School uniform lost property

[lovestoplan]

I've come to you all for inspiration! As joint chair of the PTA we keep getting tasked with the lost property. It's totally not in the job description and I'm sick of hearing about it - they literally can't give it away and I'm all for just taking a match to it 🙄
Does anyone do anything genius with their lost property? It is a waste just to bin it but if not named, no-one claims, you offer it out for free and you are still left with it... what do you do?
I thought about getting them turned into teddies the leavers might buy but the ones I've seen are about £60!

[babbymint]

Originally Posted by lovestoplan

I've come to you all for inspiration! As joint chair of the PTA we keep getting tasked with the lost property. It's totally not in the job description and I'm sick of hearing about it - they literally can't give it away and I'm all for just taking a match to it 🙄
Does anyone do anything genius with their lost property? It is a waste just to bin it but if not named, no-one claims, you offer it out for free and you are still left with it... what do you do?
I thought about getting them turned into teddies the leavers might buy but the ones I've seen are about £60!

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Charity shops in the catchment area?

[Dazed]

Our school PTA used to tak3 anything not claimed after a certain period of time (and several emails to collect any lost property) and sell it as second had uniform at parent evenings etc.

[BevS97]

We take it to a charity shop periodically.

[Sitron]

Locally we have a clothing sharing charity who take in uniform for people on benefits/refugees etc. Many of the local schools send unclaimed items there or to charities collecting for overseas schools in Africa/India. Do you anything similar near you?

[Willeve]

Once a half term we set up tables outside at home time and put it all out, you can claim lost items(none is named obviously) or just claim a ‘new’ item.

[Floridatilly]

Our lost and found uniform items used to be kept in a large tub on wheels. Staff would find items and throw them in the tub. Every Friday the tub was wheeled out so that parents could rummage through it. This never worked because our primary school is very large so you either couldn’t get near the tub or you just didn’t want to rummage through everything to find the likes of a tie.
Now parents are instructed to ask the office for lost items and said item will be given (if found) to the child that day or the following day.
Also, on the last day of half term/term all items are put out onto stalls. All items are folded and put into sections, coats, jumpers, PE kits, ties etc
There is a sign up saying that these items have not been collected there fore are free to re home. At the end of the school year any items left (and in good condition) gets given to families who are known to be struggling with poverty, this is kept private and confidential.
We also constantly get emails reminding parents to label every item as its so much easier to pass lost items to the relevant child as soon as its found.

[sam7]

Can I assume that your school is in a reasonably affluent area if you can't even give the uniform away for free? If that is the case could you find a school in your town that has a catchment of more struggling parents and maybe offer the uniform to them to either sell at a 2nd hand sale or give to these parents?

Love the idea of teddies with the school jumpers though.

[levtweeney]

Not really helping but I had a pupil leave a lovely looking coat in my room one day. I duly sent it to lost and found or reception as we call it

The coat was never collected, one of the reception staff looked the coat up and it was worth around £200

Ended up going to the local charity shop

[ely3857]

Our primary keep it until the end of each half term and then leave it all on a table outside at pick-up for parents to go through. After that it’s handed to the PTA. There’s a lady who’s happy to go through it and sort for rag man or charity shop. They used to do a 50p per item sale during the summer/Xmas fairs but as they’ve been stopped for a couple of years now there was too much to store so it’s almost all gone to the charity shop.

I agree it isn’t a PTA thing but the lady concerned doesn’t mind and there’s so much of it I’m sure school would just end up binning it each July so at least this way the charity shop has a chance.