One of the best styles of summer footwear is the sandal. There are a few tips to bear in mind when you are looking for a pair. The first thing is that they need to be secure. Children love running around, so make sure that the sandals have good strong straps to keep them in place.

Boys sandals with adjustable straps will mean that your son can be comfortable as well, and a smart pair will do for dressier occasions.Crocs might not be the prettiest of shoes, but they are certainly practical. They’ll keep the feet cool, and are especially good for playing with water. If your kids love playing with water, then crocs are perfect, as they won’t get damaged if they get damp. Flip flops can also be useful for paddling in the sea, but bear in mind that these are not so well suited for running around, as the chances of tripping over are very high! Another great summer brand of children shoes is Startrite.

The other style of shoe that is useful is the trainer or canvas shoes. These are better for less messy situations, and also more versatile, as you will get more use out of them. Canvas shoes are cheap, so no worries about them getting worn or dirty, but it’s worth spending a little more on trainers and buying a pair that allow the feet to breathe. So, you can see that just a few pairs of shoes are all your daughter’s feet need for summer!

My brother and I went to a strict co-ed private school with and even stricter dress code. Strict to the point that our teachers would measure the length of our woollen pleated skirts and send us home if they were too short. Enviously we would watch the local school girls jump off their bus in the afternoons wearing whatever they wanted to school while we felt we were stuck looking identical and ridiculous.

The first couple of years were a fashion struggle against the system for us, until one fateful day when I couldn’t find the hideous high-waisted-tapered-leg-inch-too-short girls trousers and grabbed a pair of my brothers instead and started a mini fashion revolution.

The low waist, wide leg trousers fit like a dream and were just the right length, and to my surprise, the school didn’t, and couldn’t, do anything about it. Suddenly it was clear, the way to express our fashion sense through our school uniforms wasn’t through raising our hemlines against the rules, but skirting so close to the rules and obeying the rules in a way that they couldn’t do anything to stop us.

One by one, girls started wearing the boys trousers. Next we started experimenting by donning the tie, something that was not compulsory and we had never seen anyone wear before.

Hair accessories were only allowed in our school colours, so weekends were spent in craft stores and sewing rooms creating impressive array of headbands, hair ties and clips and devouring magazines on different ways to wear our hair. We also discovered to our surprise, the uniform manual stated our tights were allowed to be black, skin tone or match the school colours, so out came the quest to find tights that fitted in with our three-shades-of-blue school uniform in every texture and pattern available without breaking the rules.

But the biggest revelation came with the school shoes. Thanks to our new found wide leg boys trousers, we were able to get away with the most amazing of school shoes, as long as they were black. Our boring black lace ups were replaced with everything from Doc Martin boots to ballet flats to Mary Jane pumps in any material from patent leather to suede. We were no longer envious of the girls who got to wear whatever they wanted to school – we felt sorry for them! My 10 year high school reunion was last year, and I still remember that time of fashion awakening like it was yesterday. If you’ve got a similar story, let us know below!