What could have happened to DS's bag? And hats?

[Scootergrrrl]

DS started a new school this week and in five days, has managed to misplace three hats, a pair of gloves and his school bag. He's only 5, so they are watched quite closely, and he says he hangs things on his peg and then when he comes back from lunch or whatever, they are gone. His new teacher is searching high and low for them with no success, particularly his bag which is quite distinctive. Where could they have gone? Suggestions or ideas of what to do next welcome.

DD was at school with a child like that. Some nasty children (not my DD) thought it was funny to hide Fs belongings. It wasn't obviously.
I would ask the school to have an informal chat about being kind to other people and see if that flushes them out.
They can't have disappeared.

Put one of those keyrings that beeps in his new bag

i think theres a jumper vortex at my dc school....
apparently the teacher has said some parents get embarrassed that they have got home to discover they have another childs things and dont want anyone to know so dont bring them back.my ds regularly loses his socks during p.e and they are never seen again
the joys being at school i guess

Hmm. Keep talking to the teacher, I think. If she is confident that they are, as he says, disappearing off his peg, then they may need to take it wider and talk to the whole school about it (as a general issue, not specific to your DS, of course) - if someone in another class is hiding/pinching things then a good moral lecture may well get someone else to dob them in stuff to mysteriously "reappear".

I also suffer from this and find it very annoying.

So some policies. I train my kids to put gloves in coat pockets & hat if it will fit.

In YR/ Y1 - I sewed a long pieces of yarn between gloves and threaded them through the coat - thus they never disappeared.

NEVER buy anything too expensive/ precious.

If something always disappears (at our school it's school fleeces) - opt not to buy it rather than put up with it disappearing (guaranteed to happen as soon as the weather turns cold for fleeces/ cardigans at our school).

I tell children to tie sweaters/ sweatshirts around their waist (which is against some teacher's policy).

Also e-mail the school to complain about the disappearances. If it is in writing - it's 'recorded' and it brings it to their attention. Our school has a chronic problem with this - but didn't realise it until a group of us started to regularly e-mail when things disappeared.

I recall as a new green teacher being accused of losing a child's PE bag (mother actually reported me to the LEA when the head failed to discipline me over it) only for it to turn up months later in his grandmother's utility room.
I will do my best to locate missing items but honestly there is very little staff can do if children leave them somewhere or is someone takes them home and fails to bring them back other than make daily announcements.

They are quite probably in the same place as my DD's cardigan, numerous gloves and hat.

I think it's incredible how so much stuff just vanishes - at DD's school I think there must be a cardigan black market as so many girls seem to lose them.

On the plus side DS's jumper turned up after being missing for 7 months, so there is always hope :)

Dd in reception. Been to lost property twice through no fault of hers, school event let them dress up and they sent uniform home in a bag. Twice her pinny was not in her bag.
But the bit I really don't get as a new school mum is that every single one of the 15 or so jumpers in lost property were named.
How does this happen?

PastSellByDate Interesting about the waist tying thing. I always tell children to take them off as I thought parents would be upset about the arms getting stretched. It never occurred to me that they were being told to so it doesn't get lost.

:o

I would go in to have a look around yourself as well though (after school when easier as cloak room emptier) - nothing like your eyes which can spot your own things in the chaos..

my top tip as chief in charge of lost property & mother of a child who is G&T in losing things is to make sure all uniform is named, preferably by sewing a name tape into the clothing itself rather than by sewing the name tape onto the label (if you put it on the label they can be cut out )

Definitely worth having a word with the teacher if things are vanishing from the pegs. Having a loom yourself is good plan too - look behind radiators, under low storage units etc -it's amazing where it can end up!

My son's rugby kit surfaced in his grandfathers compost heap. He'd put it down when cleaning out his guinea pigs and it had been scooped up with the straw ... almost a year later it had composted well.

Does rugby kit make good compost?

Half of DS's PE kit came back from spending Christmas at other people's houses - no idea whose, as it just reappeared in his locker, but it was better washed and ironed than it would have been at home!

On the odd occasion my DC have managed to "adopt" something, it has been from a close enough friend that I could text the parent concerned and let them know where it was and that it would be back the next day - so far, at least!

It's difficult and in my experience only gets worse as they get older and aren't so closely supervised by the teachers. Ds is in yr 3. Someone stole his blazer yesterday off his named peg. It was under his winter coat, which someone had taken off the peg and thrown on the floor to get to his blazer. They cost £80. He 'lost' one last year for 3 months. I refused to buy a new one and eventually it miraculously turned up. Found, allegedly, at the bottom of the lost property bin but it wasn't creased at all so I don't believe that at all.

