Blog Archive: July 2026

We surveyed 500 UK teachers, from nurseries through to universities, about their experiences with lost property in schools. The results reveal a worrying attitude: 75% of teachers feel that lost items are viewed as disposable, with families choosing to replace rather than retrieve. Alongside the bigger picture – overflowing lost property boxes, daily disruptions and piles of unclaimed items binned at the end of each term – teachers also shared some of the strangest finds ever handed in, from a live turtle to a prosthetic foot. The good news? 89% of teachers agree that lost property would be halved or much less if parents used name labels.

We say our name labels are 100% waterproof, so we set out to prove it in the most ambitious way we could think of. Traditional boatbuilders in Kent built us a wooden frame with the outer planking deliberately left off, and we made it watertight using nothing but thousands of overlapping name stickers – checking for gaps with a torch in a blacked-out room. Then our CEO, Lars Andersen, climbed aboard and rowed it down the River Thames. It floated. Read the full story of the build, the launch and what it means for the labels on your child’s water bottle.

Not every label sold as ‘waterproof’ survives a term at school. This practical guide explains what genuinely waterproof labels are made of – PVC rather than paper, waterproof ink and a proper adhesive, with no reliance on lamination – and how to match the right label to each item. There’s advice for water bottles, lunchboxes, clothes (stick them on the care label, never the fabric), shoes and stationery, plus a checklist for comparing brands and five rules for applying labels so they last all year.