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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

DD school coat found with another DC name !!

310 replies

Highfivemum · 20/05/2022 19:07

So my DD came home from school last year without her school coat. It was three weeks old and had her name on the inside of the coat and also I put her name in the pocket on a label. So two name tags. Went into school regularly spoke to teachers and the coat never was found. She had worn it twice so like new. Fast forward to yesterday and my DD mislaid her jumper. I went to lost property and collected her jumper and saw a school coat in he box. Very worn and dirty with a ripped sleeve. As I always do I looked in the coat and there was another child’s name written in the back but underneath in pale ink you could see my DD name that had been written over. I then checked the pocket and there was my DD name clearly still on a tag. The name of the DC was a boy in the same year as her ( the coats are unisex). I spoke to her teacher and she said oh never mind at least she has her coat back !! I was flabbergasted to be honest. This other mum whose child has been in the same year group since nursery at the school wrote over my DD name and gave her DS the coat to wear. Then left it now as it is ripped and badly worn and I am meant to be pleased. AIBU to feel like she has stolen it. ? I am not sure how to handle this.

OP posts:
Angrymum22 · 20/05/2022 21:15

This happened to my sons coat. The coats were in two parts an outer waterproof jacket with an inner removable fleece. A week into the first term, yr1 the outer went missing from the cloakroom, only the outer layer. I had to replace the complete coat as the winter set in. Anyway a few months later, another mum was talking about her sons missing fleece that had gone missing the same time, their coat hooks were next to each other. We concluded that someone had gone to the effort of removing the components of two separate coats, thereby hoping to confuse the situation, hoping neither of us would initially notice and assume we’d either left one part at home or that the boys had unzipped the two parts and lost one.
Its a fee paying school so you’d assume that money wasn’t a problem, obviously some parents were not as well off as they liked to portray.

SuperTiredAgain · 20/05/2022 21:18

I agree with those saying the mum might have bought the coat at lost property.

Another scenario is that the kid had a similar coat and accidentally took your DC's. If my kids do this I'd probably not notice for ages!! If she discovered 6 months later that they have the wrong coat, maybe she thought - ah well, we've been using it this long, maybe the other kid has my DCs, I'll just claim the swap and right his name on rather than confront other parent.

Or maybe he did steal it - in which case, I would feel deeply sorry for the family that they had to go to those lengths :(

Jas5mum · 20/05/2022 21:19

Also I feel the school is being lazy for not returning clearly named items to the children! Only unnamed items should be in lost property...

Angrymum22 · 20/05/2022 21:19

Just to add I then started embroidering DS’s initial in a discrete place in thread the same colour as the garment. Also if possible I wrote his name with a sharpie in an obvious place. His teachers never raised an eyebrow!
At senior school it’s a free for all. If clothes aren’t names they are fair game.

stepuporshutup · 20/05/2022 21:20

Mally100
The boys name was written over ops daughter name of course the thieving cf mother knew and no way let it go. I would confront her and show her you know she had stolen it and put her dc name over ops daughter name and I would do it in front of all the school mums and tell her to pay up

Lady089 · 20/05/2022 21:20

She may not have intentionally stolen it, all lost coats, cardigans and jumpers get put in a lost property box at my child’s school and after a certain amount of time, the items are sold in the playground for a small donation. My daughter and son both have had a p.e t shirt, coat and a jumper go missing and were all named and never found, so it’s unlikely the teachers try and find the owners of the items.

CocktailsOnTheBeach · 20/05/2022 21:21

@SuperTiredAgain you'd feel sorry for a thief? Would you feel sorry for her if she stole it from the shop it was bought from too? Just because you are hard up doesn't make it OK to steal from other people.

Sleepingsatellite1 · 20/05/2022 21:21

amusedbush · 20/05/2022 21:12

Shock

What did she say when she realised she'd been caught red-handed??

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By some peoples logic it should have been the ballet teacher who sorted it all out

Moser85 · 20/05/2022 21:22

Maybe he had the same coat and the 2 of them went missing and when the boy found 'his' one it had your daughters name on it and they thought you were the CF or that you must have their one and said there wasn't much point in swapping back.

I definitely wouldn't write it on a whatsapp group. Maybe the mother is a total CF, or maybe she's seriously struggling with money/mental health etc, maybe she's a CF and also struggling with mental health. Seems very nasty to shame the person publicly though.
I would think less of the person that decided to shame someone publicly in that way than I would of the other person!

JudgeJ · 20/05/2022 21:23

Mally100 · 20/05/2022 19:14

How old are the kids? Maybe the boy lost his coat and took your dds without the mum knowing.

Surely his mother would notice if he came home with an almost new coat with another child's name inside that she clearly saw when she overwrote it!

HTH1 · 20/05/2022 21:23

Pandarinio · 20/05/2022 20:19

This is a good idea

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I would do this but with a photo clearly showing the crossed out name/new name.

