Probably a silly question about lost property…

[WorthyOpalQuail]

Dad here (first post, so apologies if I’m doing this wrong).

Over Christmas my child went to a school holiday club and, oddly, lost property wasn’t the usual nightmare. Instead of the big box of doom, they had a couple of posters up with a QR code. I scanned it and it showed photos of the lost items.

I only tried it because we’d lost a jumper (again 🙄) and I honestly didn’t expect it to work, but I found it pretty quickly without having to ask staff or rummage through piles of clothes.

Now we’re back at school/nursery and it’s straight back to the mystery box, so I’m assuming there must be a reason this isn’t more common - maybe I’m missing something obvious? Privacy? Safeguarding? Extra admin?

Just wondering if anyone else has seen something like this used, or if there’s a good reason schools avoid it.

Whilst it may be second nature to you , there are many who don't use QR codes (I don't) So perhaps just being behind the curve with technology , parents as well as the school ) It's a guess 😊

Probably never occurred to anyone to set it up, not knowing how to generate a QR code, it's another admin task to maintain taking photos and uploading them. There's a few reasons right away.

I’d guess school will have a lot more lost property than a holiday club, and there isn’t a designated person (or the funds) to go through and catalogue the lost property for the QR code

I would imagine the holiday club had less people attending. A primay significantly more and the time to photograph and add to a website each item found (at different times throughout the day) and then be put somewhere organised to be collected. School admins are unlikely to have that level of time.

All fair points - I’m probably being a bit idealistic 😅

I did wonder whether it worked at the holiday club because it was smaller, but part of what struck me was that it didn’t seem to add work for staff. It looked like once an item was found, someone just snapped a quick photo and that was it… parents did the rest themselves.

It also wasn’t on the club’s website or anything (which I know schools are rightly cautious about). It felt more like a self-contained system the parents accessed directly, rather than something the school had to manage or maintain day to day - meant I could check it while watching Netflix in the evening after my wife reminded me I forgot to check at pickup 😅

I also wondered whether it could actually be a nice responsibility for older children, a bit like cloakroom monitors. My daughter’s a bit young but loves jobs like that, and it felt more practical than the current “dump it in a box and hope” approach.

That said, I can absolutely see why schools stick with what they know… time and admin always win in the end.

Also one blue (insert appropriate colour) school jumper looks the same as another in a picture. I know where I put my name labels and the size which wouldn't be shown on picture. Much easier to spot Flossies yellow gap jumper out of other non uniform items.

@Noodledoodledoo true… here’s what it looks like (just went back through my emails from the club)^^

You could volunteer to do this every week for your kid's school. Presume they have a newsletter you could put the photos on too. They might be grateful.

This is such a great idea, I’m in education and having worked at several schools, had never heard of it! I suppose the only problem could be people seeing something they liked or needed, and saying it’s their item when it isn’t. But think that’s unlikely; I reckon schools just haven’t heard of this!

Someone upthread mentioned it might be a standalone system rather than being on a school website, so I had a quick look and it seems to be these guys foundly.online . If that’s the case, I can see why it might work better for clubs or smaller settings.

Anyway, probably one of those things schools just haven’t come across yet -suppose not everything needs to be an app!