to urge you all to label every single item of uniform/ clothing that your child wears or takes to school in september?

[gymboywalton]

Doesn't have to be a sewn in label, just a name in or on everything. A laundry marker would do. Put on jumpers, shirts, p.e , bags, shoes....especially p.e pumps! Please put a name in coats too!! And on bags and water bottles- those sticky labels you can buy are ideal for this.

I work in a school and this week I have spent so much time trying to find items of clothing. At this time of year, the lost property cupboard is overflowing. It is heartbreaking seeing lovely coats, smart trainers and hundreds of identical jumpers all with no name on!!!!

Yes to second hidden label.
Theft is a problem, especially at secondary school.

I totally agree Op.

I had no idea so many schools had an open door policy.
We're not allowed in ds' school unless we are there as helpers and have signed in. For assemblies we go to the big hall and leave the hall. No wandering around allowed at all.

It was tough in reception to see parents and children wailing, but i've never heard of uniform being 'taken'. Perhaps it's a good policy in that respect.

adikia-i am shocked at blazer in reception!!!

Ds1's brand new football boots lasted precisely one week.

Dd's PE kit and coat left her peg regularly but usually reappeared eventually. She knew it was being taken because the PE kit stank on it's return. (No lockers).

Poor DD was always getting into trouble for not having it, but teachers refused to believe it was being taken.

As. Reception class TA totally totally agree.

And attach a toy/label to your child's book bag so they can see which is theirs.

What a ridiculous country are we that we not only start school at 4 but we insist in dressing all the children in exactly the same clothes.

Bloody ludicrous. Love love non uniform
Days.

This just isn't a problem at dd2 and dd3's school. Maybe because it's a small school and there's no uniform? In three years I don't think we've lost any items of clothing or footwear, maybe the odd glove but that's about it.
I started out labelling everything but don't anymore. The school is rapidly growing in numbers though so perhaps that will all change soon.
We do have to label scooters and helmets because there are so many similar.

Dd1 has a uniform and we do have it well labelled, but again she hasn't lost any parts (she had the same school jumper for the last 3 years ). She had one of her text books stolen once, but recovered it, largely due to a tip we had to write her name on the inside page number corresponding to her birthday as well as labelling outside and inside the cover (we have to buy all text books ourselves in Ireland and they are very expensive - all you living in the uk don't know you're born!)

That's a good tip re writing names on birthday pages alfalf

Non uniform doesnt help if the parents dont label it! Trust me - I worked in an after school club at a non uniform school.

We live in Denmark. DS' childminder complimented me on the labels sewn in all his jumpers and cardis - not a very Danish thing to do apparently! But sensible I feel.

Anything that can be removed from the child needs a label.

Cash's used to send embroidered labels in one long strip - you could use three or four in a line round the narrow part of a water bottle, scooter handle, lunchbox handle, etc just stitched at the ends. But this time they've sent them all helpfully cut individually and I failed to order DC2's in the right colour so I'll actually have to read labels during laundry, rather than just recognising colours.

My DC don't lose things ::touches wood:: although quite a lot goes walkies at school. I can only assume it's the woven tapes, because those who swear by Sharpie lose things weekly. Especially the child who's a bit scatty - her mother can't see that abandoning stuff willy-nilly might have something to do with it

I checked the lost property box at my dc's school when i was in for something else - about 20 jumpers WITH THE KIDS NAMES ON THEM.

Teachers response - oh yeh it's easier just to put them in lost property.

I complained to the head - all of a sudden dozens of kids come home with "lost" jumpers.

I can't believe that even when uniform comes with labels already in with a bit to write on child's name and class, that some parents don't even bother to do it.

Then they come up to school raging that their child has lost its jumper or whatever.

