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10 easy tips to avoid losing your things at school

If you have a child who comes home half dressed, or whose lunchbox is always left behind, or who goes to school with everything in their pencil case and comes home with most of it missing, read on!

It is very frustrating, not to say expensive, when you have to keep replacing your child’s PE kit. The time spent contacting the school and searching for things that may be in the house somewhere, at school or even lost in transit feels like time wasted.
The following tips are based on my experience of dealing with disorganised children at school during the past 20 years. There is no quick fix for children who habitually lose things. They need structure, training and support, in the same way as a child who is struggling to read. Think of the time you invest here as time you will eventually save in searching, and money you will not have to keep spending on replacements. More than this, by following these tips, you are helping your child to be a more successful and confident learner and you may save them hours at ‘lost property’ as an adult!

Suzanne Stevenson
www.icanyouknow.co.uk

Know the system

The more you understand about the organisation of resources in the school (and during the journeys to and from school) the better equipped you will be to plan how to avoid losing things and also to search for things that have already gone missing. Make sure you know what they need to take to school and on what days. Put a chart in the entrance hall which lists all the things your child needs to take on each day of the week and help them to check against this list before they leave each morning.

Ask their teacher where your child is supposed to store items at school. Perhaps they have a tray, a locker, a coat hook. Find out where mislaid items are supposed to end up. There may be a lost property area in their classroom or a central area in the school. In some schools a member of staff oversees the collection and return of lost items. It is worth knowing who can support your child if they need help with lost items and let that member of staff know that your child is struggling to get organised. Often the class teacher will help with this but if your child has a significant difficulty with organisation of resources you may want to discuss this with the school’s Special Needs Coordinator.

Take the minimum

The more your child takes to and from school, the more difficult it is for them to keep track of it all and the more likely it is to go astray. Rationalise all of their kit. Never let them take things to school which are valuable and not essential to their learning. They should only take what they need in their pencil case, plus a spare pen and pencil. Try to remove all clutter and toys. A see-through pencil case makes it easier to find items and also to check the contents. If they have a problem with missing lunchboxes I would advise that they only have 1 lunchbox, clearly labelled on the outside with their name and class, and expect it to return.

On days when it is forgotten send lunch in a freezer bag or similar until it turns up. If they need to carry keys or a purse, try to attach these to them with either a lanyard which fits around their neck, or a fob which attaches to a loop on their trousers. Although I would advise against labelling keys with their name (this could be a security risk if they got into the wrong hands), a distinctive key-ring is helpful when enquiring about missing keys. Books and worksheets can be kept organised in a simple expandable folder, again clearly labelled with their name and class. PE kit is best in its own bag so it doesn’t get muddled with books and stationery. If the school has a standard design of bag, add an easily spotted tag, ribbon or motif so that your child can easily find it and is less likely to walk off with someone else’s bag. Spend time helping your child to practise getting changed for PE, as a game. Teach them to put their socks inside their shoes, stack their clothes in a neat pile and then put their bag on top of this, when changing back they should practise putting each item back into their bag as soon as they take it off.

Label it all

Clearly label everything with your child’s name and class. ‘Sew in’ and ‘iron on’ labels are more reliable for clothes as they last well. I had my ‘sew in’ labels made up with just the word STEVENSON and a small logo, this meant that I could use the same labels for all the children and didn’t need to re-label them if clothes were passed down. Indelible pen is also good, so long as it doesn’t run and make the label hard to read. No end of parents label in biro, only to find it washes off after a couple of weeks. Sharpie Pens, or similar permanent markers are very useful for lunchboxes, water bottles and other hard surfaces (footballs) but you need to check items regularly and re-label from time to time as it does wear off, especially if items are going through the dishwasher.

For economy a paper label with a sticky tape or sticky plastic sheeting works well on items that do not get wet. Make sure the sticky tape is wider than the label and extends a couple of centimetres at either end so that it is secure. To make lots of mini-labels for pens, pencils and other small items I use ‘copy’ and ‘paste’ in Excel or Word to repeat my child’s name and class in font size 8 with a space between each line. Like this

These can be cut out and secured with tape, spiralling around pens and pencils. That’s a job that many children can do for themselves once they have been shown how to do it. I label school shoes, trainers and wellies with Sharpie permanent marker on the inside, although some specialist shoe labels can be bought. Wellies are worth labelling with your surname only if you pass them on to younger siblings.

Know what you’ve got

If you make a list of all the things your child is expected to take to school and bring home again each day you may be surprised. If they only need to take a coat and a lunchbox you might expect most children to get into the routine of carrying these back and forth successfully. Once you add a book-bag with its contents or book, reading log, home-school book, the PE kit bag and its kit, drinks bottle, sun hat, a swimming bag, pencil case, folder, exercise books, loose homework sheets.......things become much more challenging.

It can be a great help to make an aide memoires for your child that reminds them of what belongs in each bag, folder or pencil case. Lay out the essential items from their pencil case on a light background and take a photo of them (having already pared this down to the bare essentials and removed all the other bits of trivia which children love to harbour!). Print a small copy of this picture and laminate it if you can. The school may be happy to laminate for you. This laminated picture, or alternatively a typed list of items, can be attached to the zip of their pencil case. You can do the same for their PE bag, school bag, lunch box....anything that contains several items that need to be kept together. Keep a copy of these reminders at home too so that you can help them to check their bags in the evening/weekend and also so you can replace them if they go missing!

