All schools have mufti days. But at our school, instead asking for a small donation of £1 or so for a charity, mufti days for the last couple of years have been a bit different.
Once a term, children get to wear their own clothes to school in exchange for a donation of stationery supplies for the school office. They tell us in advance what they need, and everyone is supposed to get the same thing. Highlighter pens. Glue sticks. Last time, the ask was for a ream of paper each.
Imagine several hundred small children waddling into school, each struggling to carry a ream of paper bought by parents. And then an old trestle table by the front gate, creaking under the weight of dozens of packets of paper.