to think DD's teacher should not make her swap uniform with another child?

[allmouthnotrousers]

DD (9) went to another local school this afternoon to take part in some kind of maths challenge (am hazy on details as the school only told me yesterday afternoon ). I sent her off this morning dressed as she is every day - logoed school polo neck t-shirt, grey uniform trousers, and red cardigan. The cardigan isn't logoed as they cost stupid money - DD has a knitting granny who makes her one every year in the right shade of red.

When I picked her up, she had no cardigan. I asked where it was and it turned out she had been made to swap with another child and wear their logoed one instead, and other child had fallen over whilst wearing hers and got it muddy so the teacher had sent it home with them to wash and return.

DD is allergic to a lot of washing powders so I chased after other child, got cardigan back to wash myself, and it has a hole and several long pulled threads from where the other child fell over, as well as being properly sodden and very muddy.

I approached her teacher and said that I'd prefer it if DD could be allowed to remain in her own uniform, and she shrugged and said DD needed a logoed cardigan for trips. Well that's news to me, and she was one of only 4 children who went to the other school, which only has 30 pupils anyway so hardly going to get swept up in a maelstrom of other kids

It was a mistake. I will go now as I'm not getting it and I don't want to offend people who are annoyed.

I still think it is a great deal of fuss about an unfortunate incident. I never managed to get mine through primary school without damaging/losing uniforms. (I agree it was annoying)

God if you're getting into this much of a flap about a £20 cardigan/£9 sweatshirt just wait until your kids are at secondary school! My secondary school uniform was bottle green and red so not always readily available in M&S/Tesco etc. and we all HAD to have a blazer which cost £160. £20 doesn't sound that unreasonable to me, especially if you only buy one each year and have others without the logos.

Anyway, OP, I think it was U of the school to not tell you that she needed a logoed cardigan (as they obviously think she did considering they put her in one). It was also U of them to give your daughter's handmade cardigan to another child to wear. They should have spares.

I think granny's hand knitted cardigana much nicer option than crappy overpriced school one. I don't like school uniform on such young children anyway

I was the child in the hand knitted cardigans and I hated it!

What's Granny's opinion OP? Or haven't you dared to tell her?

I bet the wool for the hand-knit would cost more than the logoed cardie.

Yes, I know I'm missing the point of the thread.

If the hand-knitted cardie was so precious, maybe it shouldn't have been worn for school in the first place? It's lovely to have a granny that knits for you but schoolwear should be hard-wearing.

Haven't read the entire thread but ....£20 for a logoed sweatshirt? Our school's logoed sweatshirts/cardigans cost £10 max (depends on which local shop you get it from), and wash up lovely! I think that's a lot of money, when you need to buy at least 2...but £20 is extortionate! Good Grief!
The school I work out allows non logoed things, but we have lots of "spares" for times when a corporate look is needed.

So was I exotic and at secondary school I hated it (didnt have uniform in primary), but my feelings wouldnt have made a jot of difference to my mother if this had happened and she had had to find the money for a replacement.

Dancer Who said it was precious?! The OP can presumably trust her DD to look after her belongings, but it wasnt her DD that damaged it. You dont give responsibility for someone elses things to a primary school aged child without the agreement of both sets of parents. I wouldnt be happy to have my childs logo'd jumper taken off them for a photo op either tbh!

YADNBU. The cardigan is your property. Just because that property happens to be a school uniform doesn't make it the school's (in case they provided it in the first place which obviously they didn't). They have no right whatsoever to take your property and give it to another child to wear, or vice versa, for whatever reason. If they suddenly realised she needed one with a logo they should have a cupboard with spare in they could use, or they should have phoned you and said she can't go without one and got some sort of permission, especially if she has allergies.

When DD1 was little she had terrible eczema so she always had cardis hand knitted in cotton knitting wool, because the acrylic in the school ones brought her skin up so badly. She was so bad that washing it in biological powder or with any perfumed powder would have taken a good few washes to get out.

