School Children Are Careless With Their Belongings

Chronicle (Levin), 6 August 1948, Page 2

School Children Are Careless With Their Belongings

A large collection of uncl&imed articles atthe Otaki Schooi, j apart from showing that children are undoubtedly careless with their belongings and not greatly concerned • oyer their loss,- is causing the headmaster, Mr. J. E. James, .and his staff a con- i siderable amount of unnecessary work. "It is appalling the number of unlabelled garments that are being left unclaimed in the school," Mr. James told the; School Committee at a meeting this week.

Among the collection are tweed overcoats, raincoats, caps, sou'westers, stockings and shoes. "Every effort is made to trace the owners," commented Mr. James, "but this is almost an impossible task." The committee agree'd that it was unreasonable for parents to continue to expect the headmaster and his staff to bear the brunt of. repeated requests for missing, articles when no effort had beenj. made to mark, them with the child's name. , j The roll now exceeds 400; which means that on wet days the corri dors have something like 11118 number of coats in them. It is on rainy days that the majority of the

enquiries about missing articles are received by the school. | It was felt by members of the committee that when this information was unade known to parents, they would readily realise that trying to find unmai'ke'd articles was a very difflcult task, .and would ensure that/ all belongings had the child's name thereon. The headmaster and staff were to be congratulated' on t'heir efforts to date! and the patience exercised. ■Mr. James js hapeful., that now the matter has been brought to^the notice of parents they wii,l appreciate that the easiest solution is to label all articles likely to be taken off at school with the name of the ehild. ; -