Theft in school not being taken even vaguely seriously. Really annoyed. What do I do?

[Tentaclesa]

Dd's school does not have lockers. They cart all of their stuff around with them in a rucksack.

Dd has to walk 1/2 mile into town from school to get the bus, so I like her to wear a coat to do this, as the weather is awful. I caved at Christmas and bought her a nice, £70 fleece lined coat instead of the tatty old thing that she loathed. It therefore does not fit in her rucksack, as that is stuffed with 8 lessons' worth of books.

It was named, and no different to the ones that the other children were wearing, but is branded. It "went missing" in 2 days (she was rushed at the end of a lesson, forgot it, and by the end of the next period it had vanished). School refused to let me or dd search lost property, but the search that the school conducted said it was not there. I went back on three occasions to ask them to look again, but nothing ever showed up. School did not bat an eyelid and said that it had probably been stolen. She then had to go a month without a coat in pouring rain while I saved up to replace it. This one has lasted a week. It is a different coat, and was named more conspicuously. It was also in very "girly" colours, so as to make it a) more conspicuous to dd, and b) to only appeal to 50% of the school population. She left it in a classroom to go and sign in to form, and by the time she had signed in it had gone. School again are totally blasé and taking no action re. letting dd email round to see if anyone has seen it, or to try and find out what has happened to it.

I am utterly, utterly furious. Dd is hysterical and feels like she has let me down terribly.

School acted entirely the same way about the theft of a phone from another pupil during a form registration, taken from the pupil's blazer pocket by another member of the form. Dd says that it is happening all the time.

I want to storm into the deputy head's office, but need real-life perspective on this first.

Just to add op i fully get you. Mine has sen and year seven was very very hard transition and organisation wise. I don't think people realise how hard it is for a sen child to go from one cloakroom and classroom to five!

I don't know why everyone is so blasé about this, I'd be furious too. But, I see the point that there probably isn't a lot the school can do if they are unfortunate to have a multitude of robbing students. Perhaps just buy her a thin raincoat that can be folded up and put in her bag?

lookoutitsapiano
"I don't know why everyone is so blasé about this"

(loving the umlaut)

Because the first thing that needs to happen is to find out whether it was actually stolen, or lent out, or forgotten, or left.

When I did my training at a primary school. We turned an entire classroom upside down for one parent who was adamant that the coat was in that room. Turns out that it was at home and the child had hung the bloody thing up when they got in and forgot about it.

Hmm interesting responses on here. DD went to a supposedly elite c of e school in SW London. They had lockers which she didn't use because that's where bullying took place. There was also rife theft at the school - anything and everything, even the takings at the summer fete. The girls knew who the culprits were, the head knew who the culprits were. The head denied behaviour problems and actually told patents theft was part of secondary school. And people wonder why society has declined. It has declined because role models like he's teachers think behaviour that is,anti-social and against the law is ok in schools. It's an ethos that represents all that is wrong with broken Britain.

We removed dd from the school. The head left two years later. The school now has a chance. The OP's school needs some lockers. Children shouldn't have to Lu all their books, pe kit, lunch and their coat around with them all day. It's as unreasonable as a professional figurehead on a six figure salary teaching children that theft is tolerable. Does nothing to prepare young people for real life, especially the ones who don't have good role models at home.

I delighted in telling the governors my daughter was leaving because the head thought theft was part of school life. Along with low level disruption, persistent, assault, foul language, etc. Might be normal in a headteacher's world; it isn't normal in the real world. I'd love to meet that head's children they must have a marvellous idea of what represents acceptable behaviour!

Not the ethos at DS's school or at the school dd went to afterwards. Neither was it the ethos we were told about at the open day. We were told then about the exceptionally high standards of behaviour. What do you reckon: either the head didn't know a high standard if it hiit her between the eyes or she was a liar. Pretty shocking I'd say.

When I was at school our coats and pe bags were left in the cloakroom, our books in our desks. No lockers. It was rare if something went missing. If it did it was noted with disappointment at assembly. If someone was caught steaming and I remember a gurl was the remedy was expulsion. It therefore didn't happen. We were taught right from wrong and there were serious consequences for illegal behaviour and/or delinquency.

My daughter won't use the lockers at her school as they tend to get broken into. Again, it seems to be tolerated by the school.

Reading this thread brought back memories of several years of being a year 7 tutor - until I refused.

Every bloody lunchtime and after school was spent assisting a tutee to look for yet another bloody item - and helping them actually LOOK in the classrooms properly. And LOOK in lost property properly...
Half the problem would be they wouldn't look properly - not scrunched between/ under things - just a cursory glance. And often a lot of the time the item was picked up by someone else by mistake then abandoned halfway across the school when the mistake was discovered.

The rest of my lunchtimes and breaktimes were spent dealing with friendship fall outs and bullying accusations...

Year 11 tutor was quite resful in comparison!

Op - give it a week then ask them to check lost property again. Can take a while for stuff to make its way there. And makes sure an adult is helping to look. :)

Why aren't there cloakrooms or lockers or at least hooks on classrooms. Do the teachers screw their coats up and stuff them into bags. I imagine not. Do they just find a space on the floor instead?

Actually I tend to leave my coat in the car as there is nowhere to leave it....
No room in the classrooms I teach in for hooks (science labs) or lockers, as that's where all the lab equipment is kept. Coats and bags are supposed to be tucked well under the desks.

Lockers in schools - well I as a teacher prefer them, but they get broken, kids lose their locker keys, they take up valuable space where an extra classroom could be squeezed in, they get broken into, and often it is where bullying can happen. So lots of schools have removed them as they get old and broken and not replaced them (and spent the money on other things. Like yet another set of textbooks when kids don't return them, or the syllabus changes for the 3rd time in 6 years...)

