school bag up dd's coat and give to charity.........

[bitofcheese]

i am really pissed off. dd forgot her rain coat over the half term period, left it on her coat hook outside her class room (name in coat). our fault in part as i hadn't noticed she didn't have it with her. dh & i share the school run due to my job point is if i picked her up i wouldn't have automatically noticed that she didn't have the coat with her that she may have had that morning (ie raining in the morning and hot in the afternoon, usual English summer) and dd is also to blame BUT.......when she went back to school stands to reason it should still be hanging on her coat peg. it wasn't. i went into school office to have a moan all be it politely. deputy head comes out and proceeds to tell me how any left behind clothes, including items on coat pegs are bagged up and donated to charity. WTF... i can't afford to easily replace it. not happy. i understand and not a bad idea donating to local charity shop items in a lost and found bin that have been there for a few months but taking a named coat off a coat peg outside kids classroom is well out of order

she said it was on the peg. i am pretty sure dh would have taken her to school with her wearing it (as raining) but was sunny in the afternoon so she skipped out forgetting to take it with her. it is a bright colourful boden number (i've looked on ebay incase it was on there....they sell well on there). our house is small and tidy, it definately ain't here, definately at school, or was anyway

That's really unfair, I would make a complaint to the governers

Complain and keep complaining - just make sure DD has got her story correct. It's ridiculous that the school should bag clothing and send it off to charity with very little, if any, notice. So give it the "broken record" treatment and keep repeating the fact that it was labelled, wasn't lost and was hanging on a peg until they agree to either find or replace the item for you.

If your facts are correct, I don't see how they can justify their actions.

Our school is like Freddos - the PTA sorts out the lost property and displays it in the playground once a term and then sends the remaining stuff off to charity then.

When you next meet with the head, I suggest you take her coat/cardigan hanging in her office/back of her chair, and tell her that since it has been left lying around it is clearly lost property and as such you will be donating it to the charity shop.

On a more serious note, have you complained in writing to the governors and LEA? You need to, and make it clear that it is theft, and you will be involving the police if the matter is not resolved.

I'd keep on about this.

Finding old PE kits that have languished in a corner uncollected for a half term is one thing, but names coats whether on pegs or whether they've fallen onto the floor in the end of the day rush, should be kept and returned to it's owner.

Our school is also like Scholes and Freddos.

YANBU. That is stealign and the dh's attitude is outrageous. They should either find the coat sharpish or pay for a new one.

This is so out of order! It had her name on so leave it on the peg surely? Some schools have a strange attitude to property. They shouldn't be allowed to do this.

Why wouldn't they returned the named things to the children/parents. Surely only unnamed stuff should be in the lost property?

I would be complaining to the school formally!!!

I would be furious! At the end of term just before the summer holidays all the lost property is laid out in the hall to be taken home and then remaining stuff is bagged up and donated to charity BUT we are warned this will happen and it only happens once a year.

I'm not surprised you're furious - I would be too! As a KS2 teacher I feel like I spend far too much time returning coats etc. to their owners - something I can only do if the item is labelled. Anything I find on the floor of the cloakroom I put on the benches outside the classrooms (where collecting parents gather/sit) and items that have been previously 'hung' on the floor either end up being put back into the PE bag/wherever or else they are taken home with their owner. Never in a million years would I have imagined that school staff actively went round chucking out labelled items that were hanging on labelled coat pegs .

Definitely make a formal, written complaint to the Headteacher and ask him/her to let you know the reasons for this approach. Perhaps ask to see the 'abandoned property on coatpegs' policy and then make a formal request through the Governors for it to be reviewed.

It's not fair on any family who go to the trouble of labelling their children's property to have it thrown/given away by the school over a half-term holiday. When my class leave half their PE kits behind at the end of the school year I put them in the classroom they are due to transfer to so that they are safe and that's after having contacted the parents to let them know just in case they'd rather come to school and collect it.

They had no right to do that. It's your property not theirs. Complain complain and complain some more.

The definition of theft in England and Wales is to take something knowing it belongs to someone else with the intention to permanantly deprive them of it.

As far as I'm concerned that's what the school have done, so that sounds like theft to me.

They owe you for a new one.

That's bad. Even if it had been there longer (within reason - if it was a year 6 pupil who has gone on to Secondary it would be a different matter ..), even if it was not on the peg. A named item should be returned

FeakAndWeeble makes a good point there. One that I'd be inclined to put to the school, with the amount that you expect to be recompensed to provide a replacement coat. Make it awkward for them, it will encourage them to rethink this stupid policy.

update - got a call from the school on behalf of the deputy head - she (deputy head) went around with my dd to various possible places the coat could have been all of which of course came up with nothing. i can't imagine that it got thrown out or given to charity, tbh it is clear as day that it got pinched. dh doesn't seem overly bothered and doesn't agree with me being pissed off, his take on it is that it isn't the schools fault (i agree with that) and put it down to one of those things. i can see his point but the fact remains that there is clearly alot of thieving going on although dh says what can they do about it? don't know really. i won't ask them to give me the money for it, too much hassle and i know the school doesn't have much funds, i can't take any of it but one little nugget of advice they gave to my dd to give to me i kid you not 'go to primark and buy one there' (instead of spending more incase another gets nicked....), that's really helpful. it's not just the money, it's the bloody effort too. there are no shops that sell that sort of thing where we live plus i just got a note in her school bag about a summer trip to the zoo, and at the bottom it said make sure your child has a suitable coat if the weather is bad...they can fuck right off, she doesn't have one now

btw, they never return a named item, it automatically gets dumped in the lost & found tub (to be pinched by someone who takes a liking to it)

all very odd - why make a point of emphasising putting names in clothes / kit if name label is not referred to when the obvious time for it to come into its own arrives?!

i guess their view is that if an item has a name on it is easier to recognise it when it has been dumped in the 'rubbish bin'. very rare from what i know for someone to actually find their lost item when rifling through the lost & found bin. i don't really see how the school can stop people taking other peoples things although they can help by giving a named item back to the class room to which it belongs, that would help

Not surprised you're angry. DD is always leaving cardies/ coats etc in school and they've always been returned to her.