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Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Original poster

What would you do?

45 replies

Tiasmummy · 19/01/2009 10:59

I know this situation happens so many times to so many people, but I just wanted your opinions.

Last week Tuesday my daughter came home with another little girls polo shirt on (they wear a yellow polo shirt with the schools logo underneath their jumpers). It was PE day so they must have mixed them up getting changed and what not. I know this kind of thing must happen all the time so I just washed it and sent it back in with my daughter the next day with a little note attached.

The next day I asked the teacher if the little girls mum had returned my daughters polo shirt yet?..she said the lady TOOK back her shirt and then when asked about mine said ?I dont know anything about it?!!!

The day the mix up happened her daughter obviously came home with a shirt that was not hers as I had hers. I understand that you might get home and not notice if your child has the wrong item on....but the moment a teacher hands yours back from another parent then common sense would tell you that you MUST have somebody elses right??
Now my daughter is one shirt down because this lady is denying all knowledge of it. Its truly not about the money its the principle of her just keeping something that is not hers.

She has had 2 days to go home and look for it but we still have not received anything back.

I wrote her a note today and sent my daughter in with it so that her teacher can pass it on to this lady. The note says words to the effect of:

Dear Ms ..

Last week Tuesday my daughter came home with your daughters polo shirt. I have returned this and Miss....has given it back to you. We still have not received my daughters back and I am assuming your daughter was wearing it that day. Could you please return it? If this is not the case then please could you tell me whose shirt your daughter came home wearing that day so I can ask them if they have it.

Does anybody think I am going over the top with this? Like I said it is not about the money but the principle....even though the uniform shop is quite a way from where I live! Please let me know what you think.

Thanks

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seeker · 19/01/2009 11:04

Could you not just talk to the other mother at home time? Or ring her up? Not sure that sending notes through third parties is the best way, to be honest!

MadameCastafiore · 19/01/2009 11:07

I think you are being reasonable - bloody uniform theft that goes on at DDs school is beyond belief.

SOmetimes I thinnk the kids are taught to just snaffle the best looking clean uniform - mind you we are down a PE kit, 3 jumpers, a fleece and a pair of pumps already.

Original poster

Tiasmummy · 19/01/2009 11:07

Really seeker???...oh worried now...but I am not sure who she is as in what she looks like at all.

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Original poster

Tiasmummy · 19/01/2009 11:10

Madame - I did not think I was being unreasonable either. Just want what is mine back really!! Surely that is not too much to ask? Just dont understand why a parent would want to keep another childs piece of clothing...though....the her one was fairly stained!! Not being horrid or anything but my daughters is is good condition.....oh the politics of school life!!

OP posts:

madwomanintheattic · 19/01/2009 11:11

ask your daughter - who is x's mummy? - it works every time. you can then stalk her and strip the child if nec.
just kidding.

face to face is far better imo.

madwomanintheattic · 19/01/2009 11:12

actually, two days is nothing. when uniform hits my laundry pile it doesn't resurface ironed for a week.
she's probably mortified that she has to go and try and wade through the devastation that is the laundry pile because she is getting letters lol...

seeker · 19/01/2009 11:15

Sorry - didn't mean to worry you. I just think it's better to be direct - and less easy for her to wriggle out of it if you're face to face. I would ask your dd to point out the girl and her mum, and then say something about "Oh, I hope you got little Esmarelda's shirt back, aren't they a pain, you'd think they could keep and eye on their stuff, waffle waffle and was Esmarelda wearing Hermione's shirt? Oh, brilliant - could I have it back when you've got a moment.....Oh and would Esmarelda like to come to tea one day?"

MillyR · 19/01/2009 11:15

I gave up on this many years ago. My kids have lost huge amounts of things. I now write on the labels of my children's clothes 'this jumper was stolen from (and insert my child's name)'

The only time when I have made a major stand was when my son lost a winter coat. I asked several times for the coat back from the parent whose child had taken it. They denied having it, but also said that clothes were just like a giant pool, and that they never bought uniform, but simply took things from the lost property box at school. In the end, I stopped asking for my child's coat back in the playground, went to the woman's house, and while she stood there denying having the coat, I searched through her coat rack, took the coat down, and walked out.

It is the one act of being a crazy mum that I do not look back on and regret. I view not returning other children's clothes as theft.

Original poster

Tiasmummy · 19/01/2009 11:15

Madwoman - I do understand the 2 days is not that long but SURELY if yours in handed back and you realise you have somebody else's then you would make more effort to get theirs back to them?

OP posts:

Original poster

Tiasmummy · 19/01/2009 11:17

Its weird...for those 2 days I did ask my daughter to point her out to me but both days she said "xxx has already gone home"...almost like the mum is rushing out for some reason....lol....

