Flame amnesty : have you ever taken another child's clothes

[Bleachedandscrubbed]

At my children's naice Middle class school in a naice Home Counties town, it seems that there are uniform thieves, cutting out labels and nicking the nice stuff.

Can someone explain to me the thought process, especially given that I've just paid about £6 for 4 polo shirts and £10 for two pairs of trousers? It's hardly enough to make oneself a thief for, so why do it? Can someone fess up and explain?

How do the parents have access to the children's clothes?

It just goes to show all this 'naice' 'middle class' shit that keeps getting bandied about on MN is a load of bollocks.

Perhaps they're either skint or just sick of replacing uniform.

No excuse for it though in any area or for any 'class'.

As someone whose ds's shoes were stolen whilst he was on a bouncy castle, I would love to know?

A friend of mine admitted to rifling though the lost property box at school (they leave it outside a couple of times a term for this purpose) and helping herself to anything decent if its unlabelled. I was a bit surprised by the admission but tbf I rarely see anyone else look through it.

I can just about get the taking unlabelled stuff languishing in Lost Property. I wouldn't do it but all the same, it's not like deliberately cutting out labels! Ours is a Faith School too!

I used to sew red cotton onto the inside seams or buttons, easily identifiable, and people don't look for it.

I don't know but it's all very strange. When we do a PTA fair at school we take old uniform donations to try and sell. It NEVER sells: no one wants it. This is a school with some really disadvantaged kids. I don't understand....

Where do they get the uniform from to cut the labels out OP?

Worral, I think a kid comes home with something nicer - the wrong coat etc and the parent sticks to it instead of returning it.

I embroider my DCs names in bright thread inside the necks of their uniform tops.I only use chain stitch but its easy for Dcs to see the name ,easy for a TA to check and damn hard to remove for the sake of saving a couple of quid. Ive not lost one yet.

My son lost his new jumper on the first day of school. A year later the secretary told me his jumper was in lost property, it had been washed so many times with his name still clearly visible.

I have kept some mystery socks that came home from nursery. 3 (non matching) John Lewis socks vanished in a week, I figured I was owed a matching pair.

I found a kid wearing my sons wellies, clearly labeled in 2 x large letters per welly, that had been missing from the school cloakroom for a year. I took them off him there and then. how could his mother not have noticed?

That's the point though - she probably did know. And that's the thought process I can't follow!

I also wonder how this happens, how do parents not notice their child has come home with clothes that are not theirs??

Hours and hours I have spent carefully labelling all of DS's school uniform and other hits snd pieces such as water hotties, googles, pencils (!) etc and yet they still disappear :(

Last year he lost a brand new pair of school trousers that were clearly labelled with a very securely sewn in name tape. He said he went yo get changed after PE and his trousers were not there. He spent day in PE shorts!

Also a brand new school fleece, again with well seen in name tape disappeared on day one.

Neither item ever seen again and I rifled through the lost property several times.

As well as those decent items he has also ended up without PE shorts, PE jogging bottoms, plimsolls, several water bottles and packed lunch boxes etc etc not to mention numerous pencils each week.

Where do they go?

If he comes home with something not his I send it back yo school with a note.

This year I sewed name tapes on to the outside of some items as so fed up!

I have, sort of by omission. My she picked up our toddler from nursery and a few days later I noticed her coat wasn't her coat and had someone else's initials in them. Exact same coat and size. I meant to take it back but kept forgetting to and then felt a bit silly doing it so long after the incident.

I also would have felt a bit robbed (ironically) if we had taken it back and the nursery taken it off us without knowing and walking out without the proper one - afterall the other parents might be the dishonest type who would say thanks and we don't know what's happened to the other coat just so they could have two.

I know this is stupid bug the coat was about £8 from mother care and both is good condition so it's not like the other parent have lost anything of any particular value or are without a coat (assuming they took ours)

My granny used to come back from the day centre she went to with other people's cardigans, coats etc. even though my mum had named hers. But at least she had the excuse of dementia..

Last year I had a boy in my year 7 class end up with a pair of size 2 shoes left at the end. He was size 5 (tall chap). Someone else in the class had put his on and wandered off with them. Never did get to the bottom of which size 2 feet were wearing size 5...

One of DD1's jumpers went missing once for well over a year. I only got it back as a TA picked it up in the playground and put it on DD2, wrongly but sensibly assuming she was the one who'd been wearing it that day.

It was a tiny school, and DD1 has a very unusual/poncy name, so whoever had been using it for their child must've known full well whose it really was.

There are some right bloody skanks out there.

At nursery dd and another girl had the same coat. Dds was new ,a large and I had stitched a hi vis vest to it. The other girls was small, dirty and ripped. Dd came home and I realised there was no hi vis attached. Went in and approached the dad of the other girl and explained we had the wrong coats. He was adamant we didn't even though he said he had unpicked the hi vis. When I asked him to swap back he got really abusive and asked if it really mattered, a member of staff had to step in as my friends thought he was going to hit me!

I'm guilty of this in an indirect way

Last day of nursery my Fil collected dd2 and picked up her jacket. The only problem was it wasn't her jacket. It was exactly the same as hers but hers was safely at home. By the time I got home from work and realised, nursery was closed not only for the day, but the summer holidays. We took it straight back on the first day of the new term but it was never collected. We assumed it belonged to a child who had moved up to school. I'm still mortified 7 years later.

Two school cardigans and a skirt missing since January. I'm really hacked off about it! How can you not notice suddenly having more uniform?

My DS had his shoes nicked at pre-school.
They were virtually brand new and he came home in an identical pair that were one size smaller and extremely well worn.
Despite a note in bags and a reminder to check text being sent, they were never returned. Again, a naice middle class small pre-school.
There were only about 7 boys so it had to be someone I knew.
I assumed they were embarrassed rather than deliberate thievery, but who knows?

How do you know someone is wearing your child's kit with the labels cut out, op? As opposed to it just being lost... How do identify something as being yours without the label?

I hate this, I've had new trainers disappear for a year, then turn up with mystery, wet and muddy. I had written my dd name in permenant marker. I think the parents know but feel they are "owed" the items due to there's being lost.
I write in black permenant marker along the inside somewhere or buy clothes without our the school logo, which is allowed, they are cheaper and less sought after.

What is "naice". ??? There is a lot of "naice" things on mn.