the lessons are football, which my son doesn't necessarily like. He's not, he's very musical, but he's not very sporty. So a lot of the boys here have their football boots ready because they go into play football every weekend. But for me, finding football boots, because my son's feet are really wide and quiet.

[00:05:39] Well, they're quite long now, but they're still very wide nightmare. So I have to go to Sports Direct and it's like talking about Mayhem. Lesley , , 

[00:05:50] Lesley: you're completely out of your comfort zone in the football boot shop. Yeah. Um, yeah, so just, these are just things that you need to think about in advance really.

[00:06:00] You know, you need to think right. What sports equipment do they need? You know, this can be mouth guards. It can be football boots. It can be all manner of things and shin pads. We really need to think that through what that is ahead of time. Don't wait. 

[00:06:13] Ingrid: Yes. And of course we also need to have the sports bags and the Because the kids here need to have shorts and they need to have, um, uh, jogging bottoms.

[00:06:23] They need to have certain tops. So we need to get all that stuff ready. And now, of course, they need to have masks and, and, and sanitizer with them. And there's a whole list of things that kids need to bring to school. And also. They need to have a lunchbox if they bring that packed lunch with them. Loads of schools offer lunches.

[00:06:45] You can buy them. The kids can do that. My kids rather have lunchboxes because we have a warm meal here at home in the evening. So they're like, no, I would rather have bring a lunchbox and get sorted like that. But that kind of stuff run, you know, it. Gets a bit knackered. It gets a bit broken. You need to make sure that it's all in good condition when they start the school year.

[00:07:05] I 

[00:07:05] Lesley: think, you know how I said I was getting really sad. Well, I totally, I'm not now having to think about all those things is like making me really stressed out. I'm so glad that I don't have that in my life. I'm like, yeah, over to you now. I don't have to worry about that. One of the things that was always used to drive me incessantly crazy is this idea that every year they would get like a new stationary set.

[00:07:27] And so The one from the year before wasn't good enough. And so you would get new stationery, a new pencil case, new erasers and pens and pencils and rulers and compasses and all that kind of stuff. And so you had to traipse off to the shop and get new stuff. And so it's an interesting one. We're actually going to talk about stationery next week, aren't we?

[00:07:47] Decluttering stationery. And a lot of the stationery that we're going to talk about is from exactly this. Cause we get too many. Cause our kids insist that they get new stationery every year. And so it's like. As a declutterer, it was always something that drove me completely crazy, but it's kind of hard because peer pressure means you don't want your child to be the one then that doesn't have the new stuff.

[00:08:08] Oh, it's just all crazy. But anyway, so yes, stationery and school supplies seem to be something that the kids really look forward to buying, particularly when they're really young as well. Yeah. So we need to factor that in as well, don't we? 

[00:08:22] Ingrid: Yeah. And I think also the school bag itself, Lesley. I mean, You know, when they go to secondary school, it's all a bit more like a black rucksack, but I think when they're little, they're so excited.

[00:08:32] Bless the little hearts about the school bag. They're going to bring into school and, and the key chain that they're going to hang on it or the 12 key change. They're going to hang on it. I mean, they love that kind of thing. And a water bottle is a big thing as well. Some of them have them from the school with it, with the school name on it in secondary school, you can normally bring your own one, but Kind of after a year of use, you're going to think, Hmm, where's this water bottle been?

[00:08:57] Let's just get a new one now. Let's get a new one kids. But it involves shopping and getting, getting your list together, isn't it? And reviewing what you still have, what needs replacing. And of course, then we need to talk about school planners. Some of the schools provide them themselves. Other schools don't.

[00:09:17] You need to then buy a school planner. Lots of things going on. There 

[00:09:22] Lesley: are lots of things, and of course these things are not rocket science. And obviously we've talked a little bit about school uniform. It's the same. Even if your kid's not wearing school uniform, you're still gonna give, have certain clothes that they're typically gonna wear for school.

[00:09:34] So it's the same whether it's uniform or not. The school supplies, the sports kit, all of that is part of every school child around the world, isn't it? Now one thing, I bet you really like doing this. I just know already before we even discuss it, I bet you really like doing Sticky Back Plastic on books, don't you?

[00:09:53] Yes. I knew that you would, how did I know that you would? You totally would like that, like what is wrong with you? It was the bane of my life, so, speaking about plastic, so I presume this happens all around the world. I mean my kids went to school in America for a while. And I have to say, I can't remember doing sticky back plastic on their books when they were in the States, but maybe they've not got to that age because they were really little.

[00:10:17] So maybe they were still working with paper at that stage. But in case anybody doesn't know, in the UK, when they are given books, you know, writing books to write exercise books that they write in, they want those books to last a while. And so what we do in this country is we use Sticky back plastic, and it's a nightmare.