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mazzystartled · 19/01/2009 11:22

she really may not have it.
her daughter might have come home in someone else's entirely
i think your note sounds somewhat curt and unfriendly, and just a little bit loopy obsessive.

troutpout · 19/01/2009 11:27

agree with seeker

Seeline · 19/01/2009 11:29

A similar thing happened with my DDs sweatshirt (brand new, first time worn in Reception) I alerted the teacher and she said she would keep an eye out. I put up a notice at school. The sweatshirt DD had come home wasn't named so I couldn't chase the mum. Eventually, weeks later, teh teacher actually checked all the sweatshirts at PE - another little girl was wearing my daughters - it still had the name tape sewn in BUT the name had been crossed out and the other little girls name written on the label The teacher was embarressed to give it back to me!! The othe mum never said a word

Original poster

Tiasmummy · 19/01/2009 11:35

Mazzy - I did say in the note that if she did not have it then could she tell me whose she did have that day, so that I could ask them. Did not want the note to sound rude :-( Just to the point and not too long...or I really would sound obsessive!

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madwomanintheattic · 19/01/2009 11:36

yes - but it wouldn't make it any easier for me to actually do it lol - it would just make me madder and loopier and more worried about what people were thinking about me and start chucking laundry heaps about in a vain attempt to find it... then i'd probably have to handwash it after the kids had gone to bed because both the washing machine and the dryer were full and so was the laundry basket, and the cycle takes 2 hours etc etc. i'd stick it on the drying rail to dry overnight, but wouldn't have time the following morning to iron it - it would helpfully get thrown on the ironing pile by dh (when he unloaded the dryer lol) disappearing into the ironing pile mayhem... i'd then go to the rail the next night, squeakle because it wasn't there, throw the ironing pile around and fail to find it, have a row with dh about whether he had the temerity to move the clean but unironed laundry, have to start the whole saga again. dh would then probably announce that dd1 hadn't had a clean shirt, so he'd ironed it and given it to her to wear. back to sq1.
laundry is endless in this house.
sometimes i do dream that someone would get rid of the dh, dcs, dogs, jobs, vol sector stuff, college, arguing with the DWP/LEA/council and give me a week to sort it all out, and then i could be a shiny happy mummy that returns 'borrowed' clothes the very next day... i suspect it's not going to happen in this lifetime lol.
she'll be looking for it, she just won't have found it yet...

Original poster

Tiasmummy · 19/01/2009 11:36

Seeline - that is TERRIBLE!! I just can't understand why somebody would do something like that!

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Original poster

Tiasmummy · 19/01/2009 11:38

Trout - I did say that I dont actually know who the mum is in order to speak to her.

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Seeline · 19/01/2009 11:39

I couldn't quite believe it either Tias mummy. I never did mention it to the other mum. It was filthy when it came back - I'm not sure that it had been washed at all in the 3 weeks she had had it!! As it was brand new it still had the really fluffy fleecy stuff on the inside.

seeker · 19/01/2009 11:40

At my dd's secondary school, they are supposed to have their names embroidered on the outside of most of their stuff - but apparently as it's machine embroidery, if you cut the thread and pull the whole name unravels....!

Original poster

Tiasmummy · 19/01/2009 11:41

Madwoman - I hope you are right...maybe I am just obsessinga bit and need to give her more of a chance...but the fact that she said "i dont know anything about it" makes me doubt it. The saga continues....

OP posts:

troutpout · 19/01/2009 11:53

oh excuse me..didn't see that post

i'm sure it will turn up at some point ...ds lost countless bits of uniform ...sometimes they turned up a week or so later...when people have washed and sorted them.

RustyBear · 19/01/2009 16:46

If it was a 3-or-more-way swap the other girl may have come home in an unlabelled shirt. It's quite possible that not all her shirts are labelled - it's quite common to label all the original stuff in a fit of efficiency & never get round to naming subsequent ones (I speak from experience here )- and if so, the mum wouldn't have known it belonged to someone else. Of course, she would now have an extra one, but not all mums can always easily locate every item of uniform, so she may still be trying to do a count....

seeker · 19/01/2009 17:55

Now I think about it - you have checked her peg and her PE bag, haven't you? Please tell me you have.......

Plonker · 19/01/2009 18:05

We have had 3 and 4 way swaps at dd's school - 'a' went home with 'b's polo shirt, 'b' went home with 'c's, 'c' went home with 'd's and 'd' went home with 'a's etc. The children thought it would be fun

It took a while to get the right clothes back the right child (the children forgot who they swapped with ) and the polo shirt that my dd had was nameless! Gah

We got there in the end though ...

Katiestar · 19/01/2009 18:56

Have you looked in ALL the school lost property boxes at school.I was moaning on every parenting forum and to anyone in RL who would listen about DS2 'losing ' 3 sweatshirts in teh space of a term.The teachers kept telling m,e to search through all the cloakrooms to see if I could find it Then i found out about a box in the infants' room (DS is in Yr 6 ) stuffed full of lost property and they were all there !

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