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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Teacher 'donated' Dds money!

435 replies

WoWoWorrier · 13/10/2017 13:55

My daughter has a knack for 'finding pennies'. She is 8. She collects the 5ps/10ps she finds for sweeties and the 1ps and 2ps go in a piggy bank until it's full. She find a them outside on the floor.

On the way to school yesterday she was saying that she wanted a mini figit spinner from the machine outside our local newsagents.
She had been super good this week and I was already planning on giving her £2 as a reward but she said 'I might find a pound!' So to humour her 'abilities' I dropped a pound a few minutes later and she spotted it.

She was super excited.

When I picked her up from school she was quiet and when we got near the ship I asked her if she wanted to get her toy she told me she had been telling her friend she had found a pound on the way to school and the teacher said it wasn't hers to spend and told her to put it in the classroom charity collection box!!

Aibu to demand it back and be quite pissed off?

OP posts:
sinceyouask · 13/10/2017 14:12

It wasn't the teacher's money to donate and I would ask her to give it back.

Chocolateteabag · 13/10/2017 14:12

OP - I get what you mean however please be aware that picking up and keeping dropped money can be considered a criminal offence
sorry for the Daily Fail link but this poor girl got caught picking up a dropped £20

I know the odd coin is different but just saying

Ploppie4 · 13/10/2017 14:13

I would come clean to both the teacher and DD and say you dropped £1 for DD to pick up earlier but it’s ended up in the charity box. You’ve come to collect it.

Role model how to resolve things nicely

ReanimatedSGB · 13/10/2017 14:13

Anything under £10 is 'finders keepers' IMO. Especially if found in a public place where there is no likelihood of finding the person who dropped it (completely different matter if you see someone drop money, or it's in a workplace where you know all your colleagues or whatever).
I'd tell the teacher the truth and request the money back. If the teacher wants to virtue-signal over something that isn't, actually, any of her business, she can do it on her own funds.

PoptartPoptart · 13/10/2017 14:14

You should not have allowed her to take the money into school. I assume you were with her when she 'found' the £1? Why didn't you take it home with you instead of allowing her to take it into class?

RavingRoo · 13/10/2017 14:14

The money was found on school property and so until an owner can be located it belongs to the school. If the school want to donate it then that’s their right! Finders keepers only applies on public rights of way not on private land!

ReanimatedSGB · 13/10/2017 14:15

Reading that link I think that the girl probably should have handed the £20 in inside the shop but I also think she was given shitty legal advice and should have been let off with a warning.

Nandoshoes · 13/10/2017 14:16

Sorry but everyone saying the teacher was right to take it, HOW?

Its not like she took it and then posted a sign saying is this pound yours? She put it into the SCHOOL collection.

She thought the school should benefit rather than OP's child.

Also its 5ps and 10ps who cares, if her daughter enjoys it leave her alone.

Its not like she's picking up used fags and smoking them Jesus do you not remember being a child?

Annwithnoe · 13/10/2017 14:16

I don't think you're promoting the best attitude to money OP though I can totally understand where you were coming from.

But I don't understand the teacher's reasoning either. Surely if you find money you are morally obliged to attempt to locate the owner? So she would be within her rights to encourage your DD to require if anyone lost it.

But it's way over the line to take it away and donate it.

Here in Ireland if you find money (larger sums obv) you take it to a Garda station and if it is not claimed after a year and a day it is deemed to be the property of the finder.

LewisThere · 13/10/2017 14:17

Haha at the idea that if you find £1 it's not yours to keep and you should hand it over.

Seriously? Who, as an adult, is doing that ever?
Who would find 50p or £1 on the way to school and would put it in a charity box OR would hand it over to the school.

Come on. No one would do that.

So why are we expecting children to do so??

Annwithnoe · 13/10/2017 14:17

Enquire, not require Confused

Findingdotty · 13/10/2017 14:17

Tricky. The teacher should not have taken it from her. However I do think you should talk to the teacher first. It could be a simple misunderstanding whereby the teacher thought it was found at school or on the school path. IMO she should have taken it from her and given it back to her or you at the end of the day. It was not the teacher's to donation. So I would talk to the teacher but definitely wouldn't go in all guns blazing.

