Parents who shamelessly steal school uniform and coats

[lottieandmia]

How widespread is this really? I'm in the midlands btw.

My children have been to a number of different schools and when my 13 year old dd started at a very expensive girls school (on a scholarship and bursary) where the parents are many of them rich (and I mean really rich), suddenly her stuff all started to go missing. She had her new pullover stolen and therefore didn't have one to wear because they were £30 each and I could only afford to buy one. Her new PE trousers lifted out of her kit bag as well as other pieces of kit that are all very expensive.

I got really sick of it as she would turn her back for half a minute and something would be gone. The children in her class would help themselves to her stationary without asking. And then a brand new very nice water bottle went missing. I emailed her teacher and asked if an email could be sent out to all the girls in her year and also parents to say that we would like it returned. Sure enough it turned up on a shelf, left no doubt by the anonymous thief who had been guilted into returning it. Dd2 is no longer at this school and the constant stealing (and it wasn't just us it happened to) was one reason why. She is now at a state school with far more students and so far nothing has been taken and no student touches her stuff.

Dd3 is starting a new school next week and I am now paranoid about stuff going missing. Hopefully my experience with above school is a one off but I have heard a lot on MN about uniform thieves who help themselves to stuff from lost property.

Sorry to go on about this but it is my pet hate. What makes people think this is an acceptable way to behave? If I write names with sharpie I feel as though I appear paranoid or mistrustful. I feel as though I shouldn't have to do this and a name label should suffice. Sad isn't it?

I haven't read all the threads but this is something that happened at all the schools I have worked in.

Parents who lost uniform would come to lost property and take ANYTHING in their kids sizes labelled or not but most often labelled in another name.

Coats too. We have had countless explosions about expensive coats disappearing and reappearing on another child. Sometimes it has been a 2 in 1 coat and the child has still had the inner part but the other parent has denied it had one.
I have name checked labels in the classroom and caught parents out and they are brazen about it.

That is in both private and state.

OP in your DDs case it sounds like deliberate bullying. Glad she has moved schools and is happier.

I work in a secondary school and part of my job is sorting lost property. There are approx 1250 students.We have a lost property area with a box for each year group.

If the item is labelled with a legible name (nametapes are easiest to read), I place it in the relevant box and email the student to ask them to collect it. If it hasn't been collected a week before the end of term, I email again, this time copying in the parent/carer. If it's still not collected by the end of term, I remove the nametape, wash it and sell it in the second hand uniform shop.

If the item isn't labelled with a legible name (e.g. faded or undecipherable sharpie on care label) it stays in the general lost property area for one week, then I wash it and sell it in the second hand uniform shop.

Worst Christmas example was when DD was 3. We were putting on her clothes outside of ballet class when I noticed that her new and expensive shoes had been replaced with similar except dirty and old. Luckily I spotted another mum putting my shoes on her daughter. She just smirked as she handed them back.

I don't think it was bullying - although she may have been seen as an easy target because she's quiet and non confrontational. This happened to other people all the time. A child had an expensive pen stolen and a younger child's mum posted on the school Facebook group that her daughter was very upset because her brand new smiggle pencil case that her friend had given her for her birthday that day had disappeared.

Pepper

We have had 3 items stolen over the years (I have 4 children all are now in secondary school oldest in year 14 so a fair few years of schooling)

First was after recently moved to a school 2 sets of PE kit was stolen. Small school so yes stolen as they never were found. (School were aware at the time)

2nd was this year DS had his PE kit stolen. I do believe him as he loves PE and has taken it as one of his GCSE's there would be no reason what so ever for him to lie. What made me really cross was his PE teacher gave him a detention for it. He had 2 PE lessons that day and had left the kit in the PE room (often donewhen they have 2 lessons) when he returned they were gone. Hence PE teacher had to know he had not just forgot it as he had done the PE lesson earlier. His friends gathered together and between them they got enough of a PE kit together for him to be able to do the lesson.

He also had a pair of PE shorts stolen in year 7. A further 2 I suspect may have been mislaid but the one pair was under unusual circumstances so I know that is likely.

In the school i worked in, despite parents putting names on labels, things would go missing. Most of the time, the labels had been cut off. I do think that in most cases that this is the exception rather than the rule. This school was in a deprived area [if that makes any difference]. The point i am trying to make is, despite clear labelling, these can still be stolen/removed.
In most cases, children are generally careless with coats and jumpers. As many as 3 are left under tables in any given school day in the classroom and sometimes more. Jackets frequently go missing from cloakrooms. The problem is that most parents dont even realise that school jumpers are the wrong ones. That a child has picked up the wrong jumper/jacket especially if they look the same.

