to have a bit of a rant about people who steal school uniform

[Kiriwawa]

Yes, I know it's dull and it's been done before.

But I'm just bloody annoyed this evening (doing end of term washing in a slatternly way).

DS has SEN. He's a bit shit at remembering to dress himself properly after PE so quite often comes out without his jumper on. Usually, I realise, we go back and find it and all is well. Because he forgets to put stuff on a lot, we get to root around in lockers and in the school hall and anywhere else he might have left something.

If it's not in the school, it stands to reason that another child has taken it home. So it should come back really shouldn't it, but it bloody doesn't. Last term he had stolen lost 1 jumper. This term, it's 1 jumper and 1 fleece. That's about £40 worth of kit.

I sew nametags in the back of all his clothes and I sew them round all sides. They don't fall out. I can understand that you don't necessarily look at every single item of clothing every week but at the end of term, you surely realise if your child has an extra jumper? Or a frigging fleece which costs £18?

So AIBU to think some parents are thieving fucking bastards? :mad:

[GotAnyGrapes]

Oh I think the school already have a good idea as she did tell me she's been asked a couple of times what in particular she's looking for. She always says sweatshirt or cardi as inevitably there is at least one in there which isn't named which she then says she's sure is her child's. She is far more open about it to me as I'm no longer a parent there. She is always careful to say some things slightly tongue in cheek such as what a nuisance it is that the best quality stuff is always named. I don't know why I still speak to her actually as she annoys me not just with this but her general attitude. You'd think she was a bit 'rough' but she's not at all.

The other mum I know who does it doesn't brag about it but sees it as good fortune should her DD come home with a much newer cardi preferably in the next size up sort of thing. She doesn't set out to acquire stuff but never returns it either. I always thought they were both a but odd but it would seem to be widespread.

[Kiriwawa]

I don't understand how some people don't realise that's actually stealing. If you know people who do this, I suggest you take their jacket if they get up from their chair and say 'finders keepers' to them and refuse to hand it back.

[YellowTulips]

I feel your pain OP. I feel I must have clothed a good percentage of my son's peers this year already.....the lost list this academic year alone:

• 3 jumpers
  
• 1 winter coat
  
• 1 pair trainers
  
• 2 PE t- shirts
  
• 1 pair PE shorts
  
• 1 pair track suit bottoms
  

To be fair my son is not the best at remembering to bring his bags from school to after school club but there is also a big gap where things go missing between the two. I have spent so long in lost property bins, but though all is well labelled it never gets recovered. Total cost is probably circa £100.

It so infuriating and believe me I have had words with my son, but like grapes posted I have also encountered the finders keepers attitude with some parents.

The coat finally came back a term later - only because my son recognised it because another kid was wearing it. The response was - I saw you had got your son a new one so I didn't think you needed this one back :-(

[Theas18]

The secondary school PE kit had to be embroidered with the child's name on the outside before it left the designated uniform shop. Maybe primary schools should do that? Maybe just surnames to avoid the " hey little Ben come and look at my puppies" thing - ok if you are a smith it's hard but most other kids a surname would get your it back - and you'd know immediately it wasn't yours ( and machine embroidery doesn't unpick easily).

(and I'd have loved to have been a fly in the wall when my son became J Singh as he'd had to borrow kit- he was ,I believe teased somewhat as the least Sikh looking boy you can imagine!).

[Itsaboatjack]

YmightbeBU, if like me the child's parent is even more slatternly and not even looked at the laundry basket yet. Also if it were my dh doing the washing I'm not sure he would notice at all if we had something that didn't belong to dd.

But on the whole YANBU it's totally annoying. My dd managed to lose 2 new school cardigans at the beginning of the year and there was never any sign of them in lost property.

A few yrs back when dd was in nursery and so not in uniform, I did find one day when sorting through her drawers that we had two of the same cardigan from Next. I've no idea how long we'd had them both for but I did take one of them back.

