School musical instrument - gone missing in school

[MaryBS]

DD had the use of a tenor recorder. She left it in the cloakroom - its now gone missing. I'm hoping it will turn up today.

I fully accept its her responsibility, and she should have taken better care of it (she's 10), but if it doesn't turn up, will I have to replace it? Or is it likely the school will claim on the insurance?

If they say we have to pay for it, I'll totally understand, but would like some indication of whether this will happen or not. I think its about £60 for a new one.

We had a similar scenario with a school textbook which was damaged while in the school. If they had insisted that we pay for a replacement I would have paid up (with a face) but they accepted that as it happened on school premises we could not be held at fault. Obviously, the book was worth far less than the recorder.

I think there is a fundamental problem here, in that primary schools do not have secure lockers in the way that secondary schools do, and things do get 'borrowed', damaged or lost, however much one nags encourages one's child to take care of their stuff.

Did you have to sign anything when you got the instrument? I remember having to sign something that made us liable if we lost or damaged the instrument. Becaue of it I have always refused Ds2 to bring it home.I would be really ennoyed if it desappeared from school though!

I would certainly not be paying up this side of the holidays, as its quite likely it will have turned up either over the hols or in the first few weeks of next term.

You can however, get one on Ebay much cheaper than £60 - here for example with a buy it now of £20 + £4 postage.

Don't know what the legal position is though - sorry!

Thanks everyone, it turned up today - another girl had taken it home, it was the school leaver service today, and a number of children were playing! The other girl shouldn't have taken it though, as it was in DD's care!

No, we've not had to sign anything as its borrowed on an "ad-hoc" basis rather than on loan.

I saw that one on Ebay, that would have been my next step, although not sure how fussy they would have been on the make - the one that went missing was a Yamaha.