Fucking school jumpers

[Merryoldgoat]

I know this is boring but it’s driving me insane.

My son has just gone into year 1. All new uniform including 3 branded jumpers.

Everything is properly labelled with his full name.

All three have gone already and he’s instead come back with three other, older, unlabelled jumpers.

He’s only 5, has some SN so finds getting dressed tricky so I know it’s just as likely him picking up the wrong one.

However, wouldn’t you go find the other parent if your child cane back with their jumper so we could swap back?

I have two AIBUs:

AIBU to ask why you don’t label your child’s jumper? It’s piss easy and means you’ve got a chanc to get it back.

AIBU to label every unlabelled jumper that comes back with my son’s name until they’re basically all his?

MsHomeSlice no supermarket jumpers allowed here, it has to be the logo'd one at £15 a pop.

My DC have black jumpers so I’m thinking sharpies won’t work? Would tippex pen just wash off?

Never had this problem before but now they are at a new school and the Facebook group is mostly people loosing stuff, only been there a few days so I need to be prepared.

I just don’t send mine I’m with one until much later in the year when they need it. Otherwise it gets taken off & lost. Works really well!

I'm rebelling - I've named everything on the outside, and waiting to be told to remove it. To share my frustration, I bought 3 coats last year. One close to the end of term. It was worn 3 times and then disappeared. I hate the lack of respect for the cost to other parents. Surely, your kid coming home in a brand new coat would make you send it back in to lost property?

My DC have black jumpers so I’m thinking sharpies won’t work? Would tippex pen just wash off?

Buy a pale-coloured fabric pen from Hobbycraft or somewhere.

At least you guys are all naming your stuff (no idea there was a 'thing' for nicking named stuff!). In my class, on the second day, I had a note explaining a jumper had gone missing, "not named yet", and could I find it please. The answer is always "no"! I have 28 pupils, if you don't even try to name it there's no hope!

On the upside, a kid lost his jumper today and, after checking labels in all the other boys' jumpers, the only one I found was a brand new one. "Maybe this is yours?" "No, it has my name in it and it's old." "Well then, you can have this brand new one if yours doesn't turn up!"

I'm waiting to see if his old one comes back tomorrow. I'm assuming any parent would notice if their kid was wearing an old one but it should be a new one!

Had the same problem in infants so I stopped buying them all together. She's in juniors now and they're not allowed to take them off unless they get put straight into their bags. It's been a week and she still owns one wooo

Ds lost 2 jumpers in the first few weeks of last year despite them being sharpied in multiple places. They were switched with much older ones a size too small.

I am totally copying the idea of coloured thread and embroidered initials though, that's genius!

I can also confirm that many parents regularly raid the uniform box and help themselves.

Right then. I’m heading to lost property tomorrow and grabbing a fistful. This is obviously the crap I’ll have to deal with for the next few years so I’ll make the best of it then.

Dd is in year 3 and one of her best friends came out of school yesterday crying as she had "lost" her cardigan. I told her not to worry as someone would surely hand it back in and she said it wasn't labelled.

Surely to god after being in school for 3 years a parent must know to label stuff?

I too am a sharpie fan and have a dedicated uniform one. Dd has 3 logo cardigans and all have came back so far and nothing went missing last year either.

I was also gobsmacked to learn that some people cut out the labels. They must have no shame. Uniform is bloody expensive ( £15 per cardigan for ours ) and everyone is feeling the pinch but i just couldn't imagine anyone doing this. I'm too naive for my own good.

I had this through primary with my daughter's and then I discovered a thing on Amazon called stamptastic!
It's fab it's basically a stamp they personalise for you to stamp all the kids stuff and it doesn't wash off or go through shirts. I am literally in love with it.
Now the kids stamp their stuff all over the inside and nothing gets nicked !

I don't get the sharpie thing. tried this and the names faded / washed out. what am i doing wrong? Genuine sharpies - honest

Well I always thought where I live is a bit rough, but I've honestly never had to deal with uniform being robbed! Although saying that our school doesn't insist on logo stuff and most parents just opt for supermarket uniform. For £2 a jumper, I'm honestly not arsed if it never comes home.

Interesting that PE kit at secondary was never lost. That had to have initials and surname embroidered by the school uniform shop when it was purchased. In gold on the front of each item.

Ds did get mercilessly teased by the teacher as he borrowed a mates kit when he forgot his. He clearly isn’t S Singh ....

Yep. I live in a very naice area but we 'lost' a winter coat, numerous jumpers and at least 2 entire PE kits through 3 children's transit through primary.

Upper School - a whole labelled uniform on day 1 of PE leaving my child to come home in PE kit. Numerous labelled jumpers. A pair of new shoes (also nicked during PE).

In primary I would occasionally find someone else's clothes had come home during laundry. I washed them & returned to school.

