Birthday Parties

[lhancock90]

If you have the entire class for a party, hand the invites out in class yes, but i do think selective parties should be organised outside the playground.
I understand cost etc and i don't in anyway think parents should be forced to invite the whole class but organizing it outside is more sensitive i think.

This said as a sister who watched the heartbreak when my 5 year old sister was the only one of the whole class not invited to a party, and had to watch all the invites go to everyone else.

 

[Eternal]

I think if your inviting the majority of a class then the whole class should be included, however, if your just inviting 2-3 from school then no, you should be able to have friends outside school who you do things with without the school interfering.

 

[Baby France]

I completely understand why the school want to distance themselves from this! It's such a catch 22..some parents can't afford to invite everyone, some only want to invite their child's friends (there is ALWAYS the bully) and then some want to invite everyone.

It's difficult for teachers to try and explain why that child and then monitor the child throughout the day of being 'refused' an invite.

I can also understand why people would want the teachers involved.

Personally I think that the only solution is that if you don't mind everyone going, let the school give them out. If you can't afford it, ask your child who 'X' is and pass over the invite and ask your family/friend/childminder to help out!

 

[katherinegrey]

I can see it from both sides. I can see it from a parents point of view who in no way could afford to invite a class of 30 children, neither would I have the inclination to be responsible for 30+ children for a couple of hours!

However, I've been that child in class. I was never popular, so when party invites went out, I was often left out. It was heartbreaking. I was a bit of geek, so I certainly wasn't the school bully or anything (if anything I was the school victim!) so I really didn't deserve people rubbing their invites in my face, asking if I'm going, and if not, why not. It's so hard to say, 'I didn't get invited' to someone who obviously did.

 

[sparkle_1979]

I think if it's a big party and you are leaving a few out its not nice...I wouldn't have liked that as a child and would not like it for one of mine... If you're just asking a few close friends then that's fine

 

[MrsKyliePaton]

I do get where they are coming from, my DD1 was in the exact situation last year when she didn't get invited to a party that all the girls got invited to she was so upset (she was 5) so when she had her birthday party we invited everyone from the class, and the girl who didn't invite dd to her party and rubbed it in her face turned up to DD's party.
So we told dd she can have a party ever other year as it's to expensive to have one every year and the amount of presents she got was crazy so close to Xmas lol
But then again you can't please everyone all of the time

 

[Missnurse]

My DD is 5 and for the moment we are sticking with family only parties for her, she is quite happy with this and to be honest around here the parents would want to stay with their kids I'm not having that amount of people in my house and can't afford to hire out anything at the moment plus the majority of mums around here are so 'cliquey' don't speak and look down at you (majority farmers wives with the big 4x4s etc) so I've said to DD when she is around 7 she can have a proper party and tell me which girls/boys ( mostly girls really) she plays with and invite them but just now she has only just started school let her settle in and build proper friendships first for a year or two

 

[Midnight_Fairy]

If they invite all but 2/3 then yes its unfair but if only a few go then not a prob x

 

[vaniilla]

This got a bit misconstrued in the press, I believe the story stemmed from a school of which the headmaster implemented a rule that said unless every child in the class was invited, the invitations should not be handed out at school or in the playground but in their own time (I think they said that sometimes teachers are expected to give invitations out?! So this was to stop too unless everyone was invited) I think this rule is fair enough, obviously the school don't want to deal with what could be children feeling left out, and think it's reasonable to expect parents to sort out the invitations in another way. The school obviously can't say what a parent can and can't do in regards to who comes to the party.

What if you don't socialise with any of the parents? I have Joshua's Birthday coming up in December & I haven't got the foggiest idea of who the hell all of the parents are! I have no idea where they live/mobile numbers or their names. I know Joshua's friends' names but I would be buggared if I had to contact the parents "in my own time."

This story has really been taken out of all context in the press,
parents are given a sheet of contact details for each other at the beginning of the year to get around that. The school in question is local to me, It's an independent primary with small classroom sizes so it's quite noticeable if a child is left out, it is a Christian school who take their ethos of children feeling included very seriously, if parents didn't want to go along with the philosophy they could easily pull their child out and send them to another school.

 

[shanny]

whilst its good for kids and siblings to learn that they don't always get to go

if its the same kids each time its like social exclusion and pretty horrible - it happened with kids in my class and it was really sad

I can see why the school responded in this way