What strategies do your DC's junior schools have for ensuring that children don't lose stuff?

[LittleBella]

My DS's school have the following:

Request that parents ensure all property is labelled with the child's name.

A lost property box.

That seems to be it. DS loses about £40-£50 worth of stuff a year at school. Some of it must be stolen, because it is all labelled. Is this average? Do any of your schools have any brilliant ways of keeping tabs on kids' stuff, or are the two methods above the only way realistically that schools can cope with this?

That's pretty standard. It's unlikely it's been stolen. The most common reason for kids not bringing home their stuff is that other kids take it home by mistake. By the time kids reach junior school it's expected that they begin to take responsibility for their stuff and make sure they put their coats on pegs, put pe kit back in bag etc. Some schools put all lost property out in the hall at the end of each half term, so that parents can look through (you know what kids are like looking for stuff!), if your school don't - you could suggest it.

Same as yours littlebella. I usually find that things get 'lost' after PE - other child can't find jumper and picks up the nearest that looks similar (most of them come from Asda or Woolies). DD tells me that she's lost it but lo and behold it magically appears the next day. Sometimes it's even made it's way to lost property.

I don't see what else the school can do.

What else are you expecting?

How often do you actually check the label in your DS's jumper etc to see that the one he's wearing is his? If you do it every day, or even every time you wash it, I would say you are in the minority.
There really isn't any more schools can do (ours does as alipotter suggests & puts it all out at half term - very little is ever actually claimed)

Pretty much the same here too. The only exception I can think of was when ds1 brought home someone else's (identical) lunchbag. That same afternoon a teacher was helping the other boy to look for his, found ds1's and guessed what had happened, and then phoned to ask if I would take it to the secretary in the morning. I can't imagine that they would do this every single time though.

I don't know bozza, that's why I'm asking. To see if there are any schools out there which have proactive, successful methods of ensuring children are reminded to take care of their property. I was going to suggest them to my DS's school, if there were any. It looks like not, though.

Actually, if your child brings a lunch box home by accident and it's not his, isn't it theft if you don't return it? I would think it is. It might not be the great train robbery, but I wouldn't allow my child to keep something he'd "found" at school, I don't think that's on.

My junior school has the following:

Nothing.

That's a point Rustybear, it hadn't even occurred to me. I do periodically check labels to ensure names are still on, but not to check that DS hasn't swapped with someone else! He did once bring home a jumper that wasn't his, but it was so obviously not, that I took it back the next day. Didn't get his back though (better quality, you see. )

You expect stuff to go missing but it also depends on the child - genuine loss or pure carelessness?

At DS we have email contact list for all parents so often message comes around "Has anyone got xxx sports bag?" and usually things have been picked up accidentally and find there way back. Also flag up "extra" items that have come home accidentally "Today we have 3 sports socks" etc

LOL

They must have a lost property box?

Our school gets the LP box out at the end of every term (although you can go through it at any time if you've lost anything).

It's astounding what comes out. Lunchboxes, wellies, coats - I mean I can understand sweaters, socks etc., but coats? How do you go a whole term without noticing your coat is missing?

Oh both claricebeansmum.

I am resigned to the fact that DS will always lose stuff.

An older child becomes strangely focused about possessions when having to pay for lost item out of pocket money...

I was once forced by a harried teacher to take an unabelled jumper that wasn't even ours.

I don't care any more. Told dds keep track of jumpers, or freeze. Keep hold of pencils, or get detention for not doing work. They deal with it themselves now.

None, and it drives me mad.

What particularly annoys me is that if the DSs go to an afterschool club, they have to lug all their stuff (coats, lunchbags, bookbags, pe kit etc) first to the dining hall for their pre-club snack and then to the classroom where the club is and then to the front door for collection time. I cannot understand why they can't just leave it all in a cloakroom for collection at the very end of the day.

DS1 in particular is a complete space cadet and is just incapaable of marshalling all his stuff. Gah!

My DD always loses her school jum pers, which are always labelled, and are always only about three weeks old by the time they disappear.

I have gone to pick her up, she has no jumper on, the teacher tells me that they all take their jumpers off throughout the day and put them in a pile in the middle of the class, then collect them when they go home. BUT when I go over, there aren't any left on the pile............

I got so fed up on her 6th missing jumper alst year, that after going to Lost Property, I went into the cloakrooms and took the cleanest looking same sized unlabelled jumper that was hanging around.

As for checking labels, I don't often check them but it doesnt take long to realise that you ahev some otehr childs jumper. When helping Dd on with ehrs (she is rubbish at doing her collars) I can see if it has someone elses label, as can I when it gets washed or ironed.

The fact that so many of DD's have gone missing shows at least some of the parents MUST be removing the label when noticing it isn't their childs.

Ds1 is Mr SpaceCadet too. I've lost count of the number of times he's come home with a jumper on that's 2 sizes too small or someone else's shirt. Absolutely everything is taken back the following school day but ds1's stuff rarely reappears even though it's labeled.

my children are infamous for losing stuff at school

at the end of the term/year where they put all the unclaimed lost property on the benches, I just take unnamed stuff (to replace what we've lost) because all our stuff is named and it still goes missing. More often than not, I can't find unnamed stuff that will fit either of mine! I don't replace any of it though unless it's a coat and we've had a real good search for it.

Hmm, there's a bit of a moral ishoo here isn't there? If you've lost 4 jumpers in a year, is it right to just take the cleanest, unclaimed lot in exchange? Is it theft, or a fair barter?

if it's not named and is put out, it's fair game

ours is all school branded stuff so without a name, you'd not be able to tell who it belonged to iyswim

After DS lost his £35 school jumper on its first outing in Recpetion we had a very big chat about looking after uniform.

I know I put the fear of god up him as he came back most days for the next week with at least 2 of everything. Including wearing one of his mate's shoes, with his own pair in his pe bag.

LOL

anchovy. We have lost things on and off and often go for a week or two before something turns up. DS is very slow though about mentioning lost items.

I think it's fair game tbh Bella, especially as when DD's go missing they are in almost perfect order! Surely it works out somewhere down the line that the ones I have taken belonged to another child, but they probably have someone elses?

They have the two things mentioned in OP. Also in yr 3 &4 each class has a jumper box, which is where any jumper found lying aorund on the classroom floor goes. However every single day i ahve to go in with DS2 to find a jacket, pe bag, or something and what happens is that a coat might fall off a peg, get kicked around by children going into class. Then a teacher comes along , sees coat lying on the floor and puts it on peg.
ANY peg, whichever one happens to be closest, and doesn't look to see if it's named. Which is what happens in Dses case, he knows he put his coat on his peg, he doesn't realise its fallen off and got kicked about, he thinks that whoever happens to come across it would put it on his peg since it has his name in it

Littlebella, I finally worked out that's what you're supposed to do - take a good-looking unmarked replacement for the lost item. dd1 (7) loses a sweatshirt every week on average. I kept buying new ones but at the end of last year someone told me that we were supposed to just raid the lost property box. So now we have about 10 sweatshirts... But we have bought at least 20 over the years so it must even out.

Dd1 has also managed to lose school shoes, wellies and sandals all at the same time at school. I can't work out how she manages to come home without any footwear, given that she walks it.