There’s not much time left before the new school year begins, so for our podiatrists, it’s the time where we find ourselves offering a lot of advice to parents around buying kids school shoes. Now traditionally, advice on buying school shoes focuses on making the purchase at a physical store and includes things like:
But the reality of a post-COVID era is that for time and convenience reasons (as well as health and safety), many more families are choosing to make their school shoe purchases online. So to help, we thought we’d share some tips on how to measure your children’s feet accurately and how to help get the best fit for your online shoe purchases.
Most brands will have a printable sizing chart available – just like this one from Bobux. If you can locate it online (it may be on the brand’s page as opposed to a particular store’s page) then print it out and make sure that ‘Page Scaling’ on your printer is set to ‘None’ and not ‘Fit to Printable Area’. Once printed, use a ruler to make sure it’s correct. Then place the chart on a flat, hard floor and place your child’s heel level with the baseline.
Make sure your child is standing with both feet taking even weight and always measure both feet. You want to record the size of the biggest foot and the tip of the largest toe – this isn’t always the big toe, it may be the second toe. For school-aged kids, you want to allow approximately 2cm for growth.
The reason we love a sizing chart is that we’ve found that some brands have a notable sizing difference and given how quickly children’s feet can grow, you really want to get the right size. And save yourself the hassle of a return or exhange.
If no printable sizing chart is available and the site only offers measurements in centimetres, place one side of your ruler or measuring tape against a wall that is connected to a hard, flat surface (not carpet). Place your child’s heel against the wall so that it is gently touching. You can then level another flat object – like a piece of paper, a book, another ruler or something similar against the end of the longest toe, whichever that is, and read where it intersects with the ruler.
If the above doesn’t work, you can always make a mark on the floor (even with something easily erasable like a highlighter) and then take the measurement from that point. Again, allow a further 2cm for future growth, and select the appropriate size.
Next, when coming to make that online purchase, look out for school shoes that are:
Traditionally, when offering shoe fitting and purchasing advice, we’d promote checking the level of the support that the shoe can offer – in the arch, the heel counter and more. As you’re not able to do this online, we recommend reading the reviews, which can be found across a range of websites that stock the particular shoe style you’re looking at purchasing. Check what other parents have said and whether they recommend this shoe style. One of the things we do is to filter the reviews and remove the 4-star and 5-star reviews, so you’re just left with the lower-star rankings. If multiple people have complained about the shoes’ tendency to break apart or lead to aches and pains, take this into consideration when making your decision.
Once your shoes have arrived, it’s time to check if they’re the right fit. We recommend our usual in-person set of tips, which include:
If your child has any foot pain or problems that are preventing them from running, walking or wearing their shoes comfortably, we’re here to help. Book an appointment with our trusted podiatrists by calling 09 523 2333 or book online here.
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