To make dd (8) to pay for a new school coat.....

[hillbilly]

....when she has lost 2 in the same amount of weeks?

Being a bit scatty shouldn't be a punishable offence .

MrsBob, if you call the school they will direct you to lost property (normally in the janitors office or reception). However, your daughters coat could have been stolen.

It's not fair to blame your DD if someone has taken her coat. Anyway how can she pay, she doesn't earn money does she?

I would say get her a cheap one on ebay but also have a word with the school because if someone has stolen it they need to keep a watch out.

Point taken everyone! I'll have a good look today at school. It was mean of me to think it and I should be more supportive.

probably not at 8 but I have made my 13 yr old replace lost uniform that he has abandoned on the school playing field never to be seen again

hillbilly maybe If I'd started charging him at 8 he wouldn't still be loosing things at 13 :)

"I run my own payday loans company. If she needs a loan until pocket money day let me know"

lol..

Seriously, don't think its realistic to expect an eight year old to pay for an entire coat. Its probably sense to make her make a donation of pocket money towards it or do some chores to earn the money.

does your school have the texting system? ask them to send a text to all parents to check coats for your dd's and return it. May be that a scatty mum keeps forgetting to bring it back or that someone has the same coat and managed to take 2 home and no one realise? if they had the same coat and lost theirs then theirs would still be at school.

DD is scatty too (and a hot child so more likely to loose things than DS as he actually wears them!). I got really angry at her managing to loose 4 school jumpers in a week.

I would go into the cloakroom and look yourself as well as in lost property. Label things in inch high black marker on the fabric on the back of the neck. This can not be 'not noticed' or removed. If after checking several times things arent in lost property ask for a note to be put on the school newsletter or print off your own little notes to be handed out to the class.

PS. I once was responsibility for a mum going out of her mind that her sons coat was lost. I picked it up when collecting a friends daughter from after school activity, hung it on her coat rack (it was very similar in design to her daughters). She found coat assumed it was my sons and then returned to me a week later. Neither of us had a clue where it had come from and who it belonged to when I said it wasn't my sons. It was named but in biro on label written by child himself so unliegible. We took it into school and it was returned to them (and when learning whose coat it was we realised what must have happened as he went to same afterschool activity).

So it is possible that it is a genuine mistake.

My ds coat went missing at Primary school last winter. I wasn't amused, but wasn't angry with him, cos I knew he went to school in it, so it had either been moved or taken. It was labelled, teacher thought someone had taken it home by mistake. It never came back to school. Sometimes, dc take home wrong jacket by mistake, their parents must see that, but decide to keep it. The school gave my son a brand new school jacket as a replacement.
I think you should ring/ go into the school, & say your dd has now had 2 jackets disappear in 2 wks.
As an aside, if your dd is exceptionally scatty/forgetful, clumsy, finds following more than a couple of instructions at a time difficult, has poor co-ordination, it would be worth looking up Dyspraxia. Dc with Dyspraxia really do struggle with organisation, & no amount of telling-off or consequences can alter this. x

Yy to dyspraxia possibly being an issue, I am dyspraxic and suspect DD2(8) of being same. Anyway OP, I feel your pain, she is the clumsiest, untidiest, most disorganised person I've ever met (after myself), her teacher sends 3 or 4 cardigans home on Fridays. Lucky I inherit a lot of hand me downs.

YANBVU - my DD1 was always scatty, losing and forgetting things...I often bailed her out. I think I was wrong. I think you need to start training them up to take more responsibility for themselves and possessions before they start secondary - it is a lot harder to find things then and, if it is bigger, more chance there are less than honest children/parents there.
In the first term (Aug -Christmas) of high school my DD1 (nearly 13) lost 3 coats (2 £30ish, one £70ish) and countless school cardigans (at £14 each), home eco tubs etc etc ( I do suspect some of the problem with the coats was due to comments made about them by her frenemy - like why do you wear such a long coat (knee length) and that fleece lining looks like a dressing gown. (I found this out later because another friend had mentioned it to her mum). She has lost her locker key more than once - first times found around the house, in the garden, once on the street outside our gate then finally lost for good and needed to get a (£5) replacement. Several times her bus pass was missing for days, her canteen card, lost and found and then snapped in two -another £5

We have a box for her to put this stuff in when she gets home but she 'forgets'. (her locker key now has a huge keyring and a cat id disc with my mobile no on it)

Just before summer she lost her (£60) mobile phone .
Last term she lost another coat -it was getting too small etc but still ...it was her attitude -she knew where she left it (in school canteen), it took her 3 weeks and a phone call to the school to get her to look in lost property and then another week to ask in the canteen ...

