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?

It certainly is despicable as I said at the start of the thread, most of the children at the girls school my dd was attending had parents who were literally minted. And yet I've never seen so much stealing in my life in the two years she was there.

DS1 has had so many missing jumpers over the last 6 years, also a winter coat that was less than a week old, a whole PE bag with kit inside, water bottles... sometimes they turn up in Lost Property at the end of term, mostly not (and I used to go in with him to check LP when he walked out of the door with no jumper on). In the end I refused to buy any more logo jumpers as a) they were likely to be nicked, and b) he was obviously so hot all day he kept taking them off, therefore probably didn't need one for 9/10 of the year.

The corker was when he grumbled about his brand new shoes being too tight as we walked home. I said don't be daft, you were measured for them yesterday so they can't be tight. When we got in I checked, and one was his new size 2 shoes, the other was a size 13.5 shoe in the same style! Despite a note going out to all parents in his class, the correct shoe was never returned! Who doesn't give a stuff that their DS is wearing one shoe 2.5 sizes too big?

DS2 is in reception, and everything he owns is tagged, stickered and sharpied in several places. Only one jumper has gone AWOL so far, and that turned up the next day in the classroom.

My daughter had her shoes stolen once by another pupil. In year 2. She walked to me from her classroom in her socks. Naturally, I was very angry about this. Eventually, we got to the root of the problem. The pupil's parents had just split up and her response was to steal things. Her mother, who was the resident parent, never returned those lovely shoes.

My children had expensive coats taken so in the end I just put them in Aldi school coats, which never went missing strangely. I also bought a load of cheap and cheerful jumpers, all with names on the outside. I was fed up buying the expensive jumper from the school by this stage, only to have it 'swiped' a week later.

Once my daughter came home with someone else's jumper. Their mum was waiting for me the next day holding the jumper of my daughters' (tesco or aldi, I can't remember), like it was poison. I did, as it happen, have her daughter's M&S jumper in a bag to give to the teacher. The swap was so swift. They drove an Audi and BMW and lived in a detached 5 bedroom.

Yes, parents do shamelessly steal the uniform. I never did. Nor did I ever find the 'lost' jumpers, and PE kits, despite them all having name tags.

No one ever steals my kids uniform oddly. It's all second hand from school and costs £1.50 per item. It's all a bit washed out and past it's best.

Do you think I've done enough advertising in my post to stop it from being published?

Elendon - so it was acknowledged that this child had taken the shoes and yet the mother refused to return it? I'm just so shocked that people behave this way.

Sorry for the late response Lottie. By the time this was all sorted, the shoes didn't fit her anyway. So sad for the child really. She left the school a few months later. The break up of the family was chaotic and upsetting.