Plus, replacing a hand knitted cardi might be cheaper but it's a whole lot of hassle to have to get a new one knitted.

Totally on your side, OP.

The cardigan isn't 'precious', yes its handknitted but out of cheapo hardwearing washable polyester yarn. I think the fact DD has only gone through one a year since reception (she's about to go into Y5) is testament to their hard-wearing-ness - she is not gentle on her clothes at all, she is a typical child

It was no more 'precious' than anyone else's child's uniform. Stop picking on the 'handknitted' thing - that makes no difference. The fact is her uniform was damaged whilst being worn by another child at the teachers' insistence. I'd be every bit as pissed off had it been any other bit of the uniform/equipment that I provide for my DD to wear/use.

Oh sorry that wasn't to the last couple of posters

Thank you for managing to get my point

YANBU.

I would definitely take this up with the teacher who made her swap. If the teacher made the decision to force your DD to let another child wear her clothes and they were subsequently damaged, there's only one person to blame.

Surely he/she will be deservedly mortified when you confront her.

It's totally unacceptable IMO.

we all HAD to have a blazer which cost £160. £20 doesn't sound that unreasonable to me Slightly different if you've opted to send a child to private school though. You accept then that you will be spending hundreds on uniform. £20 is a lot for a logoed cardi in a state school though I think. Certainly double what we pay, although there are 420 in our school as opposed to the OP's 30, so it is probably economies of scale that have made the price difference.

YANBU OP.

It's not a school rule that all children must have a cardigan with a logo, either for full time school or one off trips, it's something the teacher made up and organised. The school allow unlogo-ed uniform and haven't complained about her hand knitted cardigans in the past four years so this should have been good enough for the trip to the other school.

Your daughter has allergies and regardless of who is washing her damaged cardigan now, she had already been made to wear one that belonged to someone else and could have already been washed in powder she was allergic to. Thankfully that doesn't seem to be the case as you haven't said she has reacted to it in any way but the teacher making up this rule clearly didn't consider that.

Her belongings were damaged by someone else but the fault lies with the teacher who made the girls swap clothes.

Blimey, if my DDs went to a school which had a £160 blazer I'd be buying it in a size so large it came down to their ankles and then challenged anyone, whether pupil or teacher, who said anything about it. Mind you, private schools get away with murder even more than state schools do.

I would be angry and mortified in equal part if my child came home in the OPs cardi. A) my childs uniform had been taken from them for another child to wear, NOT ON and B) My child wrecked the cardi they were put in and I now had to either repair and wash or replace , NOT ON.

If I was the mother of the other child I would actually be more pissed off than the OP and would be joining forces in the complaint!

Wow. Am I the only one whose child constantly comes home wearing a friend's shirt, or jumper (esp jumpers) or coat? I'm impressed that this is unusual enough to be fussing about, tbh.

pointy Buying second hand or buying so large that it lasts until 6th form is something of a badge of honour at many private schools! Only the "new moneys" buy brand new, fitting, uniform every term!

Barbarian Happens to us alot, but because kids getting changed from PE dont really care if they are wearing their own stuff. This happened because a teacher made 2 children change clothes. Surely you cant think that thats ok?

If someone had taken clean clothes off him put dirty clothes on him that would bother me, but otherwise it really wouldn't. But then nobody could take less care of my son's clothes than he does himself so I am probably not the right person to empathise with the OP over this.

As you were.

a bit OT, but our logo sweatshirts cost £9, and I couldn't buy enough wool to knit a cardie for that. And my dcs have 1 each. I sometimes sponge food streaks off, but mostly they wear them all week. I didn't think that was too bad. No second hand here, very few at our school are still in good enough condition to sell/pass on!

And we have only heard that the teacher shrugged it off. We haven't heard that she said she was terribly sorry, the daughter's cardigan had got dirty and damaged as a result of her actions. How could she make amends? Surely this should have been the least she should have done. Sounds as though you were a bit too nice OP.