I worked out in just over a year she had lost nearly £300 worth of things. And wasted loads of my time looking for things and phoning the school, bus company, police (phone) ....
I made her pay for a new coat - £30ish ...
She went through a stage of asking for things like superdry - I explained she had no chance when she couldn't look after what she had! Also she wants a house key - another no way - I'm not paying to change locks etc

You do realise this is primary school unlucky?

She can hang her coat up on her peg when she takes it off but that's as far as her responsibility goes when parents have access morning and afternoon and every child goes into that cloak room.

If she's being bullied and had it taken off her or some other kid took it home by accident and parents haven't returned it, that's not her fault!!

She has a locker with a padlock - so her stuff is not left unattended during lessons.

I don't think she should be paying for a new coat at the age of eight. I'd go into the school and find out what's happening.

I would definitely go in and look yourself. Some of our children are pretty hopeless at sorting their things out, and it is their fault that things get lost. For example, they don't hang their coat up properly, it falls on the floor and is kicked around by other children, so it gets picked up and put on the wrong peg/in lost property. Other favourites are being left in the hall after dinner, perhaps not so much this time of year as someone would notice the cold child! Ditto leaving coats in toilets. Sometimes if children have visited a different classroom they leave things behind there. We find hats, scarves and gloves stuffed behind radiators where the children have put them on there to warm them up/dry them out and they fall behind.

But it's amazing how much stuff we accumulate in lost property over the year, surely people must know that something has been lost and be looking for it? At parents evenings we have it on display in the hall for collection. Anything that isn't collected is often given away to children whose parents are struggling or who have lost their own things to help redress the balance.

Giles I know primary but my point is that I wish I'd 'trained' my DD1 much earlier - while still at primary....It took the whole of first year of high school to make any kind of progress - and it cost me a fortune!
Advice I wish someone had given me - rather like 'start giving them more freedom etc for the last couple of years of primary' because you can't watch them at high school they have to cross roads, catch a bus etc on their own...

And not losing coats at primary (unless she is being bullied) should be pretty easy ...

That's the point isn't it though? That not loosing coats should be easy.

They wear them at break that's it. And it's enclosed grounds. There's no where it could be unless it's been taken and hidden (maybe in a bin or behind a cupboard /in a store cupboard ) or taken home by someone else.

She would know where she had been.

Jumpers and sweatshirts I get. They are all the same. But coats are distinctive and maybe a couple have the same one but if they are kept in a locker then there's no chance to get them mixed up really.

So Giles - either someone is taking them/hiding them and she knows or she isn't putting it into her locker...
So if she forgot to put it in, she needs to try and learn to be more aware....if that makes sense!
If she is being bullied (and so someone took it off her) this might make her 'tell'
(I would speak to the school myself - but maybe not let her know that - try and get her to ask and look at school etc too ...)

fgs she is 8 not 18 how would she pay for it?
it is up to you to go and rummage in lost property i am afraid
yabu

But I'm assuming she stays in the same class room all day taking coat out at break and lunch. If she's loosing it then I doubt she's spending all lunch and breaks with no coats so given she's got a locker an a class room in the same place and doesn't leave that room aside for loo (wouldn't need coat) she basically comes in and looses coat in the thirty seconds between locker and class room. It just doesn't make sense.

Of course I can only go by the kind of set up I'm aware of at primary school and I simply can not envisage anywhere, where a coat could be left where it shouldn't be found by SOMEONE.

And with a name in its easy to return directly and at very least put in lost property.

If she's looked in all Lp boxes and it's not in the class room or on a bench in a play ground then I can't see how it can even be in the school if that makes sense.

things do get stolen/disappear in primary schools......

Quick update - coats found :-)

Great

Make her pay for a £32 coat MrsBob? Not reasonable. Should have got her something basically suitable from a charity shop if she has to pay herself.