[YellowTulips]

I think some parents think its fair game. Your kid might lose a jumper but gain a winter coat

I just think its pretty shoddy tbh.

[dadofnone]

Last year DS who was 15 at the time lost his school bag in school. It was a hugely expensive on that he had since starting high school. I went to school on a huge rant. I was tipped over the edge as we had been broken into a few weeks before and had over hundred thousand pounds worth of stuff stolen and really went of on one. I said I was going straight to the police station as I was fed up of people thinking they could take our stuff from us.
We got the bag back within 24 hours!

[GotAnyGrapes]

I agree it is stealing. However you dress it up, they have stolen the clothes belonging to someone else's child.
As I said, I always thought these women a bit odd, certainly the one who seems to view it as a hobby but it would seem this is happening in the majority or at least a sizeable minority of schools up and down the country. I bet the same ones who do it would be mortified at the idea of taking £10 from a fellow parents purse but that's exactly what theyre doing.

[Baroozer]

I had one parent accuse my DS of stealing her DS's jumper when I went up to her in the playground to return it, the day after DS had brought it home in his bag. I was so that I couldn't reply. I had even taken the trouble to wash it that evening because it was covered in dried food, so it was clean to return to her.

That same day DS came home with the same child's jumper in his bag, while still wearing his own. I asked him why on earth he had got C's jumper and DS's friend, who had come over to play, piped up with, "C always puts his jumper into other people's bags because he doesn't like it."

I took a rather guilty pleasure in asking C's mum, in front of everyone, if she could tell her DS not to put his jumper deliberately into my DS's bag again because it was so dirty that I had to clean the whole bag out. And then I handed it to her with the dried yoghurt stain clearly visible.

[Baroozer]

YANBU, btw. Some parents are thieving bastards.

[zipzap]

Ds1 had a coat turn up on his peg 18 months after he'd lost it...

No idea where it went to in the interim as it didn't even seem like it had been worn. Think it just had fallen down behind something in a staff room. And I'd been rootling around the lost property box on a fairly regular basis; plus if something end up in there that is labelled then it gets put onto the kid's peg, they go through it every week or two, so the stuff that was in there is generally just the recently lost stuff or the unlabelled stuff. All the dc's stuff is clearly labelled and written on the garment these days - plus at ds1's new school uniform stuff comes ready labelled when you buy it from the school supplier (only one available for the logo-ed bits of uniform; prices fall somewhere between supermarkets and John Lewis/m&s so reasonable and they label it for you - fantastic)

Mind you somebody once refused to give ds his wellies back despite them clearly having his name in on the basis that he wouldn't then have any wellies to wear turned out there were 3 of them with identical wellies - third boy had taken other boy's wellies, other boy had taken ds's, ds had realised his wellies weren't there so hadn't worn them home (during heavy snow so all wearing wellies for school run). And third boy was then off sick so wellies hadn't returned to school. Also turned out that she had only labelled one welly as she assumed they would always be together

she did give the wellies back eventually after a lot of talking and took the other identical ones instead but she really did not understand why she had to give ds his wellies back without her ds getting his pair back; she just couldn't comprehend that my ds had come home without wellies as he couldn't find his own ones. I'd also had to draught in the bloody scary class teacher because it was the only way I could get her to give the wellies back - she was going to take them home with her and bring them back for her ds to put on to ensure her ds had wellies as I had pointed out that they belonged to my ds and she didn't want my ds 'pinching' his own wellies as it would mean her son wouldn't have any. Completely gobsmacking. Left me very and not least because of needing to involve scary teacher who I tried to avoid as much as possible

And breathe... Sorry that was a bit of a rant!

[SelfconfessedSpoonyFucker]

DS needed uniform (expensive) speedos for team he was on. Also the same with a collared golf-style shirt they had to wear to games. Everyone swiped each others so I embroidered his name with my sewing machine on the speedo hip and sleeve cuff. No more missing speedos like when it was sharpied on the inside. WAAAAYYY too much work to unpick, would take a couple of hours and you can see where it is on the outside. I would ask school if you can have a shop embroider initials on chest or on the hem.