In secondary unfortunately some children are coached to take 'good stuff'. Especially brand new shoes during PE - they go a bomb in the local pubs. We have had so much stolen. There, I've said it. Let's not pretend it's accidental,

Remembered the most brazen one
DD was bought the most lovely waterproof but warm Mac from M&S when she was in FS2. It was in the days she loved anything girly, it was purple with flowers in pinks and yellows on it, very distinctive and she was the only child in a small infants school with it.
Friday afternoon, a week after it was bought, it was pouring with rain and we had to walk home. She came out of school in tears as her coat was gone. Had the pointless "is it named" convo with teacher. She had to wear my coat which was huge on her and I was soaked through. Clearly it had been stolen.
Two weeks after, girl in her class, who not to be rude was a bigger girl than my DD who is like a long skinny pole to this day, turns up in the coat. It was clearly too tight. The belt was just hanging down and the buttons and material were stretched.
DD immediately said "that's my coat mummy".
I asked her mum if I could look inside as DDs name was in sharpie across the inside and was told no. She swore it was her DDs coat. She had bought it at the weekend. Couldn't tell me where from though.
Teacher heard and said to leave it with her. Of course, it was indeed DDs coat and was handed back to me when I was asked to pop up at lunchtime. Cheeky cow had put a name tape over part of DDs name
When she complained school pointed out it was a clear theft and she shut up.
A few months later, same parent was caught, in the Year 2 cloakroom before the bell rang after reading with a class, helping herself to two coats under her own. School removed both her children. Funnily enough, nothing got pinched after that.

I don't get the sharpie thing. tried this and the names faded / washed out. what am i doing wrong? Genuine sharpies - honest

Sharpies fade - I like the laundry markers Mothercare sell that seem to stay unfaded longer - but if I can't be arsed to track down another one of them then Sharpies I can just re-do every few washes if required.

Sharpie works fine for me, go over it twice heavily and it'll last six months easily.

I've also had a coat disappear when ds1 was in reception - it turned up 3 years later when ds2 was in reception (and ds1 had moved on to junior school!)

I also label the hell out of everything, including inside coat sleeves, on the back of logos for logo-ed jumpers and in trousers I write on the white cotton bit of the inside of pockets in big letters. Still haven't found a good fabric marker / sharpie equivalent for black fabrics though...

I keep a sharpie (their laundry marker and their ordinary version) upstairs on my landing window, downstairs in my hall in the key drawer, in my handbag and in the car so that anything that goes into school can be marked easily. If I spot something has a label that's faded or ds suddenly decides he needs a tshirt for football trials that he hasn't taken before, I can grab it and label it without having to hunt for a labelling pen.

When I was at school we had to have everything in our pe kits embroidered with our initials/names and house colours depending on the item - helped for things not to go missing but they actively don't allow you to do that at the dc's current school.

One of his schools has a supplier that will automatically put an iron on label with their name on when they sell you the items which is fab - but I'm always amazed that some parents don't take them up on the offer. I have 2 dc so when buying for the first one I get them to name it with both their first names and a surname - nobody cares about the middle name for the first child (which is actually dc 2's name rather than their middle name) and then I cross out the eldest's name and it just looks like dc2's name, so works well.

dc1 wore his wellies into school when it was snowing - labelled. Home time came but no wellies so he had to come home in just his shoes. Next day - went in to look at wellies and found some that were like his but different name in. Turned out a third child had same wellies, he had taken ds's wellies, worn them back to school and when I went to take them and put them by ds's peg, his mum started to scream at me that I couldn't do that, because what would he wear in the mean time? She hadn't labelled her ds's wellies - and the second child had taken them and left his own labelled wellies behind. I just pointed her at the teacher (who was the only teacher that either dc have had so far that I actively didn't like, a very unhelpful, unsympathetic person) who was unhelpful to her as expected.

DS2 has been given labelling his pe kit and clothes as his homework this week, with the threat that anything unlabelled will be sharpied by the teacher. All his stuff is labelled so he's ok but really hope that they are giving this homework to everyone in the school and that it leads to much less loss!

I know teachers feel that it's not their job to hunt down 'lost' uniform but if the school insists all children wear identical clothing, I think they've got a bloody cheek getting het up about.

Had this with DS's teacher last year. Two brand new jumpers went missing in a week, then a new replacement the following week. DS insisted they were on his chair (he hates wearing them as gets hot in class). I wasn't about to let it go so asked her to put out a email asking parents to check jumpers brought home but she point blank refused! Got two back months later well worn.

I don't see why they can't spend a bit of time at the start of each school year getting the DC to check their clothing is named, and reiterating that they check the label to make sure it's theirs before they take it, and not to take stuff that isn't theirs if it hasn't got their name in it. They can't help the parents they've got and it's still good education.

My friend had a pair of her son's school trousers given back to her after about three years, with the hem taken down and her son's name crossed out from the label and a classmate's name written below it, and then the name of the classmate's younger brother. The other mum had obviously made good use out of them before 'realising' that they weren't hers when her younger son outgrew them!

Are there not lockers at schools? We always had an assigned locker for school as well as a separate one for PE. Never had anything stolen.

Not in my DC's primary school. DD's 1st choice secondary school does have them.

Are there not lockers at schools?

The second pair of football boots (the once worn ones that a friend gave DD to replace the handmedowns from her brother that went missing the day before from the shoe rack where they were supposed to be kept) vanished from the locker within one school day.

YANBU although I wouldn't notice until laundry day. DC have all often come back with other children's clothes (DS came back with a summer dress in his bag on more than one occasion). I do draw the line at socks though - apparently DD once came home in another girl's sock (almost identical to hers) I must have had it a while before noticing it had a label in it (I don't bother labelling socks). I gave it back thinking it was funny and other girl's mum was really snippy - she'd been looking for that but since my DD's sock was un-named she hadn't been able to track it down !