Clarks Shoe Shop Is Planning To Teach Kids Language Skills – And We Have Some Questions

Firstly, putting potentially underwhelming puns about ‘tongues’ aside, are shoe-shopping and vocab lessons natural partners? There are probably a reasonable amount of tasty words thrown around in shoe shops by parents aghast at the prices, stressed out by their kids’ behaviour or dangerously fed up (I said the f-word in Schuh a fortnight ago looking at some beautiful, tiny but extortionate Nikes).

But surely you’re there for the shoes, not to learn how to conjugate a verb? You don’t necessarily want the shop assistant to focus on broadening your offspring’s verbal horizons when you hate shopping at the best of times and have a tired child about to go crackers.

[Read More: How to help your child improve their language skills]

How much time does anyone really spend in a shoe-shop? You’re there, what, 25 minutes every six months? Even if you’re generous and call it an hour a year, is it really going to make any difference to a child’s vocabulary? Nobody’s passing their afternoons browsing for small brogues and comparing buckles. You go in, get your kids’ feet measured, buy the shoes and get out. 

And with Clarks, you’d be hard-pressed to name a more middle-class brand. A typical pair of Clarks girls’ school shoes costs 40-odd quid, and families who can happily afford that aren’t likely to be the ones this scheme is targetting.