Organise it

Don’t assume that your child knows where all the various items related to school belong. They may need support in learning that certain things belong in a pencil case but do not belong in a book bag. The picture aide memoirs will help. Another thing you can do is set up a game where you move an item to the wrong place (put a PE sock in their lunchbox) and see if they can spot it and put it in the right place. Then they could try to trick you by moving something else. Once they know which items belong in which containers they then need to learn which items are stored where in the school building. In addition, there need to specific places for keeping school things within your home. A set place for doing homework, or reading together, and insisting on all stationery and books being put back in the school bag can save panic in the morning. Try to get into the habit of checking and packing the school bag with your child the night before and then leave it, ready to go, by the door. In a busy house a basket or box for each child can be very useful.

Check it’s there regularly

It can be very hard to find a set of coloured pencils that have been touring the school for a month. Try to set a time each week (and if your child is a terrible case, you may even need to do this each day) to check that all the right things are still in the right places and that nothing has gone missing. Do this with your child, using the lists or visual aid memoirs that you have made as the tools for checking against. This will teach them a structured method for identifying items which have gone missing. Enlist help with this task if you need to. A child with support at school may be able to do some of this with a teaching assistant or with their class teacher at the end of the day. Perhaps an older sibling or relation could help with this now and then, especially if you feel your blood boiling as another set of trainers disappears.

Look for missing items

Your child needs to know that missing items need to be searched for. Try to get them to be responsible for checking their coat hook, locker, tray and asking the class teacher or lost property monitor themselves. If you don’t trust them to bother or you think they need help to organise this, send them to school with a list of places to search and ask a member of staff to initial the list once your child has looked in each place. If this doesn’t work you may need to go into school to search these places with them, or you may need to ask for a member of staff to help. If your child doesn’t seem to see things which are clearly visible when you look there may be a lack of search skills.

Some children have a picture in their mind of the items they are looking for. They only see the item if all of it is visible and it looks the same as the image in their mind. Therefore, if a ruler is partly tucked under something else, or if it is viewed from a different angle, they may not be able to identify it. To help children who have poor search skills you need to teach them how items look when they are turned over, viewed from various angles and partially obscured. Search games are very useful in developing these skills. Start by hiding an item amongst other things on the table and then gradually expand the area they need to search to a bookcase, a bag, a cupboard and eventually to a floor or a whole room.

Keep spares and replace quickly

It is important that your child gets used to having all the right stuff. If they always have a mishmash of incomplete kit they will expect to have things missing and will be less motivated to look for things as they disappear. As items get used up, broken or lost you need to replace them as soon as you can to re-establish the idea of having the complete set. I’m not suggesting that your child shouldn’t bear some responsibility for items lost. If they start the year with a ‘High School Musical’ lunchbox and they have to downgrade to a see-through freezer bag because their lunchbox is missing, they will feel the pinch. If their colourful, bendy ruler has to be replaced with an inexpensive plain ruler from the supermarket, and so on, they will feel a consequence for the loss. Those who advocate making the child ‘do without’ once they have lost some of their school essentials are affecting their child’s ability to learn and succeed at school. Punishing a child by getting angry or taking sanctions can add stress to the situation and make matters worse. If they have not yet developed the skills to manage what you are expecting of them they may need increased support and training. Although they may not show it, they are probably disappointed to have lost an item and mat be worried that they will be told off at school. Be aware that some children lose things as a way of getting adult attention, so it is important that your energy is focussed more on them getting it right rather than complaining and getting cross when things go wrong.

Reward success

If your child has constantly struggled to keep their things in order you may need to start with small expectations. Focus on one thing, such as remembering to bring home their coat each day and record their success on a chart. Reward them for remembering for a few days in a row. Try not to undermine success in this area by moaning about other items that are still going missing. As they master one item they could move on to gradually more complex demands such as keeping all their pencil case items in place each day. It is easy to notice and get annoyed when something goes missing once a week, but by recording each day you may find that they have succeeded for 4 days before forgetting once. Give lots of encouragement, remind them of the procedures and strategies that you have been practising and decide how you are going to reward success.

Accept that some losses are inevitable

Even as adults we all suffer from missing keys, mobile phone and wallets, so we need to be understanding when our children have the same problems. Children take their possessions into busy schools where they work in close proximity to other children, many of whom have identical items or may themselves be disorganised when scooping up stationery or PE kit at the end of a lesson. In my experience, children very rarely take other children’s things on purpose.

Usually items go missing because they have fallen into the wastepaper basket, rolled under a tray unit, been put in an area which isn’t sorted very often..... Occasional losses are bound to happen in such a busy environment. In part we all have to accept that we will need to replace our child’s clothing and stationery from time to time. Sometimes we may never find out whether the loss was due to wilful neglect on the part of our child, lack of organisation by another pupil or teacher, accidental loss or simply that our child hasn’t yet developed all the skills needs to keep track of all their stuff. The best we can do is keep calm, demonstrate and practise the skills they need, and celebrate when we get to the end of term with both trainers still in the PE kit bag.

As every family is different you may find that some of these ideas work better for you than others. Remember that your ultimate aim is for your child to be able to organise themselves more and for you to gradually become less and less involved. Go gently and try to make in fun. For further tips and advice on how to help your child to feel good about learning please have a look at my other articles.

www.icanyouknow.co.uk

©2010 Suzanne Stevenson www.icanyouknow.co.uk

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