[00:10:39] It's much better than it was when I was growing up in the 80s. Literally, you'll get bubbles in everything one year and it's just once it was down it was stuck and it wasn't coming off. Now it's kind of changed a little bit so you can kind of take it off and put it back on again until you don't have any.

[00:10:53] kind of bubbles in it, can't you? Um, but back in the eighties, when I was at school, sticky back plastic was the bane of my life. 

[00:11:01] Ingrid: It's interesting because I just only thought this was a Dutch thing because I remember my mom helping me in my first year when I went to secondary school, helping me put my kind of this to sticky plastic on my books because we had to buy like our syllabus ourselves.

[00:11:16] So we had a whole package of books that we used for like our different topics and we had to buy that as a package because school is much cheaper in the Netherlands, but you have to buy your books yourself. And I remember putting sticky notes. So my mom told me the knack of how to do it. And it just, ever since then, you know, a ruler, some sharp scissors.

[00:11:35] And Bob's your uncle, but it's one of those things you have to be quite meticulous for a thing. And maybe that's because of why I like it. I like that kind of job to do. So the kids, when the kids came home with their books, I was like, yep, give it to me. Give it to mama. I'm ready to do this job. I love this job.

[00:11:53] Lesley: It's like things like I've always, I'm not. I'm not really very good in that parenting kind of role where you have to sew badges on or any of those things. I'll be like, no, I really, really don't want it. I just, you would imagine that I would, but I'm so like, not like that. I need to go back Ingrid to, and I'm sure a lot of people are like, when you say school is cheaper in the Netherlands, what do you mean by that?

[00:12:15] It's free. Unless you're going to a private school and then you've got to pay. What do you mean schools cheaper in the Netherlands? 

[00:12:21] Ingrid: Yeah. Oh, sorry. I got confused. I got confused. Like for set for university. But of course we're talking 

[00:12:27] Lesley: about putting sticky back plastic on when you're at university. Oh 

[00:12:30] Ingrid: yeah.

[00:12:31] No, no. 

[00:12:34] Lesley: I was like, well, you've got to pay to go to school. 

[00:12:36] Ingrid: No, no, no, no. But you know, you only pay, but you pay for your books. Yeah. That is true. But 

[00:12:42] Lesley: you pay, but you do pay for your books. 

[00:12:44] Ingrid: Yes. You pay for your books, but you, so you keep them and you have them at home. And so they give you a whole book list that you have to then order.

[00:12:51] Um, yeah. And then you keep them at home. So like here, all the books, the syllabus are all in the classes on day, but I mean, it's all different now. They do so much more online. We never had that. I remember I had it in my Uh, my, my last year of secondary school, these massive computers that we were learning how to type on the computers, like when the screens were still green, Lesley, that's how old I am.

[00:13:16] Lesley: Honestly. I know. Well, I'm older than you. So we're not even going to talk about that. 

[00:13:20] Ingrid: So welcome back. And let's talk about now about organisation. There's a, you know, we've talked about this stuff a lot, but we need to organise ourselves.

[00:13:31] Don't we, Lesley? 

[00:13:32] Lesley: Yeah, organisers. So we talked about it being a fresh year. And so it's always a good idea, isn't it? To, to start a fresh and to think, right, how can I take out the most stressful time in any parent's life, which is.

[00:13:48] How can I make that better so that everyone is not screaming at each other? We're not running out the door with two minutes to spare. We're not late. How is that all going to happen? If you've got any handy hints and tips, Ingrid, for us as to how we can make that better. 

[00:14:05] Ingrid: Well, I think first of all, I think you need to think about yourself as are you a morning person?

[00:14:10] I think that's where it starts. I mean, if you know that you're not a morning person, you might just want to say, okay, I need to make sure that everything is ready to go the evening before I need to know where everybody's bags are, where their coats are, where their shoes are. Where their homework is, do I need to already kind of get the lunchboxes ready and washed?

[00:14:31] So I only have to fill in the water, put in a sandwich, and then you're ready to go in the morning instead of trying to scramble it all before two minutes before you need to leave the door. So you need to probably create a space somewhere where is kind of your space where all that stuff lives. That you know, you create hooks.

[00:14:53] This is where the, the, the coats go. This is where the, the shoes go for that person go under that coat. This is where the bags go. This is where the PE bags go. It needs to live somewhere because the problem is if it doesn't live somewhere, it gets dropped somewhere. And then it gets mislaid. And then there's panic.

[00:15:12] Where are my shoes? Where's my PE bag? I can't find my water bottle. Where's my hand sanitizer? I've lost my mask and all of that kind of thing. And that's what you don't want. So you need to create a space where this stuff lives and it doesn't all have to live in one place, but it has to be in a place.

