To be shocked by the leavers jumpers

[Itsmytreehouse]

My dd is leaving primary school this July and we have been sent a link to order leaver jumpers.
The design has their school name and year on the front in large letters and on the back their teachers name and class mates names (including surname) with hand written messages of good luck printed all over.
I might be over reacting but I’m seeing it as a safeguarding concern that these kids will be wearing them around showing their name and school in public. (They’ve been asked to wear them to school for all next term as part of their leavers production outfit)
Should I point this out to the school or forget about it?

I need my reading glasses to read the names close to (and I only use reading glasses occasionally), so anyone who is trying to use the names would be fairly obviously reading them.

A first name and initial of the surname wouldn't be as bad.

And when it's secondary leavers, absolutely fine.

But primary school leavers? No. Big no.

I'm one of the parents of a vulnerable child who needs to not have it advertised what area she will likely be in when she's starting/ at secondary school.

It's well meaning and nice, but full surnames when these are primary aged kids is not on. And you really don't know how it feels to be on my side of this argument if you haven't ever been in this exact situation. Just thinking about this is making my stomach go.

We had these at our school. The only childrens names on there were those who had actually ordered a hoody and parents gave full permission

Just seen that you didn’t give permission.
We had this in our first year as a PTA not with hoodies though. A parent complained and we had to retrospectively get permission for a children’s names to appear, if we didn’t get it or the parent said no the child’s name had to be removed. It was a nightmare.
In more recent years I think we had to confirm that we had consent before the company would print the order.

Yes, so it's not actually the at risk child wearing the hoodie that's the issue because they probably wouldn't, it's all the other children walking around with their school and full name on, potentially leaving a jumper in the bus/in the park to be picked up by the wrong person etc.

People saying it's a tiny number of children affected, it's not.

I've worked in school offices for 10 years now. We regularly get "fishing" calls from people ringing about "Jonny Jones" (example, lots of different names) who isn't one of our students, but someone is calling all the local schools trying to establish which one he's at.

All of my kids have loved their leavers hoodies. I just ordered my youngest one hers for leaving primary school this year. Your school might be different, but every one of these hoodies I’ve seen has the name of all the kids on it and not each hoodie having that kids name on it. I’ve never let my kids wear stuff with their name on for the the reason you’re saying - kids are trusting and if they think someone knows their name they may be more trusting of them. I think that these are pretty safe and I wouldn’t worry but if you don’t want one then don’t order it.

You would hope so, when they're probably walking/bussing to school by themselves at 12.

My dd has had 4 different named hoodies up to now. My biggest gripe is the cost of them when you know within a month they'll be at the back of the wardrobe.

Our school have asked for permission for all
Kids names to be included so parents can opt out. I can't remember if it's full names though.

Once someone's established which school an 11yo has just left they probably know where all their younger siblings go....

Plus it's not about strangers. It's about people known to the children who shouldn't have access to them.

I agree OP, I think it is proper weird, but I know I am in the minority.

I agree with you too OP. Safeguarding experience here and for very good reasons my children don't have leavers jumpers etc. with names on.

Sometimes I think a bit of genuine peril would do some MNers a lot of good.
I could not live my life at this pitch of anxiety, chill out ffs!

and in areas of low population density, or parts of the country that have a first/middle/high school system their onward school may be easily identifiable.

They've been around forever and are really tacky. Thankfully none of my lot wanted one but I do know what you mean. Anything that gives away personal information isn't good.

Why not?

Eminently sensible

It is a little odd that parents weren't asked permission and to provide the correct spelling/surname etc. So the school gave the PTA the list of names? That strikes me as strange.

As for the name of the school being on there - doesn't your DC wear school uniform anyway? Surely the name of their school is already obvious.

Our leavers hoodies have full names and I have no issue with that - however we definitely had to give consent to be included.

If it has all the primary class' names on then a paedo would have on average a 1 in 26 chance of guessing the individual kid's name from it or something.

How does a leavers jumper relate to child murders? Don’t be ridiculous.

unless your child’s name is somehow hidden due to a danger from others (which applies to a tiny number of children) there is absolutely no danger whatsoever to having their name on a jumper.

But how would anyone seeing them out wearing it, know whose name it actually was wearing it?
TBH I’ve never even noticed if DDs has her surname on it or not.

How many safeguarding issues have ever occurred directly because of them in reality?

Would we ever know if there have been?

No, there isn't, but the handful of children who are at risk are at risk because everyone else has their name and school on the jumper, even if they don't wear one themselves. It's not only about your child.

If you seek parents' permission, what do you do, exclude the most vulnerable children? The ones whose lives are often already pretty crappy? Again, think of someone other than yourself.

said paedo wouldn’t even know which child was which from a jumper though. Or in many cases whether the child was male or female. Or have any means to contact said child. really it would much less helpful to a paedo than a school uniform - the leavers jumper is for a school the child has left. It says nothing about where the child is now.

I think it’s a bit naive to think that the best way to combat paedophilia is to censor childrens names from a jumper. Or really that it would do anything at all to safeguard children (with the exception of the tiny number of children who need to keep their identity secret).