To expect the school to actually help me find the things that belong to my DD?

[Eve4Walle]

I posted this on chat last night, but genuinely would like to know if I am being unreasonable about any of this?

DD left her cardigan on the school field the week before last (£13 with school logo from Skoolkit) and it still hasn't surfaced. Today she got off the bus which brings her home wearing someone elses fleece (these cost £19 and also have school logo), but the one she's got now is very tatty and bobbly and doesn't have a name in it, unlike her own one, which has been well cared for.

Both her lost/mislaid items had her name sewn in.

So where are they? Are some people so hard up they resort to keeping uniform that comes home by mistake? Even when there is a school 'friends' used uniform shop available?

Or am I reading more into it?

School don't seem bothered about any of it and refuse to help look for them and I am very pissed off that some other child has my girls tidy and well looked after clothes on (which is obv. what is happening, no?).

"the lost property room.... where parents are not allowed."

How are they going to stop you? Does it have armed guards on it? If not, just go in.

Just you wait till your dd goes to Secondary. .

DS lost well over £100 worth of stuff in the first term inc. mouthguard which cost £35.

All labelled.

Now if he loses something he replaces it out of his allowance. Astonishingly, it almost never happens now!

Our lost prop is always open. And at the end of each term they get the whole lot our and spread it out on a couple of trestles in the playground. There is always tons of stuff.

We've had the same thing with secondary school PE kit, mumblechum. At ds1's previous school, it was considered 'funny' to take someone's kitbag and strew the contents all over school, or hide the whole thing somewhere. I found this less amusing, especially as the school insisted on specific kit for indoor and outdoor PE, which could only be bought from the school itself - where the rugby socks cost £4.50 a pair, and a tracksuit (thankfully optional) cost more than a blazer!!

Ds1's kitbag went missing from outside one of the classrooms - the boys weren't allowed to take the kitbags in with them, so had to leave them outside - and yet the school said that the disappearance of ds1's kit was nothing to do with them!!

I wish I could tell the OP that I thought she was being overly suspicious in thinking that some other parent might have kept her dd's nice clothes, but experience has made me cynical.

That said, I do think it's worth her having a trawl through the lost property herself - on several occasions I have found lost kit in the lost property box that the ds in question swore blind he'd searched properly.

yabvu

What's your DD like for looking for things, Eve4Walle?

DS has lost an important book. "I've looked everywhere." I went in with him this morning prepared to grudgingly pay for a new one and found it, in his drawer where it is supposed to be, in less than ten seconds.

A lot of children are like that. And that's why the teachers don't bother looking for lost things - because the kids don't bother looking either.

The only person who can be bothered making a thorough search is the one who paid for the item, IME.

DD is 7 and at least twice a week she comes home with no cardigan. We have 3 of them, worn equally, so all getting worn out now. She can never find them, but they 'appear' on her peg when I march her back in to find them!

She did come home with a school jumper that she acquired from the lsot property box - no name on it, so we took it back the next day, and her class teacher (who is the KS1 manager) told us to keep it and even more we did!

Teachers are too busy doing their job to be looking after uniform. I would raid the lost property box and see what you can find / acquire!!

Gosh some of you clearly have very organised 5 year olds,quite frankly I amamazed that the OP's 5 year old can even remember she has a coat at the end of the day especially after getting the bus to and from school.School is pretty exhausting in itself at that age and if we are going to have children in school that young then we should ensure that they have sufficient pastoral support to enable them to make the most of the experience.No I don't think the teacher should be entirely responsible but surely if you choose to be a reception teacher you have to accept that part of the role is bout helping the children to cope with the day to day life of the school.It doesn't take long to remind children "to pick up everything off the field for example jumpers and cardigans" or once a week to get everyone to check that the person next to them has the right label in their coat..surely part of learning to read each others names? and so on.Not all children have the developed organisational skills of flylady at 5 years old!I have now been down this route 3 times and lost property costs a fortune ,all very well to expect an 8 year old to remember a cardigan but a 5 year old...I am not so sure

I have some sympathy - almost tempted to write in indelible ink 'THIEF' under all ds' sewn-in labels; am astonished there are git parents who cut labels out and keep them, rather than return them to school. Ds is only 5 and got so upset last term when a few of his things went missing and couldn't understand why they couldn't be found. To their credit staff apologised but it wasn't their fault.

I would write a letter since your dd is only young and the approach to sorting uniform sounds too haphazard for young children.

stayingsunny - twas at secondary that DS1's pe kit went missing - he is in Yr7.

As I said before I don't think it is the schools responsibility and on many occasion I have gone in myself to search through the bins or under the benches only to find stuff that they said was not there.