[00:15:31] Lesley: Yeah, I think it's interesting that you talk about being a morning person and things like that. And of course, if you are that person that gets up at five o'clock in the morning, I can't even imagine doing that when you've got young kids. But anyway, if you are, um, good luck with that. I've never, ever done that, but we all know that things happen, don't they?

[00:15:48] With kids that you. I haven't bargained for one of your kids is sick, something happens, you get a phone call, and it is a really good idea to do that preparation the night before, just so that you can avert these problems in the morning. So that's a really, really good idea to do that. And also useful English talks about.

[00:16:05] Having a spot somewhere for things. And so I think that we would really call that a command center. So it's kind of a fancy term, isn't it? A command center. We have done a podcast episode on what is a command center. So we'll go into that in more details in that podcast. If you want to listen in it's episode 21.

[00:16:22] So that's all a command center is literally where you would have everything to do with school, you would have homework, you would have timetables, letters from school, all those kind of things might be in your command center. You might incorporate within your command center hooks for. Things like football boots or bags or planners, all of those kinds of things, homework, they can all go into a command center depending on how much space you've got.

[00:16:47] So that's always a really good idea. But even if you can't get, have something as fancy as a command center, you need to know where these things are so you're not scrabbling around for them as Ingrid says. 

[00:16:58] Ingrid: Yeah. And let's talk a little bit more about the holiday schedule as well, because you said we need to place where we can put schedules and things.

[00:17:05] I think what I used to do right before they started school, I would go to the school website, look up for term dates and kind of go, okay, what are the term dates? So I wouldn't wait until kind of like, it was when I started to think, Oh, I think there's a holiday coming up or they might have a day off. No, I would have the term dates printed off.

[00:17:26] at the time. Now I just put them directly into my digital calendar. So I have that scheduled. What's the starting date? What's the end date? When are the inset days? When are they off? Do they overlap at all? Or does one child have another day than another? Do I need to sort something out? So you can then start to plan ahead a little bit of.

[00:17:47] Possibly holiday clubs that need booking or maybe a weekend away that you can do, or, oh, wow, one kid has a whole week of while the other is in school. What am I going to do? I need to sort anything for that. So you can start to think and plan ahead a little bit further than just, you know, It's Monday morning, and this week will end on Friday.

[00:18:09] And oh, I'm, I'm, I'm all flustered because you know what's coming up. And they normally give you term dates really well in advance. You know, this year, and sometimes even also the next year as well. So you can actually really have an idea of what is going on, especially if they're in different schools.

[00:18:27] Lesley: Yeah, I mean, I mean, I don't know, uh, what happens at your school then, Ingrid, if they're still sending those dates out and, uh, you know, you still got to go, but I subscribe to a calendar. So our school has a, has a calendar that you subscribe to and it drops everything in. So you don't even need to transfer those dates.

[00:18:41] You just subscribe to the calendar. It's okay. So that's certainly something to look out for because a lot of the schools probably do have that and they drop everything in. And so you've got everything in one spot, which is fantastic. Yeah. Let's talk about another thing that I was always really rubbish at, um, which is, I'm not really, I don't know why I'm a professional organiser really, because I was just so rubbish at all these.

[00:19:02] I think it's just like parental type things that I wasn't very good at. I mean, you know, just the right things, but you know, this kind of, you know, all this really good, good mum type stuff, you know, like labelling and sewing things on and. I just was generally quite rubbish about that. Making packed lunches.

[00:19:19] You know, my kids were talking last week and they were like, well, we were told when we're seven years old, if we wanted packed lunches, we had to make them ourselves. And that's the truth. It's the truth. I'm not doing that. I'm not doing three extra packed lunches. If you want packed lunch, you've got to go up and make them.

[00:19:34] So how mean is that looking back? And these kids remember it. They remember. And they. Tell you this stuff when they're in the 20s, you know, as if they've been, you know, like brought, it's terrible really. But anyway, so yeah, was not a good parent in those regards. I was, I was okay. Quite happy with a lot of things that I've done, but this kind of stuff, struggling, struggling, including sewing labels onto clothes.

[00:19:59] Now I bet you sew a label in, don't you? 

[00:20:02] Ingrid: Well, I outsource this to my husband. Oh 

[00:20:05] Lesley: yeah. So you've got your own as well. So you would be taking all the glory and saying, I'm a really good monk. Cause I get all those things and actually telling your husband to do that. The chances of me getting my husband to do any labeling of any kind, like no chance, but I would always look for the pen, you know, like in this country.

[00:20:24] You know, because of school uniform, quite often there's a, there's labeling. I think it's probably all around the world that people label stuff for the kids because you're going to lose them at school. But I would always do the pen where you just write it on. That's way easier. Sewing in labels into 20.

