DS toy stolen at school

[Mrsaskalotofquestions]

DS brought in a toy today for show & tell he showed three of his friends in the morning whilst they was hanging his coat up. He didn’t go in his bag until the end of the day when he went to get it out for show & tell. The toy and the container gone just the wrapper left.

Substitute teacher got all the kids to empty there bags.

Im horrified at the thought of a 9 year old stealing out another kids bag! Do I just accept it for what it is? I’m going to worry about sending him to school with anything now!

9 is way too old for show and tell and never take anything to school you aren't prepared to lose or have broken

Completly agree, its not all show and tell though, sometimes children bring things in to look cool, show off etc, even though the school asks them not to

Theft in schools has always been rife IME. I lost count at the amount of things that were stolen from bags, especially from DD's grammar school because the school refused to provide actual lockers.
PE kit, uniform items, even GCSE course work.
DS1 never even got to wear his new football boots - they vanished from the changing room before he had finished getting changed.
People are just dishonest. The parents must have known.

Doesn’t help, no.

I don’t know any class that has time for ‘show and tell’. It’s got limited educational value. And why would a ‘substitute’ (we call the supply teachers in the UK, op) do that anyway.

Don’t take anything into school you can’t risk getting lost, stolen, swapped or broken.

Not surprised. DS had his Underarmour baseball cap stolen in yr 5. Head teacher commiserated, but said there were children who would never have had a nice hat and would have helped themselves.

Awful attitude, lesson learnt. 😒

I don’t think that’s the suggestion at all, but neither do I think that’s a full on melodrama is necessary to explain this. Kids steal, it’s a fact of life and kids also grow out of stealing. It’s not excusing theft to acknowledge this. I think it should have been possible to find a way for the responsible child to return it.

Kids stealing at age 9 if a fact of life and they grow out of it?

Sounds pretty awful to me.

Stealing isn’t a normal part of growing up, nor should it be normalised.

OP - there’s always at least one antisocial little beast in every class. Sadly your DC will have to keep a closer eye on their possessions, even amongst classmates.

I think this is a good opportunity to suggest they stop show and tell. No reason for it and it will definitely make some kids feel terrible.

sorry you had something stolen, it’s a horrible feeling. But definitely better not to bring anything important into a school. It will get ruined or lost or stolen every time. Hope it’s replaceable 🤞

This is why most schools say no toys in school.

An excellent example of why children are told not to bring toys into school.

I don’t think, ‘show and tell’ is a brilliant idea for this reason.

What do you mean “do I just accept it for what it is ?” I mean what else can you do ? Involve the police ??

Bringing a toy for show and tell is banned in most schools. It can cause a lot of jealousy and if there's a wealth disparity then that's even harsher on some children. What educational or personal value is bringing a toy to show and tell anyway? Achievements yes, toys - god no. Sounds like he took a toy into school for fun and it got stolen, lesson learnt I suppose.

I can still remember at age 4 I had my lovely ice cream rubber (that smelled of ice cream) stolen from my drawer in the classroom. The thief cut it up into little cubes and shared it out round the class!

Those saying it should be given to the teacher at the start of the day; kids steal from teachers' desks and drawers too, sadly.

I totally sympathise with parents and kids this happens to but I always say please don't send in anything that is precious. It's harsh lesson to learn that schools are melting pots of all corners of society.

Jumpers and jackets get stolen at DS school and turn up re-labelled with another child's name (I put a name label in a discrete place too so can prove it's ours).
Someone took DS lunch box home and it came back to again one day with another kids name it - label placed over my DS name label.

I'm not surprised the toy got nicked. Nothing valuable or non-essential gets sent to school.

Unlike PPs I think show and tell is great - it’s an early chance to do public speaking, which is a serious skill.

DD does it in Y1, but the teacher is very clear that they shouldn’t bring in anything that they would be sad to loose. I’d impose that even if she didn’t!

We usually do something she’s made / a pretty leaf / a drawing of something that happened at the weekend or similar.

If all the kids emptied their bags and it wasn’t found perhaps it wasn’t stolen but merely lost?

This stuff really annoys me. If schools allow show and tell they should make sure it’s secure.
dd had a little nail kit we’d bought her for stopping biting her nails stolen. It was in the show and tell tray and got taken. School told me and then added that they couldn’t check bags or coats.