[Baroozer]

Zip, that's happened to us as well. Boy left his wellies at home, mother told him to find someone else's pair and wear those because they were going to stay at her DP's. So DS would have had no wellies over the Christmas holidays. Luckily I spotted him wearing them (name written in permanent marker on the outside) and got them back, but she was cross that her DS wasn't going to have any wellies.

[muddythegoddessofdawn]

I'm fed up with replacing items. Some items I can understand go missing but DD went to put her coat on from her hook and it had gone.
I always buy expensive coats as she catches a bus in all our lovely dales weather. We looked high and low, never seen it since.
Now when I buy DD a new coat I not only sew her name in like before, I also write it in in black permanent ink. It means I can't sell on but she hasn't lost one this year yet. Only 3 tops, a pair of trainers and track bottoms.
I hope once she gets a locker at secondary school her stuff won't go walkabouts.

[Smooshy]

I will admit to taking a jumper from lost property. But in my defence I had been checking for weeks for DS3's lost jumper and this jumper with an indecipherable name in had been sitting in the lost property box for weeks, so I claimed it as no one else had. I wouldn't take an obviously named item, and I only ever look in lost property when my child has lost stuff.

[Selks]

Why don't the schools come down hard on this? School should make it policy that non-returned items belonging to other children are regarded as stolen and they should email all parents regularly to say this. If the school culture frowned on this more I'm sure it would lessen how much it happened.

Long time since my two were at school but I remember how maddening it was, particularly as I was on a low income at the time.

[4posterbed]

My dc have never lost anything from primary school or secondary probably because we always get decent secondhand, either from the PTA secondhand sale or from friends whose dc have outgrown their uniform, and because my dc have learnt to be responsible and pack their own bags.

I often have dc who come to my house to play and I am amazed that they are constantly leaving items of clothing/uniform! I just think that many parents haven't taught their children to be responsible and believe me, if they are forgetful at 5 years old they are just as likely to be as forgetful at 15!

[TomDudgeon]

I'm discovering that less is going missing since I started writing dds name on the inside back waistband of everything in huge letters using fabric pen. Things still go missing though but I'm relying on her to check as she gets a taxi. I hope she looks out for her little brother's stuff too when he starts in September.

Oh and btw if your son goes to school in norfolk and has lost a towel with an apple on it I have it (now washed) I know whose it is but no email or number to text.

My sons' schools insist on naming in numerous ways. Everything has a name label sewn inside and kit often has initials in the outside too. I don't know of its that it whether most of parent don't have to worry about the cost but neither have them have really lost anything to speak of.

[missingmumxox]

I feel you pain I plan ahead and 3 years ago living in the states, I brought 2 coats for 8-9years which cost me the grand total of $16 using various vouchers and a sale, they are osh kosh and really warm.
got them out and labeled them this year, they actually had a label supplied inside to write on, within a week 1 went missing.
I use breakfast club and after school so very little opportunity to get into the lost property, after 3 weeks got in, and found the label! it was on the floor obviously ripped out by the lost property bin.
I have not seen that coat in the playground which makes me think it was sold on, also I was looking for other sons fleece and it was amazing how nothing in the lost property bin was school logo ed, all asda, tesco.
I have stopped buying the school logo stuff and my poor son is wearing a coat 2 sizes too small for him.
my other son has held onto his school fleece since year 1, now year 3 (brought much too big for him) he nagged us for a term to get him one with the school name on as in the US he just wore normal clothes and he loved the idea of "belonging"
I know it is his as the zip is broken and 1 pocket has a hole in it, but he loves it and guards it.
other son has "lost" numerous school jumpers I have given up buying for him.
I am from the school of if they bring stray stuff home I launder it and send it back.
On a good note at christmas one of my DT brought with his christmas money a skylander lunch holder and drink canister, he brought home some other child's, with lunch box at half term, that child's mum returned my sons and us her child's and we had both cleaned them, so it is not all bad.