To implement a new rule for lost property at primary?

We have this system (2 form entry primary)
2 bins, in reception, easily accessible for children and parents. The front bin is the one for the current week.
Week 1: all items found go in bin 1.
Week 2: all items found go in bin 2.
End of week 2: 3 designated year 6 children go through bin 1 and sort items int named/unnamed.
Everything named gets returned to the right classroom.
Everything unnamed gets sorted between second hand (most stuff, pta members then double check for names) or bin (chewed water bottles, single socks, completely ripped stuff).
Week 1 bin now empty, and moved to the front.
and so on
Works a treat.

Yes or the setting that needs a particular thing done could you know….get it done. It’s perfectly commonplace in other countries (and indeed in the uk previously ) for children to participate in meaningful useful activities to support their own learning and lives.

And our school swore blind they checked for names. Everything of our kids stuff was named. The amount that went missing was ridiculous. They all had Stikins labels and Sharpie names too. I distinctly remember finding one of our kids clearly labelled shirt but from a previous school year when looking through one time!

Mistakes happen which is why I don’t think you go straight to selling them.

Our PTA do this at the end of every term. Any uniform that is unlabeled goes into the second hand uniform, anything that can go to a charity shop gets donated and everything else goes into recycling or in the bin. It only needs to be done once a term because year 6 have lost property monitors so once a week they dig out all the labeled items and return them to the children. I think that doing it weekly is too often, I don't go near the school wed-fri so wouldn't have a chance to look if my child had lost something, doesn't feel very fair to me.

I’m answering the OP.

Well, writing the child's name in would stop any problem. It's perfectly simple.

This. It’s not as if everybody needs to sew on Cash’s name tapes nowadays - there are indelible pens easily available.

At ds school all lost property goes in a large kallax type thing in the meeting room and parents k ow where it is. If it's labeled you can get your items back, if it isn't labelled it's a free for all and trat it like a uniform shop. I'm a labeller so I using for new uniform.

At our school we can go through the lost property any day, it all goes to one location in the school office to be looked through.

If it's named, why are you not returning to the child rather than holding onto it until half term?

Not all children in primary are old enough / understand going to lost property/ NT etc. if it's named then at least head it back in the direction of that child's classroom surely?

If I was struggling to buy uniform then I'd spend £2 and 10 minutes labelling it.

Yes. But on primary school the onus is also largely on the parents to label the stuff, surely? We literally just use a biro or a sharpie pen. Even on DS's water bottle where it washes off after a few washes - there's a sharpie on top of the fridge and whenever I notice it getting a bit feint I just rewrite it.

Ideally not beyond the skillset of someone who has borne a child and is responsible for raising them to get a Sharpie and write their name in the label of their uniform, if they want to have a chance if it returned if lost.

So they can be resold in the case of uniforms

I never understood why parents don't name items! I work in a school, and we ask parents to name their child's property. You can guarantee most of the parents don't! Then when property is lost, they expect their child or a member of staff to find it!!! How do they think that's possible?? Their child's cardigan/jumper looks no different to the other mountain of unnamed clothing!!!

Some kids lose stuff frequently and others do not. My DS only ever twice lost items; both times the Class TA had "helpully" taken a jumper and he wasn't allowed to go back to the hall to get it. Both times it turned up within a week. When we passed on uniform and forgot to take out labels though, we kept being given the jumpers until I ripped his name out, but that kid was losing a jumper twice each week! Similarly he's never lost anything at camps, not even a yoghurt spoon or bento tray divider, while a kid we know (with ADHD BTW) regularly comes out of camp with the no jumper on, no lunchbox, no water, no hat... one time we sent DS back for stuff this boy said he couldn't find and he came back with all of it within minutes! The mum had always been the one when they were little who forgot nappies, wipes, spare socks etc.

While some of it is being disorganised, and I appreciate that's frustrating, it's worth remembering that some people really struggle much more than others with organisation (parents and kids). Having a final check every half term, while remembering it all needs to be out at breakfast club drop-off too, before clearing it all out is kindest.

Same here, only my kids are 41 and 37! They're very sweet little labels, with the name woven into it - the school could get them at a big discount. They make my stomach do a little flip when I come across them amongst my sewing stuff. By secondary school I was at it with a Sharpie though!

I once worked in a shool where within the parents handbook were instruction as to WHERE on a garment to put name tags

Jumpers in the back of the neck
Trousers back of waistband
Shirts front right tuck in

It really did makelife easier, you knew exactly WHERE to look for a name.

( A small private prep,if it wasnt named,it was disposed of- gone- no second chance but it did focus attention!)

Whatever posesses jumper manufacturers to think that a nametag label half way down a side seam is a good idea is beyond me

Yes, the newsletter should have the dates in the termly calendar so parents can come and look through. I think ours was every half term as they couldn't store the amount of things lost. I also think it really helped out some of the parents who were struggling and everyone who's kids grow through 3 sizes in half a term! It's a very sustainable policy to show reuse and recycle!

We sew name labels into all of our son’s school uniform. I agree with your idea but I’d say do it on a half term basis. And the bottles etc can just go in recycling. Lost property at our primary school is INSANE I don’t know who all the parents are that can afford to have their kids loose uniform so readily.

In principle I'd agree with you BUT our primary school started putting out tables of lost property that were unnamed once screen or something, for people to look through and try to find their missing items.... the amount of times I would find named items in there was ridiculous - and they were current kids as I either knew the name or one of my kids did! So on the grounds that whoever is checking for labels doesn't do a good enough job, you can't just sell it on.

Our school would sell off the unclaimed items every so often - but they also said if you'd had something go missing, look through the pile for one in the right size and take that, as it was most likely a kid with an unlabelled item had got theirs mixed up with your child's item and had never returned it.

Your point about named items only for half a term - it’s all very well in principle but at our school named items can take weeks if not months to make their way to lost property. So it’s only fair to hold on to named lost property beyond half term (or return it direct to the child’s classroom).

DD1’s named school fleece has been removed from her peg twice this term already. The first time it was gone for weeks before being returned/turned up in lost property- covered in glue and mud and with her school badges stolen. She checked every day for the first week but she can’t keep spending her break times going to lost property every day.

DD2 has many named cardigans that disappear in school - she is 5 so I could ask her to check in lost property but there is no way she could cope with rummaging through the bins systematically and parents are not allowed into lost property since Covid.

At our school the unnamed lost property bins periodically get handed over to the PTA to sell and I have no issue with that. DD2’s cardigans will probably reappear when that happens.