Wirral school uniform bank sees record demand as prices rise

"There's a girl school who have a navy jumper with a white stripe, and the school is saying you don't need the logo on that jumper any longer, in actual fact it's branded because of the white stripe," she said.

"They are abiding by knocking down the number of logo'd items, there are lots of ways that the schools can get around it."

Davies pointed to a school in Birkenhead, considered "posh" locally, which charges £52 for a school rugby top alone.

"We have people who, in the posh schools, their uniform is actually more expensive than anyone else's so it really helps them if we can give stuff away," she said.

One mother-of-four at the charity's Birkenhead hub said the service means she can give the children days out instead of spending the money on uniform. She said a pair of shoes for a primary school-aged child runs around £50, a pack of shirts about £20, and she spent £60 on a new blazer last year.

"When you add it all up it's a lot of money and a lot of stress from the beginning of the summer holidays right to the end," she said.

Viktoria, who moved to the UK from Kyiv in Ukraine, said the uniform bank was extremely helpful while her family settled into a new life. "We have two children and we only moved here two months ago, now in my family only my husband works," she said.