Classmates vs Berol, Pritt and Expo: an honest comparison for school buyers

A whiteboard pen that fades mid-lesson. A glue stick that runs out halfway through a sequence of work. Felt tips that dry before the term ends.

Individually, these are small interruptions. Across a school day—and multiplied across every classroom—they become friction. For School Business Managers, that friction shows up in two places: workload and cost. This is where procurement decisions move beyond brand familiarity and into operational reality.

The question isn’t simply which product performs best on day one, but which continues to support teaching across a full academic year—and what that means for total spend per class.

What is the Classmates range from GLS?

Classmates is GLS Education’s own-brand range, developed specifically around how schools actually use stationery across a full year. Rather than anchoring around branded product cycles, the range is built to meet predictable classroom patterns:

• High-frequency use items (whiteboard pens, glue, colouring tools)
• Whole-class deployment (not ad hoc use)
• Storage in trays, trolleys and shared cupboards
• Replenishment tied to term cycles, not individual purchase moments

In practical terms, this means Classmates products are designed to be consistent in performance across batches, durable enough for repeated pupil use, packaged in quantities aligned to class sizes, and costed to support whole-school adoption. For SBMs, the distinction is important. It shifts purchasing from item-by-item decisions to modelling supply across an entire class or phase.

How does Classmates compare to Berol on quality?

Berol has long been a familiar name in UK classrooms, particularly for colouring pens. The brand is associated with bright pigment and reliable ink flow—qualities teachers trust for presentation work and pupil engagement.

In classroom testing conditions, the differences tend to appear not in immediate output, but in longevity and consistency under pressure:

Berol Strengths:

• Strong, vivid colour payoff
• Recognisable brand confidence among staff
• Consistent early-life performance

Classmates Strengths:

• Designed for extended use across full terms
• Typically more resistant to drying when lids are inconsistently replaced (a common KS1/KS2 reality)
• Lower replacement frequency in shared classroom sets

How does Classmates compare to Pritt Stick on glue quality?

Pritt Stick is arguably the most recognisable glue brand in UK schools. Its consistency and smooth application are widely trusted. However, glue usage in schools is rarely controlled or moderate. It tends to involve high-volume use during art and topic work, shared access across tables, and frequent overuse or incorrect storage.

Pritt Strengths:

• Smooth application
• Reliable adhesive performance
• Strong brand familiarity for staff

Classmates Strengths:

• Designed for repeated pupil handling
• More cost-effective at scale
• Comparable adhesion for everyday classroom materials (paper, card, light craft use)

The practical question becomes: does premium glue performance translate into measurable classroom benefit when usage behaviours remain unchanged? In many cases, the answer depends on how tightly a school manages resources—and whether glue is treated as a controlled or shared supply.

How does Classmates compare to Expo on whiteboard pens?

Expo is often considered the benchmark brand for whiteboard markers, particularly in secondary and presentation settings. But primary classrooms place different demands on whiteboard pens, such as frequent pick-up and put-down during lessons, occasional failure to replace lids, storage in bulk trays or pots, and direct use by pupils as well as staff.

Expo Strengths:

• Strong ink visibility
• Clean wipe performance
• Trusted in presentation-led teaching

Classmates Strengths:

• Built for high-turnover classroom use
• Longer usable life under imperfect storage conditions
• Better suited to whole-class access and pupil handling

Again, the difference often isn’t in peak performance—but in resilience across real classroom behaviours.

How much could a school save by switching to Classmates?

This is the point where procurement decisions become tangible. Rather than focusing on unit price, the more meaningful metric is the overall cost per class, per year. This system combines average usage rates, replacement frequency, pack sizing, and unit pricing models.

What matters here is the cumulative effect. Even modest per-item savings—when multiplied across 30 pupils, multiple subjects, three terms, and entire school cohorts—can result in meaningful budget release.

A more grounded way to think about savings

Rather than claiming blanket percentage reductions, many SBMs find it more useful to model one class fully, then scale across year groups, and finally compare against existing spend. This often reveals that the real saving is not just monetary—it’s also fewer emergency reorders, reduced stock variability, and less teacher time spent sourcing replacements.

A procurement decision, not just a product choice

For many schools, branded products remain appropriate in specific contexts—particularly where presentation quality or staff preference is critical. But where items are high-volume, shared, and frequently replaced, the decision often shifts from brand recognition to operational fit.

And in that space, Classmates has been designed not to compete on perception, but on how classrooms actually function. GLS Education works closely with schools to understand how everyday classroom materials are used—not in theory, but across real teaching weeks.

The consistent theme is that small inefficiencies compound quickly. Reliable, well-matched resources help reduce disruption, support planning flow, and ease pressure on both teachers and support staff. When procurement aligns with real usage patterns, classrooms run more smoothly—and staff can focus on teaching, not replacing.