Ah but floaty, have you ever asked a 5 year old five times if they had a coat with them this morning while they swear blind they hadn't... only for their parents to turn up and ask where it is. I dealt with a max of eight reception kids leaving school a day and it usually takes a good twenty minutes to make sure they have all their things. Teachers absolutely do not have the time to do this!

I think responsibility needs to be shared between kids and their parents. Kids to make a decent effort to remember, and parents to go and do the thorough search when they are too young to look properly.

Agreed laweaselmys! My daughter lost most things in the first half term so I went in one morning and rooted around. It took 40 mins but I found everything...& then went off to work!

But if the child comes and goes on the bus then I think that they should be given a little extra support.I appreciate that teachers don't necessarily have time for this but sometimes I do think(present company excepted)that they could be a little more symapthetic especially where parents are obviously struggling to replace items .Ifteachers and TA really can't help then uniform standards should be relaxed at the infant stage

I guess we are lucky in that we can buy everything from Asda So the entire uniform can cost less than a tenner. I'd be a bit more annoyed if they lost shoes mind you.

I refuse to buy the stuff with the school badge on it.

DS#1 uniform is much more expensive but so far he has only lost socks.

i dont think you are being unreasonable at all,
my son has "lost" his swimming kit, which was hung on his peg ready to go to the pool, he went to get it and it had gone, new trunks, goggles, towel, hat and new bag. all named. so he had to borrow spare, i have been to complain today at the office that if they wont let them have lockers (he is in middle school) how can they expect them to keep their things safe, they have to leave school bags and pe kits on their pegs as they are not allowed to walk around with bags on their bag (in case they damage wall displays!)
the school does send home a newsletter each week with lost items on the list but do they ever re-appear?? no.

In most schools I know, you can't get into any part of the school without a member of staff unlocking the door for you; so if they don't want you in lost prop, you won't get into lost prop. No need for armed guards, a simple yale lock will do it. It's called security. The school buildings have signs on them that parents are not allowed in the building (except obviously for Parents evening). The only access to the school is through Reception. So you depend on the goodwill of the admin staff. It's not going to be a case of walking straight in.

But why would they want to stop you getting into lost property? So you have to go through reception. And then ask to go to lost property. It's not a big problem is it? Admittedly our lost property room is never locked but even so.

Schools don't want parents in Lost Property because they take stuff that doesn't belong to them. Honestly! I work in a huge school and hear about these problems every day. Someone has to be in charge of Lost Property obviously because otherwise anyone could just walk away with expensive items. In a secondary school you have no idea of the vast amount of property that is lost/handed in/claimed/not claimed. As I speak I have an i-phone on my desk which was handed in last week and a watch which was handed in yesterday and no-one has reported them missing - and I just work in one department. Our Lost Property is managed by one long suffering cleaner and is open to pupils or parents 8.30 - 9 and 4 - 4.30 every day but people must state exactly what it is they have lost. We send letters home (copied to the form teacher) for any item of labelled uniform etc but it is astonishing how many people never bother to collect. We have an entire room jammed full of stuff!

Wow - now this is a whole can of worms we are opening! i wouldn't dream of sending my child to a school that had signs up saying that parents aren't allowed into the building! I presume you're not talking about primary schools?

Sadly, Seeker, many schools, like ours, now have to have 'guards' at the door to prevent people just wandering into the school. we had a very unfortunate incident a few years ago when a drunk parent came into a classroom and assaulted the teacher in front of the kids. The teacher was so mentally scarred that they had to be given early retirement and we now have gone from being a school that welcomes parents with open arms, to one where they are only allowed in with a specific appointment. During the day the office staff have to physically let people into the building and at the start and end of the day, the staff all gather at the main door to stop anyone coing in 'on spec' as it were. We hate being like it, but unfortunately it is a minority of parents that have made us like it!

And yes, we are a primary school!

The way it works in my son's junior school is: parents pick up and deliver in the playground. The school buildings are dotted around this playground. The main building is accessed through a locked door in reception: you can only get in by having access to the staff code or being let in by a member of staff. The other buildings have a sign on them asking parents please to keep out for security reasons.

I am sure they would let you in to look throught lost prop, but you certainly couldn't just barge in, a member of staff would have to take you.

Have seen similar in other schools around here, seems to be the norm, people have to send their children to the schools they can get into. Not everybody has a vast amount of choice.

Seeker it's in the staff room, personal stuff on kids (eg photos of kids with allergies) displayed so a blanket no parent policy.

But we are trying to get aornd this..... ds1 (as an SN child ) should be getting a basket for hsi things to go in so they are together hard to forget and easy for others to find.Will stop the hoarding mouldy food in the cloakroom incident as per last year, goodness knows how the cleaners missed it but i found it picking up his coat and cleaned it up. rank.