Or, actually - in some schools I do supply in, I screw my coat up and leave it under a chair in the staff room and hope noone minds :)

That's not an umlaut.

Well, susan it may surprise you that my children have been brought up to respect their own and the property of others. I would have thought a hook for a coat was part of a civilised culture rather than expecting it to be screwed up. It's all about standards.

Lol, I suspect you've not recently been in and seen the inner workings of your average city comp then [grin

They know which pupils were in the class during the period the coat went missing. It's already a fairly narrowed down list of suspects.

I hate all this you left it unattended so it's your fault attitude TBH. So when I found the wallet containing £200 cash and a couple of gift cards for some high street stores In a cafe before Xmas I should have just kept it right?

The school could at least have least spoken to the class and had an amnesty and a reminded theft is a police issue if it didn't turn up.

They use to do this in my secondary and 9/10 items reappeared suddenly.

I'd be surprised if they haven't spoken to the class though. Or even the year as a general reminder of school rules to respect others' and school property.

When I was a yr7 tutor I was always asking my class to help each other out looking after property - and asking them to check to see if someone had picked it up by mistake or had seen something.

(I must stop procrastinating on here and do some planning...)

Two years, four years ago were enough Susan. Outstanding school with 9 applications for ever place. London. so yrs quite recently and it wasn't good enough by a very long chalk. We left - thank goodness we could find £15k a year to do it because no child of mine was going to be told by a head teacher that theft is normal. The teaching profession wonders why it has lost respect. The complete lack of standards both moral and academic is why. If you are happy as a professional person to roll up your coat and shove it under a desk on an unswept floor, fine. But it isn't how I was brought up, it isn't how my children were brought up and if teachers have no respect for their own things that they have presumably saved hard for there isn't much hope for young people in the state sector.

Lol really BeaufortBelle? So because I'm a day to day supply teacher without my own classroom, so leave my (pretty muddy- from chasing small toddlers in the outdoors when at home) coat in an unobtrusive place - suddenly I'm responsible for the moral and academic decline in the state sector, and also responsible for lack of respect of the teaching profession?!

Seriously - have you any idea how pompous and Mrs Bucket-like you sound?

Incidentally my academic and moral standards are impeccable [grin. When I was a permanent teacher my students achieved amongst the highest VA in the county for the state sector for my subject for most of my latter years. I was also heavily invested in personally mentoring my tutees despite the high cost to my own personal time.

Get over yourself.

You seem to have missed the point about schools where head teachers think theft is normal. Glad you are such a good teacher - fantastic you are doing supply because there aren't that many very good supply teachers and you must bring a great deal to the young people you teach. However, I maintain my position. Sloppiness breeds sloppiness. Why would a professional person wear a dirty coat to school. I don't and I don't send my dc to school dirty either. That isn't Mrs Bucketish either. It's having basic self respect and I expect schools to underpin it. Never mind, the independent schools do a better job at it. DD said only this evening how it's funny that her secular independent is more moral and caring than her strict c of e state school was. The teachers are nicer and more approachable too. They use my first name and invite me to use theirs. No pedestals at all - much more equal.

Just wanted to resurrect this thread about theft in secondary school. My son's PE kit was taken out of the classroom with nice football boots in it and then he found it chucked in the hedge the next day - probably because the boots didn't fit. He knows the class of the pupils or pupils that would have been responsible as they went in straight after him and then he went straight back after. I was shocked to find out that the school wanted to wash their hands of it completely. I pressed the pastoral care year 7 head to bring it up just to find out if anyone in the class knew anything. It was like I had to tell her how to tell the school how to do her job. I had a lot of 'Yeahm but I can't do that d'ya know what I mean..' back from her and then practically put the phone down on me. I honestly think it's lame - and I think it's lame that seemingly from this thread - the parents don't seem to care either. A total dropping of standards. If the schools and parents don't push back about basic values then that all we're doing is spewing out a generation of young adults that don't give a shit. I am livid that this is counted as 'normal' behaviour - and everyone else should be as well instead of saying 'it's what goes on'.

would like school to at least let her email the class that went in after her to see if anyone had seen it, but she was hauled in to her head of year for doing so

It's one thing a teacher putting an email out to pupils, it's another thing a pupil putting one out. That can very easily go into social media bullying with someone saying "oh X took it" and everyone taking them at their word with no evidence. I was speaking to someone the other day whose dc would have been put in that position if she hadn't happened to be off sick that day. It took a lot of stamping out to stop the other children calling her a thief though.

But if it's been taken by someone, then you're unlikely to get it back anyway. Most likely is that it's at the back of a cupboard somewhere.

Oh, for goodness sake ZOMBIE!

My children had lockers in year 7 but none from then on. So coat was then stuffed into a drawstring PE style bag but the trick is to use a carabiner clip to attach it to the school bag. That way when you pick up the school bag the coat bag comes with it. Impossible to forget.

The carabiner can be easily left on the PE bag or the rucksack which my sons both used. So rucksack on back then PE bag over the top doubling up.

Both my sons have lost coats, but only one each. They have name labels sewn in. Luckily for me they are £22 ones from Costco, so they are much more distinctive because hardly anyone wears one. Never turned up though.

That will teach me not to just read the first page and see the date.

On the Mumsnet census I did say that zombie threads should have a banner on the top of the thread the same as when it says MNHQ have commented on this thread. That way you don't trawl through pages before realising it is a zombie thread.