Finding their feet - our favourite back to school shoes

The kids are going back to school. Jane is starting in reception and has had most of her uniform since June. She spent nearly a week wearing it to preschool.  I'm just in the process of grabbing the other bits for Jane and the boys and on the list is more shirts, trousers and.... new shoes.

We always get the kids school uniform stuff from Marks and Spencer as they do easy dress clothes which gives the kids independence at school.  The quicker they get dressed after gym, the quicker they are playing what they want, learning or talking with their friends or playing in break time. I haven't tried the whole new range yet, but I've got some ready to go.  These clothes also mean David and Anthony can dress themselves without help which is good for their confidence. Shoes have their own challenges but we've found some that work for us.

Toe Zone Shoes
David can finally get his shoes on and off but he wants one's that look the same and he's not always great at feeling what's happening in his shoes.  This can mean he'll stay in the same pair of shoes and won't realise they are getting too small. Even if he does understand, as he is still pre-verbal he's not really able to communicate well that his shoes hurt either.  Here's where Toe Zone shoes can help. On the sole of the shoe are coloured strips to check if your child's shoes are the right size.

I've done this trick lots of times in the store as often going to a shoe shop is too stressful for us. Just turn over the shoes and line them up against my kids feet - but it's a bit of a guess and I've sometimes got it wrong.  Toe Zone shoes show you visually on the bottom of the shoe if it will fit.  Line the heel with the 'heel strip' and if your child's toes are in the green 'toe zone' voila!  They are mostly available in smaller sizes, but its now easy to check if my kids feet are growing and they need new shoes.

Term Shoes
This might sound strange but Term do a great pair of really hard shoes.  Whilst being soft and cushioned on the inside, this Hoddle design from Term has a really strong front area that will stand up to Anthony's wear.  Anthony's shoes often need replacing before he has grown out of them.  Like many kids with ADHD, autism or SPD he prefers to tip-toe walk.

Apart from Anthony looking a bit odd, the real problem is that we found Anthony's calves were tightening and we needed to help him walk better and keep his heels down.  The boots below worked great when he was younger but as he has become stronger we needed shoes that would just really support his proper foot position - and this stiff fronted shoe may just do the trick.  Being tough, they may last until he grows out of them and when he does we can get more as they are available up to an adult size 8.

Boots
One of things we also tried to help Anthony walk better was school boots - instead of shoes.  Not many places do boots that look enough like school shoes not to attract attention and we even had to get special permission from our school for him to do it.  We think it may have helped a bit but as Anthony has got older the boots aren't helping hold his foot flat much anymore.  The best ones we found were by Clarks and Marks and Spencer - the Gortex ones also meant that his foot could still breath when he was wearing boots in the hot summer.

What tips do you have for getting the right shoes for your kids needs?

Term Footwear and Toe Zone sent us school shoes for purposes of review.  

As always all opinions are my own and I'm only interested in sharing reviews of products 

that I think you may like to know about too.