However - and I know this isn't what you were asking about - I wouldn't be encouraging your child to find or search for money. If you find the odd coin far enough but I would not encourage her or suggest she had a knack for it. It will only end in tears when she does pick up a coin that someone is looking for or even starts looking where she shouldn't like people's bags. I know you don't think that will happen but if you are allowing her to think that people don't miss coins then she won't really think that is a really big problem if she takes one. She won't see their value. She also won't appreciate that to someone a pound coin is all they have so it is a problem is they lose it and look for it and it's gone. And people do come back to look for money. If dropped a pound it would make a difference to me and I would go back, within reason, and look for it. It just isn't a good habit to encourage.

BeanoNoir · 13/10/2017 14:18

I have a stupid guilty conscience and I found a fiver on the grass near the pavement so I just tucked it in there neatly so it wouldn't blow away, hoping the owner would retrace their steps to look for it. If my dd found a pound on the floor I'd say we should just leave it there. Agree it seems ok with pennies but I think children need clearer black and white rules, not that a little bit of money is ok but a lot isn't.

Nandoshoes · 13/10/2017 14:18

Chocolateteabag Fri 13-Oct-17 14:12:25

OP - I get what you mean however please be aware that picking up and keeping dropped money can be considered a criminal offence
sorry for the Daily Fail link but this poor girl got caught picking up a dropped £20

I know the odd coin is different but just saying

Pretty sure there was more to this story? She took the 20 pound off a freezer, they asked if she had it she LIED

SheDoesntEvenGoHere · 13/10/2017 14:19

Lol! picking up a £1 coin from the ground is different from pocketing a £10 or £20. The money would never be claimed. You would think it came out of some peoples earnings..and breathe haha Grin

newmumwithquestions · 13/10/2017 14:19

The money was found on school property and so until an owner can be located it belongs to the school. If the school want to donate it then that’s their right! Finders keepers only applies on public rights of way not on private land!
Rights of way like a bike path? That's where it was found, not in the school.

If the teacher had talked to your DD about lost things not being hers to keep that's fair enough but to take it off her was out of order - it wasn't the schools pound.

QueenUnicorn · 13/10/2017 14:19

YANBU
You need to talk to the teacher, they had no right to take it from your DD. I would be annoyed and make it clear that your daughters possessions are not theirs to take.

Picking up dropped coins is something all children do, and it's harmless. Coppers often litter the streets as only children bother with them.

And the PP saying "what about when it's £100" well that's irrelevant because it's not £100, it's £1. And it was YOUR £1.

I'm annoyed on your daughters behalf, she needs to know that people have no right over her things.

It's a dropped coin people, please don't compare it to anything else because a dropped coin is simply not the same as lost property. End of story.

LewisThere · 13/10/2017 14:20

Also if you give to a charity, then you are in effect keeping that money and deciding how to spend it.
You are still not locating the rightful owner.
So why is it ethical to do so?

In effect, it smacks to me of wanting to look good by doing a good deed whilst using some else money.
Or that using money that isn't earn in one way or the other is bad. Is that the same reasoning you hear about benefits and how awful or shamelful it is to get some?

BeanoNoir · 13/10/2017 14:20

I actually don't think I would pick up a pound and keep it. Just cos it's there it's still not yours. I think I am a bit unusual in this though.

1099 · 13/10/2017 14:21

Actually, you have only to take reasonable steps to trace the owner of found property, since in this case the OP already knew who the owner was then the money in law belonged to the child. The teacher clearly didn't know whether or not reasonable steps had been taken, and therefore wasn't in a position to decide what should be done. However by instructing the child to put the money in the school charity box she had effectively taken away any opportunity for the original owner to retrieve the money, she was in effect doing the very thing she was telling the child not to do.

Sohurt17 · 13/10/2017 14:21

I’m another one who is a bit Hmm at the idea of encouraging money scavenging. If you give the message of finders keepers, where does it end as she gets older? A wallet left behind in a restaurant is up for the taking? An unchained bike is fair game?

Nandoshoes · 13/10/2017 14:21

RavingRoo Fri 13-Oct-17 14:14:30

The money was found on school property and so until an owner can be located it belongs to the school. If the school want to donate it then that’s their right! Finders keepers only applies on public rights of way not on private land!

wasn't school property, please read posts before you get all lawish on us

BitOfANameChange · 13/10/2017 14:22

The money was found on school property

OP says the money was on the bike path, and not on school property.

Carouselfish · 13/10/2017 14:22

I agree with you though, it was not the teacher's place to do that.