to ask school to replace shoes

[NCshoess]

4 year old ds is in reception, he got shoes for Christmas that he loves and has been wearing them every day. they are light up superhero shoes which is allowed, many kids have them.

Friday he comes home crying in his gym shoes saying he was kicking his feet to make the shoes flash so the teacher took them away. I was going to ask about it yesterday but my sister picked him up.

Today I asked his teacher she said she took them away, but then looking in the classroom she can't find them. I asked where they were and she said they might turn up.

am I being unreasonable to ask them to replace his shoes if they can't find them...these were shoes he was asking for for ages, was so happy when he got them for Christmas and has been crying about having them taken away. I can't afford to buy him new ones atm...I understand taking them away for the day but not to give them back and then lose them is too far.

@EndlessReno odsod with the personal attack. The issue is a four-year-old excited and happy and an adult who can't seem to cope with that. No doubt these "wildly inappropriate" shoes brought this child immense joy - and so they should! They were given with love by the parents and clearly the child felt special. Perhaps you have forgotten what it was like to be 4? 🤔

Theft would be if the teacher ran into the shoe shop, grabbed some shoes without paying and ran out.
I can assure you that a primary school teacher, the last thing I'd want to steal is a small child's shoes.

Have you looked at the school's uniform policy? That should inform your next step

@ThrallsWife it's in the OP. They're allowed at that school.

And re your other post, no, the school's insurance will not cover a lost pair of shoes.

I must have missed the part where OP confirmed they were Clark’s shoes - where is that please? As far as I saw only other posters mentioned Clark’s.

I don’t think it makes a teacher a twat if she makes a child change shoes because they’re kicking their flashing shoes and creating a distraction and then she (temporarily so far) misplaces them because she’s doing the other million and one more important tasks a teacher does (see eloquent list above).

But we can agree to disagree on that. Clearly you would rather a teacher spends their limited time and energy on keeping cast iron track of confiscated flashing shoes rather than dealing with social services referrals and safeguarding matters 🙄

This thread is so depressing!

*A headteacher's role is strategic lead of the school. A headteacher will be performing thousands of vital tasks every single day. Some of them will be urgent.

It is not a headteacher's job to resolve every dispute or issue, or to micromanage people. They should not drop everything to have a conversation about shoes.*

dear god. It’s a heads role to manage their staff. The child did not mislay their shoes. They had them removed by a teacher who then lost them. If the head is peeved at this ‘micro management’ they need to blame the staff, not the parent. And yes to the op who said not to pussyfoot around this - just ask for the shoes back! No need to strategise further.

@EndlessReno

I don't blame the teacher for making the child change shoes. Neither do the vast majority of posters on this thread. But she has lost the shoes. Accidents happen but OP has been left out of pocket if the shoes don't turn up, and whether or not her son should have had a precious item in school, he has been left upset. If the shoes don't turn up then the school should reimburse OP. What if she can't afford a new pair of school shoes herself?

I completely agree that a teacher has so many important roles and duties and probably doesn’t have the time to keep track of confiscated shoes but she probably shouldn’t confiscate them then! She doesn’t get to take a child’s shoes away then lose them, that’s not right.

Swapping the shoes was fine, but teacher then needed to take care of them and hand them safely back to the parent at the end of the day.
I would ask for a replacement.

So how did she think you would get home with nothing on his feet?

Of course you'll be reimbursed! Calm down everyone! Going to court, governors, HT, stealing etc ffs. The teacher probably just couldn't bring to mind immediately something that happened 4 days ago. She probably wonders why it wasn't mentioned at pick up or first thing Monday morning. She'll look for them now that the parent has jogged her memory. Op, send the email that a pp suggested.

Has your class got a WhatsApp group where all the parents are on? In my sons school they use seesaw or WhatsApp and if anything goes missing you just add a message on there to see if a child has accidentally taken something back home with them?

usually if a parent notices there child has come home with someone else’s they post on there to say they’ll return it the following day etc.

if you have most of the parents on Facebook etc you could create a group to message to see if the shoes have gone home with another child.

however the teacher should have handed the shoes back at the end of the day, if no luck asking other parents I would certainly go to the headteacher to see what solution there is.

The poster expected an instant reply.

I explained why that was wildly inappropriate.

Hope that makes sense.

Give the teacher a week to return them then go to Small Claims Court.

Read the opening post properly and your question shall be answered.

Sincerely, this is NOT the head's job. If a parent approaches them for something like this, they'll pass it straight back to the teacher, or at best, to the teacher's line manager.

The job of a head is massively different from what it used to be. They now manage multi million pound budgets as well as all the many layers of bureaucracy that have been dropped on them in the last couple if decades. They barely have a chance to see a child these days.

My children’s head teacher is in their classes quite a bit, reading stories, looking at their work, enough to learn names. Perhaps each school/district is different.

That is not a picture of a primary head that I recognise: our head knows the name of all 300 odd children and is very visible to them

My childrens headteacher was the same, I remember when he showed us around the school he spoke to loads of pupils and called each one by their names.

School size is very relevant here. Primary schools can be 20 kids or 2000.

And knowing every child's name or visiting classes doesn't mean they're not making high level decisions, or dealing with safeguarding or other crucial work. And it certainly doesn't imply being able to always drop everything to answer an email about shoes.

Bet they've been nicked

Paragraph 2 of the OP Friday he comes home crying in his gym shoes saying he was kicking his feet to make the shoes flash so the teacher took them away.

I cannot wrap my head around a situation where an adult, a teacher of young children, feels the need to stifle the joy of one of the very young children they are responsible for
Stifle the joy 😂. He was playing with his shoes instead of doing what the others were doing.
You sound scary, tbh 🤦‍♀️

School should replace them.
I would not allow him to wear them in school again now though and hopefully he won't want to.
teacher showing you no respect at all.yanbu

@Johnnysgirl Scary? Really? Stop being a bully.