August is upon us.

Hopefully that will mean long, warm (at the very least please) summer days and the sanity-saving knowledge that before long children up and down the land, dressed in shiny new uniforms clutching newly stocked pencil cases, will be heading back to school for a new academic year.

School uniform can be hideously expensive, particularly if your child(ren) goes to a school that insists on every item being emblazoned with the school motto.

We don't want you to have to extend the financial agony any further than necessary, so we happily agreed to review some Back to School items from Poundland.

Following a quick rummage through the Poundland Back to School stash that arrived in the PlayPennies office, we duly sent it off to PlayPennies mum Ellen, to review.

"Various Back to School stationery items arrived from Poundland for me to test," says Ellen, "You know, the usual suspects: pens, pencil cases, pads of paper and notebooks etc.  It was tricky to know where to start really, so I just dived in."