'I checked the lost property box at my dc's school when i was in for something else - about 20 jumpers WITH THE KIDS NAMES ON THEM.
Teachers response - oh yeh it's easier just to put them in lost property'

We used to use Y6 to return named jumpers to the classes, then the parents of Y6 complained that they were not there to be used as unpaid labour and that it was wasting their time.
All children know where the lost property is kept, so why can't KS2 at least be in charge of reclaiming their own stuff? If it's named and available, why don't the children retrieve it? Why don't the carers collecting KS1 and EY check?
Because KS2 can't be arsed to miss a second of playtime and they know that parents will think it's the school's job.

Or they write the name in September and don't bother checking after washing.
Duh, the names wash out after a while.

Do the parents really blame the school if their ks2 leaves a jumper which ends up at lost property?

I ream my kids out if I find their jumpers in list property, because it means they haven't looked properly!

Many do.
The sort of child that has several jumpers and lunchboxes in a term, and the mother blames the teacher saying 'You know what boys are like, it's the third one this term and I CAN'T AFFORD IT!'
As if the teacher is deliberately stashing tattered sweatshirts and mouldy trainers in a cupboard to be mischievous.
Train your child to be responsible for their own stuff. I do my bit by refusing to accept 'My mum forgot' as a response when the child is a junior.

I used to teach reception and KS1. The only child who never lost his or her jumper had his name embroidered across his chest in two-inch letters. :)

First year I marked it all up with name tape. Took ages. Lost one or two things anyway.

Second year I didn't mark anything. Didn't lose anything. Got most of uniform for third year given to us from lost property at end of year anyway. Some unmarked some marked with kids I'd never heard of so must have been long gone.

Third and fourth years, no markings, no lost things, apart from the usual single gloves going AWOL in some murky playground corner.

I am a fan of no markings. I don't lose much anyway, and basically get the whole uniform given out of lost property each year, does us very well.

I also used to do my bit by trying to teach the children to keep items together when changing for PE and by keeping a small classroom lost property box - but even that would get full up by the end of term..

I have done the iron on labels which don't, the "will never fall off " sticky labels which I suppose I must acknowledge didn't ever fall off the inside glass door of the washing machine, and the tag ones which dig DC in the back of the neck and fall off after 5 minutes, and I CBA to sew labels on after sewing on all my friend's DC's labels because she couldn't sew and really wanted proper sewn ones . . . I just write our surname in big letters with a Sharpie now.

Even if your surname is Smith I think that's good enough. You will recognise your own writing and what are the odds that the school's Very Own Tea Leaf will have the same surname as you? And you don't have to re-label for subsequent DCs either.

I would have thought hundreds of jumpers with no name on a good thing.

Everyone who has lost one can have one and no matching this one to that one. Lost one? Here you go.

It is most annoying when they go in in a 7-8 jumper and come out squeezed into a 4-5 or somesuch. But always someone to trade with.

If everything is mouldering in a lost property box in some back room do what we do. Put it all out like a stall in front of the classroom at picking up time or at fairs etc. after it's been out like that a couple of times it becomes 'free stuff - take stuff - please take it away' so we do.

Actually I'm very happy when people don't label things as that's how they join the lost property cupboard, and then parents get to buy them for pennies when they have a clear out at the end of each term.

When ds2 lost his umpteenth jumper the office told me to just rummage through the lost property cupboard and take whatever would fit him. So I did. His own jumper was named but vanished from the face of the earth.

Yes, I have always labelled, but the HT told me just to take the right size from the lost property if I couldn't find ours because that's what everyone does.

I bought little Lego men keyrings for my DT in reception for their bookbags

not only can they identify their own, so can I at a glance

Meh, it's far harder to steal if everyone wears their own clothes.

I certainly don't agree with complaining to the HT re named jumpers in lost property.

kids do need to learn to look after their own possessions from key stage 2 and it's not the teachers or TAs job to chase around after them.

It's actually part of their learning to be independent.

Can I also add: if you choose not to clearly label your child's things PLEASE don't get stroppy with your child's teacher when their jumper (that they were on a boiling hot day!) gets lost and expect them to spend their marking time after school looking for it!