CoffeeDeprivation · 20/05/2022 21:23

Does the PTA arrange second-hand sales, with donations? In our school, at the end of the school year, the items in the lost property box are given away, either to the classroom as spares, to parents who might need uniform, to the PTA if they had a coat or bag that wasn't claimed and was in very good condition, for the sale. Maybe it ended up being sold? Could there be any mix up with donations?

Or the mum did indeed go through the lost property box, saw the coat almost new and decided to snatch it. Does she know your daughter?

LouiseOuiOui · 20/05/2022 21:24

I don’t think you need to name the mum in the WhatsApp. Just explain the problem as it were.

JudgeJ · 20/05/2022 21:24

Moser85 · 20/05/2022 21:22

Maybe he had the same coat and the 2 of them went missing and when the boy found 'his' one it had your daughters name on it and they thought you were the CF or that you must have their one and said there wasn't much point in swapping back.

I definitely wouldn't write it on a whatsapp group. Maybe the mother is a total CF, or maybe she's seriously struggling with money/mental health etc, maybe she's a CF and also struggling with mental health. Seems very nasty to shame the person publicly though.
I would think less of the person that decided to shame someone publicly in that way than I would of the other person!

More likely she is a useless parent who supports her thieving son. Love how MN will come up with all excuses to defend dishonest women.

SpiderinaWingMirror · 20/05/2022 21:25

My dsis had this with her son. Another child blatantly had his coat.
Teacher said other parent had said it was definitely her child's, and had written the name on the label, again you could see the original name.
Dsis waited until after school pickup and intercepted the child asked him to take the coat off so she could something. Yep, turned coat inside out and there was her sons name written the length of the sleeve.

Sleepingsatellite1 · 20/05/2022 21:27

JudgeJ · 20/05/2022 21:24

More likely she is a useless parent who supports her thieving son. Love how MN will come up with all excuses to defend dishonest women.

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How do we know it was his dad that crossed the name out 🤭

Sleepingsatellite1 · 20/05/2022 21:27

Wasn’t

Shitandhills · 20/05/2022 21:27

Maybe have a quiet word with the parents, far more dignified than a pu lic blowout.

starray · 20/05/2022 21:27

LittleRen · 20/05/2022 20:12

Your school doesn’t do list property tables does it?
Ours puts all the unclaimed items on a table for a free for all… could this have happened especially if it was a year ago

I don't think it's meant to be a 'free for all'. It's for people to look for items that belong to them, and they aren't supposed to take what isn't theirs. The remaining stuff gets sent to charity.

Moser85 · 20/05/2022 21:29

JudgeJ · 20/05/2022 21:24

More likely she is a useless parent who supports her thieving son. Love how MN will come up with all excuses to defend dishonest women.

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Her thieving son?

I'd be worried about a 7 or 8 year old stealing a jacket, not making out he was a thieving brat!

WordleWitch · 20/05/2022 21:33

I bought a new coat at start of term for my child, all labelled up in 2 places clearly. Was lost within 2 weeks. Spoke to school multiple times, posted on class WhatsApp group, didn’t turn up so bought another coat. Fast forward 3 months and it’s parents evening, during which the school PTA runs a second hand uniform sale. I walk past the racks and glance across to see a pristine coat that is just the right size for DC - you guessed it - looked inside there is DC’ name and form clear as day. I was furious and said the to PTA rep - this is my DC’s coat that was lost and was apparently searched for, she just shrugged her shoulders and said you can take it if you want !!!! No apology nothing !!!

Thighdentitycrisis · 20/05/2022 21:34

We can’t judge until OP comes back and tells us if they sell/donate unclaimed lost property. Because if they do, it can’t be ruled out that the other child acquired the coat fairly

everyone’s busy at work but if school staff don’t have time to, the older pupils could be responsible for checking and redistributing the named items maybe?

TakeMe2Insanity · 20/05/2022 21:36

namechangetheworld · 20/05/2022 20:28

Nobody who has the balls to pass off another child's coat as their own will give two shits about a passive aggressive WhatsApp message. They just won't. Just let it go.

Sadly this is the total truth. It’s an unfair case of you know she knows, and if you choose to make it public you know she knows, you know.

GlitteryGreen · 20/05/2022 21:38

I think it all completely depends on whether the other mum knows OP's daughters full name.

If she doesn't, then it's totally reasonable that she may have bought it in a 2nd hand sale of lost property and legitimately written her son's name in the label.

If she does know DD's full name then even if she saw this item in a sale, she should have let school know and returned it/asked them to return it to OP.

ventreàterre · 20/05/2022 21:40

I'd be furious. Not surprised the teacher didn't want to involve herself, but a bit pathetic of her to act as though it was all good because you got the coat back, now that it's worn and torn.

No-one wants to see a child go cold, but stealing from other children is disgusting behaviour. There are other ways of clothing your own children. Some people will bend over backwards to make excuses for thieves and CFs, but most of the time it's down to laziness and feeling entitled to take whatever they want.