Parents' fury as kids left without school uniforms due to '˜technical glitch' at Sheffield firmÂ

Desperate parents across the UK are furious after a Sheffield-based supplier of school uniforms failed to deliver in time for the new academic year.Â
School Trends. Picture: GoogleSchool Trends. Picture: Google
School Trends. Picture: Google

School Trends, which supplies uniforms to more than 5000 schools and academies across the country, blamed a "technical glitch" which left anxious parents and kids without uniforms as schools re-opened this week.

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Many mums and dads have now taken to social media to vent their fury.

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However, the Waterthorpe-based firm tweeted on Friday that it will "cease monitoring and responding to social media until further notice."

Donna Brookes called for parents to be offered compensation and added: 'We need to know if our children will have uniform in time for the first day back at school and if you can't deliver as promised where and how we get something else at this short notice.'

Joanne Breen added: 'Thankfully I was able to buy backup somewhere else, but some people don't have that option plus they can't afford it. They handled the whole thing very badly.'  

Gemma Yard tweeted that she was 'genuinely appalled' by the company's 'lack of communication.' 

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School Trends tweeted last week: "We are in our busy period and experiencing high levels of calls and emails. We are working hard to answer our customers.

"Unfortunately, due to a technical glitch some orders have been delayed. We are doing our utmost to rush these through. Your patience and support is much appreciated."

A later tweet read: "School Trends are doing everything we can to ensure customers receive their orders as soon as possible.

"Therefore, we have taken the decision to cease monitoring and responding to social media until further notice. This allows us to fully prioritise all outstanding orders."

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The Star asked the company for comment and we are waiting for a response. 

A number of national news outlets have used a statement from Paul Essex, managing director, which read: 'We are aware that a number of our customers are experiencing delays with their school uniform deliveries.

"These delays have been caused by one of our major suppliers experiencing a technical problem that resulted in orders on their system being cancelled and having to be re-entered manually.

"This, coupled with the exceptionally high volume of orders we've received this year, means we've not met our customers' expectations and we can only apologise for the stress and anxiety this has caused.

"We are working around the clock to get any outstanding orders through the system and to our customers as quickly as possible."