This September I have three lots of uniforms to buy as my youngest, Jacob has just turned four and will be starting reception school. Sophia will be in year one and my eldest, Chloe will be in her final year of school in year 11 and doing her GCSE's. I am normally so organised for back-school but this year I am not at all and had not even started buying anything, other than placing an order for school jumpers. I still had skirts, trousers, shirts, PE kits, stationery and everything else to buy for all three children. I really did not fancy a shopping trip into the city centre or to a busy shopping centre with three children in tow so I decided to head to Silverlink Shopping Park in North Tyneside instead.
Silverlink Shopping Park is a big shopping park in North Tyneside, about a ten-minute drive from where we live. It has plenty of free on-site parking and it is always easy to find a parking place, it also has lots of big named stores such as M&S, Next, Currys PC World, JD, Wilko, Sports Direct, River Island, H&M and Hobbycraft to name just a few. Making it the ideal place to head for some back to school shopping with the family.
First up we headed to Marks and Spencers, this is my go-to shop for school uniform as I have found it always washes well and lasts, I have been buying it for the past 12 years and it has never let me down yet. We picked up uniform for all three children here, as they had black senior school skirts for my teen, grey pleated skirts for my five-year-old and grey trousers for my little boy.
We also browsed the winter coat section as the younger two will be needing new winter coats soon and we always buy them from Marks and Spencer. There was also a great range of backpacks in store that caught Sophia's eye and lots of lunch boxes and water bottles too.
Next, we headed next door to Currys PC World to stock up on printer ink and paper as my 15-year-old, Chloe will be sitting her GCSEs this year and will have lots of coursework and revision ahead of her so I want to be prepared.
We also headed to Wilko to stock up on lots of stationery for her, pens, pencils, rulers and highlighters were all added to the basket and were surprisingly reasonably priced. We also browsed River Island and New Look for back to school bags and shoes for my teen and JD and Sports Direct for trainers and PE Kit for the little two. We managed to get most of our back to school shopping done in the one place in just a couple of hours, it was so stress-free and convenient. Which is what is needed when shopping with children.
One of the reasons we regularly shop at Silverlink Shopping Park is that there is no parking charge, so we can take our time browsing the shops without worrying about topping up a parking meter again. I also like that there is a good range of shops and also places to eat too such as McDonald's, Costa, M&S cafe and the adjacent Silverlink Leisure Park which has an Odean Cinema, Pizza Hut, Bella Italia, Nandos and Frankie & Benny's. Meaning we could treat the children to a trip to see the Incredibles and for a Frankie & Benny's for behaving whilst shopping.
If you still have some back to school shopping to do ready for the new term starting in September then I do recommend a trip to Silverlink Shopping Park, we found it stress-free with no crowds and there we managed to get everything we wanted easily as they had so much choice in the stores we visited. I can relax knowing that we have everything ready for Jacob starting big school and his sisters returning to school.
Disclosure I was given a voucher to spend at the Silverlink and was also compensated for this post. However, all opinions are my own and we do shop at the Silverlink as it is close to where we live.
I love shopping at the Silverlink. Its got such a lot in one place that you can really spend ages there. My son loves going to the cinema there as well
ReplyDeleteIt is so handy isn't it, such a great selection of shops and places to eat x
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