Primary school lost property

[Catriona100]

My children's primary school has a new policy about lost property: They don't hold onto it. Anything labelled, is handed back to the child concerned. Anything not labelled is either thrown away or given to a charity shop "if its worth having" (in the words of the school secretary).

They haven't mentioned this new policy in any newsletter (despite there being about 30 newsletters per year). I only found out when I asked if I might look in the lost property as DS has lost his (rather expensive) gloves.They were labelled, but he either dropped them in the street or the person who found them didn't see the label as it was under the velcro strip.

I don't when the policy started because its the first time in two years that I have needed to try to find anything like this.

The problem isn't the policy, it's the lack of communication from the school, which from my experience, seems to be a common problem.

I can completely understand why a school would have a policy like this, they really do end up with ridiculous amounts of stuff and even when invitations are given to parents to come in and reclaim stuff they still end up with loads.

I don't think there's much you can do about this really, except stop sending in expensive things. Especially expensive gloves, which are very easily lost even by a child who is generally quite good at looking after their own stuff.

I agree with cloudsandtrees. The school should have informed parents of this change before throwing things away, but I can understand why they do it because a huge amount of lost property builds up & is never reclaimed. I strongly recommend not sending expensive items to school though. X

Do they get rid of it on a daily basis then?

Yes, it was stupid to let him take those gloves into school. I won't make that mistake again (obviously). I should have bought him a cheap pair from Primark or something.

I just wish the school had made the new policy clear up front. I am now thinking... did I label those new trainers DS brought in for PE last week?

WorraLiberty - I am not sure how often they clear it out. I only found out the gloves were lost this morning because of the snow.

I have a question though... who does lost property belong to? The finder or the loser?

If you don't have the child's name inside the item, then you deserve to lose it.

assuming you did not mean to scold lovelyladuree, I'll just explain two things.

1. The thread isn't about whether I deserve to lose the item. its about whether the school's policy is correct or not. (For me the jury is out). Perhaps I didn't write my Op well enough to make that evident.

1. There was a label on the inside of each glove, but it got rubbed off after just a few wears. So I put a new one on the outside under the velcro fastenings (I did this about a month ago and at the time I thought that I was going the extra mile to try to ensure that every last little thing that goes out to school/ out of school activities etc had a label on it)

Maybe another way would be for the school to have an end of half term clear out of all uncollected stuff and charge everyone £1 for every returned, but unmarked lost item

From what I have managed to google, if you find someone else's property, you have to first make a reasonable attempt to find out whose it is and return it to them. (ie look for a name label)
If the first you have to keep it or give it to the police for six weeks so that it can be claimed by the owner.
Then after 6 weeks, the lost property becomes yours to do with as you wish (i.e. bin or give it to a charity shop in this school's case).

So, the school policy is actually outwith the law because it disposes of the property before 6 weeks are up ... but, no I am not going to make a fuss by telling them!

I'm not sure that law applies to the school

It would if they found lost uniforms in the street, but on their own premises I'm sure it's different?

Anyway, you said you don't know how long they keep it for?

Ours keep lost property for half a term and then dispose of it/sell it off cheap.

my dds primary school had a system that might work for you. at the end of every half term the contents of the lost property box were exhibited on trestle tables in the playground. any unclaimed items were then disposed of. so there was never more than half a term's worth of stuff to store but you didn't lose your item if you didn't realise it was missing the same day. i think the PTA organised the event.

I know that DS had his gloves last month because I ironed labels onto them. So it is less than 6 weeks.

Mrs wobble - that sounds like a good idea.

I help in school and I know some parents don't give their children breakfast or listen to them read regularly. So it doesn't take much imagination to work out that they are very unlikely to bother to label all the bits and pieces.

I hadn't seen the lost property box for a long time (because I do label and my children are expected to take responsibility for looking after their stuff) but the last time I saw it, there was quite a lot of stuff in there. So I get that its a pain for the school.

However, i don't think the school has it quite right. As it stands, if a child loses something and it hasn't been labeled, then the parents need to hope that the school doesn't find it first as it will be binned or given away before the even realise its missing.

DS's school have the same policy as Mrs Wobbles except the unnamed school items if not collected are then sold to parents for a pound (money to school).

It is incredibly frustrating if items don't have names on them - and even if the policy sounds unfair and harsh it must be driven out of extreme frustration at having lots of unclaimed uniform in the office.