To what extent are the school responsible for (Reception aged) kids belongings?

[Crunchymum]

It's all kicked off on my parents group as one of the kids has lost an expensive (think Nike or similar jumper). A few parents are saying it needs to be reported to the office whereas another mum helpfully said "this is why I never send them in with anything valuable or expensive".

One parent in particular has taken umbrage to this and has demanded we all start to log any lost items with the school office (copying in the headteacher!). This particular parent's child has lost at least 3 expensive items this term.

Of course it's now kicked off as another parents has helpfully pointed out that if the child keeps on losing expensive things maybe they should stop being sent in with expensive things (I haven't replied and won't but I'm definitely more on the side with this parent!)

What do we think? Should the school take some level of responsibility or are the parents asking for trouble sending in things they don't want lost? 🤔

So long as somewhere to teach them to put it. That’s the point-if the school have a system in place and teach the children how to use it, it helps.

Jumpers should be put on the back of chairs, I teach my class to make their chair ‘wear’ their jumper so it’s less likely to fall off. Never worked in a school that didn’t have labelled trays and pegs in the cloakroom but this doesn’t mean things don’t go missing. The pile of lost property that is put out on display at parents evenings is a testament to this. If you don’t want to lose it, don’t take it.

Best thing you can do as a parent is label all belongings (to avoid lost items) and avoid sending expensive items (which might genuinely be stolen).

Schools will help with lost items to an extent. But no one.is going to bother searching for an unlabelled jumper identical to dozens of others. How would the school know they've found it? Even distinctive coats should be labelled, as when left on the pitch, they can be reunited with the owner.

A jumper basket seems wild! it takes them long enough to get jackets on never mind gather round the basket of very similar jumpers and try and identify your own. They would be lucky if anyone got the right one back.

In an EYFS classroom, children shouldn’t all have a designated chair.

Ha. As a teacher I cannot possibly be responsible for every item belonging to 30+ other people.
We do what we can but at the end of the day things do disappear.
Don't send anything you'd be sad to lose. Label everything clearly and check it each time you wash it as labels do wash off or become illegible.
I can identity who most lost property items belong to by smell but not always 😂

It's the parent's responsibility. When they come out of school at the end of the day, make sure they have everything they went in with. It's much easier to find it on the same day than a week later.

there are always going to be some parents who "helpfully rehome" labelled items as I found in our school even though i had my blinking phone numbers on the labels! one jumper turned up a year later being worn by another child in my childs class, name label still intact. so agree...don't send anything valuable in (this was just a school jumper which was expensive enough!)

This is one of the reasons why you don't send your 5YO into school in something expensive.

The other reason is that you can guarantee it will get covered in permanent marker/paint/tomato sauce and ruined.

It's just not worth the aggro.

The only time I have felt that school was responsible for a lost item was when dd2 was in Yr2. For all of reception/yr1, there were no major issues. Dd2 was well trained in taking off hat/gloves/jumper/whatever and putting straight into her bag/on her peg. All fine.

yr2 comes around and the teacher insisted all winter hats/gloves go into a basket instead. First set lost, I just gritted my teeth and thought myself lucky that it had taken this long. Second set lost I politely asked teacher if dd2 could do as she always had, and put her belongings in her bag. No, not possible, this system was so much better. Third set lost I gave up buying the overpriced school woolly hat and sent a distinctive coloured one instead.

generally, though, don’t send valuable things in, and name everything. Also, teach your child to get into a routine with their belongings. It mostly works.

I've got absolutely no sympathy for this parent, who should have had the common sense not to send their child to school in an expensive jumper, only for it to be lost. It's not the school's responsibility to find it.

When my daughter was at nursery, they had pegs and drawers, clothes were supposed to be labelled. They had their own lost property bin.

In reception, it was the same. All through to Year 4, we'd get an occasional, "Anyone recognise this? Lydia came home with it!" and it would be reunited. Years 1 to 4 had a lost property table, in the main entrance. They also brought trolleys out to the playground on the last day of every half term.

That’s why you don’t send expensive jumpers into school. Having helped out at swimming with the reception class at school it’s chaos, the teachers do their best. When they get into year one onwards they all have lockers rather than a cloakroom and it’s much better.

In my daughter's reception class (33 kids) this was a common issue. They all had pegs etc but invariably stuff got misplaced. Teacher (lovely gal) used to tell every child who said where is my jumper etc to look for it starting with their peg (where it should be if not on them!). My DD always seemed to lose her PE t shirt and cardigan. They would turn up eventually, usually after I'd taken her (in reception) to the lost property box or later nagged her to go herself and check.

Reception is a lot about learning to be independent, sit on the carpet, pick up your stuff, do as you are told etc so not sure what the big deal is.

Obviously, sending expensive stuff in is ridiculous and not the school's problem.

OP are you a uniformed school? Just wondering why the child went in designer gear.
We ask on the parents WhatsApp if a child has the wrong jumper if one comes home wearing someone else's etc, but wouldn't dream of involving the teacher in the mini dramas. They've got enough to do already.

So, ditto for coats, wellies, gloves, scarves? Letters home, reading books?

A basket can still be empty, with more than one child picking up the wrong item. School jumpers etc all look alike and at 4 not all children can read their own name. That's why children have coat pegs.

No, teachers don't have time to manage all this shit. Don't send children to school with expensive items. Job done.

My DC seems to lose stuff all the time.

Particularly jumpers. You have to suck it up, kids lose things, schools can't provide staff to spend all day tracking down lost stuff.

My child has lost 3 jumpers in the past year... there's not much they can do about it. Like PPs have said, don't send your child in with expensive things.

Yes! Teach them to recognise their names. That is part of EYFS teaching and not tricky or adding loads of time. Peg/basket/drawer-doesn’t matter so long as there is a place that they can put things and then check.

I AM a teacher. This is not something that causes lots of hassle.

No expensive things should be sent into school. The school cannot be held responsible for lost property.

School provide a peg and set expectations. That’s it. It’s good to give children a little bit of responsibility for their own stuff - and parents sending their DC in with expensive things shouldn’t be.

At this point in the term even the youngest reception children should be familiar with the routine of where they are supposed to put their stuff. My reception age child had the hang of it in nursery tbh.

Jeez, state schools don't have funding for enough staff to fulfil their educational obligations, so I'm sure they can't afford to employ someone to deal with this stuff!
I work in a (uniform wearing ) school and despite my frequent reminders, I would say that about 75% of children have unlabelled clothes. So although children might be able to tell their clothes apart by smell, I'm not able to do that , and have to guess which child out of about 400 have lost their coat/jumper. We do try to keep track of these things, but it comes out of learning time, none of us have free time to follow up this.

I agree with you, don't take expensive things to school, I wouldn't say it to a parent whose just lost something though I'd let thes choose do that when they complain

Have to say I do wonder how much is "lost" v what's stolen, even with little kids. The only thing DS1 ever lost in infant school was England football kit when they'd been asked to take it to change into during one of the tournaments. He never lost any of the cheap things I usually sent him to school with.

It's this simple

Exactly this.

And I'd named it, amazing how it never turned up.