It only came back when I made a huge fuss and said that I'd come into school and inspect every blazer of that size. I knew I'd recognise ds's even if it had someone else's name in.

Ah disappearing PE Kits

Although I take your point mrz that you in fact looked but couldn't find a PE Kit which turned up eventually at home - do try an understand it from the parents' point of view.

My DD2's Y1 teacher informed me that DD1 had lost her PE kit - or at least they couldnt' find it - so could I buy a replacement.

I pointed out to her that it hadn't come home (we hand in PE kits at start of term and they aren't sent home until the end) and as I had picked up DD2 that week every evening, I was certain it hadn't come home for some reason accidentally. Therefore, in my opinion it was still on school property - so I suggested that if the school (whilst in care of my child) lost it why don't they replace it. This battle raged on for about a week, with me getting progressively hacked off at being asked to replace £25 worth of kit at the drop of a hat - only for DH to march into school one morning and turn the place upside down until low and behold DD2 PE kit under pillows in reading corner.

Teacher agreed that bag had been in school entire time. We all agreed that either DD2 when changing had left it there or that it had accidentally (?or not so accidentally) been pushed under the pillows. DH politely suggested that given the fine state of chaos that was DD2's class - perhaps the solution was to actually routinely require kids to hang bags back on pegs (as there are plenty oddly enough designed precisely for that purpose).

This isn't to say that all school's are like ours - our school cynically makes a profit emptying lost and found boxes frequently and selling clothes off for 'charity' resale in poorer parts of the world. They have in fact been caught doing this with a box of almost entirely named garments - which lead to a formal complaint - from one of the governor's no less, who queried whether school staff could read, and if not they shouldn't be employed. Hee, hee.

The most likely thing is that its gone home with another child or ended up in a completely different part of the cloakroom. Often when children say 'I've looooked!!' they mean 'I've looked in the vicinity of my own peg and nowhere else'

I really feel for both parents and children, Ive had parents spitting mad and children coming to me in tears because 'Mum's gonna kill me!!' but it really isnt our job to find things. I will happily help a child look at the end of the day when the cloak room is clear and I will ask other children if they have seen it (as other parents have said this sometimes makes things miraculously appear) but I cant do anything beyond that. If you complained to my Head I think she'd laugh you out the door! Miss Wellthen didn't find your child's coat? Thats because she was busy teaching!!

We ask children to keep the cloak room tidy, tell them off if they leave things on the floor but they must also learn the lesson of organisation for themselves, its a life skill.

Every half term we clear out the cloak room and last year I had a child who would find several long lost items every time (dyspraxia and disorganisation often go together!). It was a running joke in our class and the kids would giggle like mad as the pile on his table got bigger and bigger. But EVERY peice was named. He always got everything back so a good lesson for some of my children who are easily old enough to write their own name on things.

Ds looked in the cloakroom with the help of a teacher. His blazer was there in the morning but not there in the afternoon and no other blazer left in its place.

As a parent I do find it odd that named clothing is put in the 'lost property' bin. Imho the lost property bin is for unnamed clothing since named clothing is capable of being returned to its owner (if the teacher can be bothered, which some aren't).

Sure some teachers will post, re comments about 'named' clothes in lost property bin, but teachers really don't have time for this, IMO.

At my DS school, now & again the teaching assistant with the help of some older children will go through it & return anything named to its owner.

As long as school don't mind parents coming in to help younger DC's find their stuff (ours doesn't) then names on things help you find your childs items and older DC's are capable of looking through lost property for their own named items.

Although nothing can be done if another child has your childs stuff at home under a pile somewhere.

Every half term I hold up all the abandoned unclaimed items only for them to be totally disowned by all the KS1 children who use the cloak room
Like Wellthen I don't have enough hours in the day to take personal responsibility for chasing up lost items and a written complaint to my head would also be greeted by wry laughter in the staffroom.

I'm assuming the stuff that's disappeared was labelled, OP.

If that is the case, then either you ds has put it down somewhere not on his peg (my ds1 is a genius at this), its been taken home by another child by mistake or its being taken/hidden.

In scenarios 1 & 2 it will probably reappear in a few days - again, I'm assuming you've checked lost property. The only thing that makes me think it could be 3 is the sheer volume of stuff mislaid (again my ds1 is capable of this but I know he's scatty).

Anyway, definitely involve the teacher cause that is an awful lot of stuff to lose in 1 week.

Wellthen, didn't it occur to someone that a child with additional needs would need help getting organised? Publically mocking the child in class isn't going to magically make their brain capable

Quite, Purplepidjin. I second your

Gracious! ...returning the child's belongings is "publicly mocking" him?

mrz, the whole class was giggling at the running joke. Last paragraph of the post...

Do you think it was as funny for him as for the other children? I hope so...