You need a name stamp and an ink pad:

www.stamptastic.co.uk/products/

I have no affiliation with this product but it popped up on Facebook a while ago, I bought it and never looked back. I have yet to find something that it won't stamp. Everything gets stamped. It does eventually wash out of things that get washed a lot, like school shirts, but I just re-stamp.

Honestly, it's a revelation!

I like the idea of the stamp !

Well, to be clear I have heard from other people that parents take coats from pegs which don't belong to their child and sell them on eBay.

At your child's private school, where, you say, everyone is very very rich? Why would they bother?

My DD brought home a school cardigan with another child's name on it. I got in touch with the mum to see if she had DD's cardigan, which she did. Great, I say, will bring in to school tomorrow and we'll swap. She told me the following morning that she'd accidentally 'lost' the cardigan and was sorry but she couldn't afford to replace it.

DD asked her friend about her cardigan who said that she didn't know why, but the labels were now cut out of one of hers.

If parents have this disgusting attitude to casual theft then it is hardly surprising that their children do, too.

Some people just have such a sense of entitlement, it's shocking.

I would think consistent stealing of items from a particular child is bullying by the other children rather than stealing by the parents? And should be dealt with as such.

I am a regular searcher through the lost property bins at my son's school and there are always loads of coats in the there - surely easy yo identify if your child has lost a coat. I know it's difficult to look if you're working though (I can only go on Fridays). Also loads of unlabelled jumpers, trousers, etc - what can the school do if parents don't label.

Sense of entitlement - exactly. Do these parents go to work and steal people's jackets of the backs of chairs I wonder?

This reminds me of that line in Peep Show:
"Big Suze is rich, Mark. She doesn't understand about other people's things"

I have a strong suspicion who the culprit was in the majority of cases - someone who was supposed to be my dd's friend. she would come to school bragging about having stolen money out of her parents safe.

All our stuff is labelled - sharpie and name tape.

My 6yr old daughter lost a logo but of gym kit 2 weeks ago but the gym kit didn't come home for washing until the end of term so I didn't know to go looking for it in lost property until then. By this time the pta had gathered up all lost property and sold it for pta funds despite it being clearly named and only recently misplaced by a ks1 child.

Fuming doesn't quite encompass it particularly as we can't buy another until easter (termly uniform orders only) so she will have to do outdoor pe all winter in just a tshirt

OP the theft rate at my dd's schools is unbelievable and all my girls have had uniform, hockey sticks, food, money, phones and even bottles of water stolen. I have found it very annoying over the years as it doesn't really get any better until 6th form when the dcs tend to grow out of it.

I don't understand the stealing as most of it is carried out by girls who have their own stuff but just want more.

It is not really to do with people not having enough money to buy things - they just have no respect for others I think.

Our stuff is labelled too hels, the labels had been cut out.

Lottie I agree that it is about lack of respect. I have also had first hand experience of university graduates starting their first professional well paid job, stealing wine and food from the pantry in the office and thinking there was absolutely nothing wrong with it.

We once had a massive telling off after PE because someone had stollen a girls skirt. The girl happened to be the DD of one of the wealthiest families in the U.K. Lovely girl who was upset that her skirt had gone missing. We searched everywhere and I was like 'how the heck do you lose a skirt!?!' I will never forget my horror when I found it someone's gym bag. It was neatly folded so clearly taken by someone purposefully. We had started going through all the gym bags in the room, just opening them and taking a look inside, because the skirt was nowhere to be found.

The worst part was that because I had found it in such a wierd place that others thought I had been the one to take it. Stealing something like a school uniform skirt from someone I know is just not something I would ever do.

Some private schools are not that good. One that enables stealing is terrible IMO.

My son wore a brand new jumper to school, took it off at playtime and it just "disappeared" never saw it again- £25 just thrown away and I felt miffed for ages.

It's more often the case that a child genuinely loses something, or someone picks it up by mistake. This is especially the case at school where hundreds of people have pretty much the same equipment - mistakes occur. Someone "stole" my history exercise book, meaning I had to borrow someone else's and copy the damned thing out over a Christmas holiday one year. It turned up again in January, someone else had picked it up by mistake. I did the same thing to someone else once, again it was a genuine accident - it looked exactly the same as mine, was right next to mine.

Stealing does occur of course, it usually comes down to two things: having something worth stealing, and the belief than one will get away with it. These two criteria are more likely to be met at a private school; children with wealthy parents who can afford to buy them nice things, and of course a better education means more intelligent pupils who will be better able to steal without being detected rather than impulsive thefts.

All children are dishonest, all children will steal if they feel they have the "need" and ability to do so. All you can do is mark your child's property and hope for the best.

Remember too that whilst stealing may be more common in private schools, stabbings, general violence and sexual assault are statistically much more prevalent in state schools. The education is much better in private schools too. A well-educated, safely-educated child is probably worth a couple of jumpers!