[00:20:37] Yeah, 

[00:20:37] Ingrid: I've, I've never done, we've never done sewing. That's far too much. No, we, we, we did the ironing, the ironing with like the damn cloth you can iron there. You can put like a name on a little sticker and then you can, that's what we do. Sewing is way beyond. No, no, no. 

[00:20:51] Lesley: Oh, that's good. That makes me happy. I mean, it's beyond your capabilities as like super mom, super professional organiser.

[00:20:59] Anyway, so labeling, if you have to label your kids clothes, so the men, I am them on right. The name's in. And it really will save you a lot of time in the long run, despite what we say about being rubbish at it. They did have a label in their clothes, somehow, no idea how they probably are probably made them do it themselves.

[00:21:17] And so yeah that's something that you need to think about in advance and make sure you've got those labels in advance because obviously there's always a big rush towards the beginning of school. So think that through. And then the final thing that we want to talk about is making sure that if you're if like me you're that terrible mother who said if you want to pack lunch you've got to make it yourself.

[00:21:36] And they have school lunches, then you need to put money in their account. Now, nowadays at schools, it's mostly money on their finger. So it's kind of like they tap in with their finger or whatever. And it's a parent pay type account. And so you need to make sure that the money's gone in there. I have mine, you know, make sure you look at the amounts.

[00:21:55] And so, you know, there comes a point where these kids are like buying whatever they want. And so I put a. Um, what's the word a limit, a limit. That's the word I put a limit so they can't spend too much in a day. Otherwise they would have 75 fizzy drinks before I know it. And it would charge me 20 pounds a day.

[00:22:13] And so I make sure there's a limit on that. So look at what's possible and what feels right for you with your child as well, and do that well in advance. And I have it on recurring payment as well. So I don't have to keep topping it up manually so that when it's about to run out, it will auto top up, which is also quite useful and saves time and energy.

[00:22:30] Ingrid: Yeah, and I think so, you know, I think the main thing is, I think it's a big change, especially when they go from primary to secondary, because we all can kind of, we get set in our ways, we know how to do things. And then suddenly they go secondary, they get a lot more kind of, they want to do stuff themselves.

[00:22:47] But there's a lot of paperwork that suddenly needs to, especially in that summer when they do that big switch to big school. A lot of paperwork to sort out, a lot of forms to fill in, a lot of new rules and things. It takes time to, to prepare for that. It takes time to do that. And of course, the one thing that we, we haven't really talked about yet is also homework.

[00:23:08] I mean, they do get some homework when they're little, but it really starts to step up when they're in secondary school. Right. And of course, You need to decide where are they going to do their homework? Are they going to get a laptop or a computer or tablet? Can, can you sort that out? Can the school provide one?

[00:23:25] Is it all still very paper based? Do they need to have maybe a homework spot with some supplies? Or is that now really getting old fashioned? And my kids roll their eyes. They're like, We've got Google Classroom, especially of course now in the last year, so much has changed and so much has gone online that we never even two years ago thought was possible.

[00:23:46] But they now do everything on Google Classroom. They scan things, they watch things, they send them YouTube videos, they pull, they fully fill in the forms online. It's just all really changed a lot, hasn't it? It 

[00:23:57] Lesley: has, it really has. And so, I know, Ingrid, that you had a top tip, didn't you? 

[00:24:04] Ingrid: Yes, yes, especially, um, if you go away on holiday quite late in the summer.

[00:24:10] So, we've got six weeks here during the summer. So, if you decide to go on holiday, kind of, at the end of August, And you've got like one or two days when you come back before the kids have to start back. You might want to organise yourself before you go on holiday. First of all, probably the shops will be a lot quieter because everybody's still on holiday and not even thinking about going back to school.

[00:24:32] But also because you're going to run out of time the second you come back and then you there's just not enough time to get everything organised. 

[00:24:41] Lesley: And I think also, quite often, for things like school uniform or school supplies, that's when the sales are on. So sales are typically on in July, whereas, you know, by the end of August when people are getting desperate, then the sales seem to have disappeared, so it's good to shop early for these things if you know you've got to get them.

[00:24:56] Yep. So, Ingrid! Back to school. Good luck with that. I do not need to do that, but I do have to take my child to university in a few weeks. And we are going to talk about that on the podcast, aren't we? And I'm 

[00:25:12] Ingrid: glad I need to learn from you, Lesley, after I am blissfully unaware, still everything that needs to happen when children go to university.

[00:25:18] So I feel like I'm getting like a, a, a. A course on how to pack your kids off to uni in a couple of weeks times. But first of all, next week, Lesley, we are indeed going to talk about the 10 things you need to declutter from your stationery. So that is what's coming up. I thank you all so much for listening and for being with us today.

[00:25:40] We appreciate you being here and we'll see you next week.
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