5th birthday party in half term

I would invite the whole class - it’s more the done thing in reception - but less of the nursery class. Realistically, except for maybe one or two that you become family friends with, those friendships will become pretty irrelevant.
Your child is likely to make her best friends through to year 6 (and longer?) from her current class so that’s who I’d be concentrating on.

I’ve been to countless reception whole class parties, some even in September when the class has only just met. Nursery friends are fairly instantly forgotten apart from maybe a special friend or two.

Agree with other posts to invite more childten as invariably plans will have been prearranged for the break. Also, slipping invites into bags by teacher doesn't seem reliable.... I'd find a more reliable and direct way. There are always posts here about mums wondering why people didn't rsvp, didn't get invite, being ignored, etc.

I think this depends on the demographic of your school.
At this age, my DC's friends' parents would be overjoyed to have something to break up the October half term (often difficult to find things to keep the DC amused at home).

If you're in an area where a lot of people are likely to go away, then maybe not.

Am I heck inviting 30-odd kids to DD's party! She had 10 for her 5th birthday which was a crafting party. She wants the same again next year so it'll be 10 kids again.

I disagree it's the norm at all. Some people choose to do it, but plenty choose to do smaller parties too.

I held a party for my son in the summer holidays (August baby) and I sent out 45 invites out and 15 attended. I wouldn't skim it down to girls only (my son's best friend is a girl in his class).

Also be wary hardly anyone will respond until closer to the date (I sent invites out end of term, party was mid August - yes it did send me insane not knowing if anyone was attending!!)

Get a different entertainer. What kind of melt can only have 20 kids at a party?

I think you should hold the party on the day of your child’s birthday but invite the whole class. For my DD’s 5th birthday, as she was born during the Christmas holidays, we had her birthday on the day itself during the holidays and invited the whole class. Only 13 people rsvp’d yes but that was what I wanted as we also have friends from nursery. There were 18 children in total. I didn’t leave anyone out, it happened naturally

Don't agree with this at all. It was absolutely the done thing around here. Loads of parents did a gender split!

One of ours always has birthdays during Easter hols. The other during Feb half term.
After a couple of years of people turning down invitations or dropping out, due to being away, we started having the parties a week late or early. Now we get very few who can't come, out of maybe 10-12 guests.

I'm doing a whole class reception party the weekend at the beginning of October half term.. Invites sent this week and have had about 15 rsvps back so far (roughly half), fairly equal mix of boys/girls.

I suspect most will attend if they can as it's one of the first parties. Had a couple of declines due to being away, but that's the way it goes.

If you have to limit to 20 I wouldn't invite too many more just in case, just get them out early with a reply deadline and have some reserve names to invite if you need to up the numbers (my eldest has often been invited last minute to parties and if he's free he goes, it's fairly normal I think in primary school)

Ultimately there will always be people who aren't able to come and you've said yourself that you don't mind if not everyone does come. You can explicitly state no siblings in the invite and I would assume that it is a party where the adults stay so that could get rid of a few with siblings too, but tbh in my experience it's always been assumed that the invite is for the named child only unless otherwise mentioned.

Echoing the don't just invite the girls - my son is now in Y1 and is mostly friends with girls. He was distraught last year when one of his (best) friends said he couldn't come to her party because he was a boy and the party was only for girls. They're both only children and have a sibling-esque relationship but she also lacks tact, as most 4-5 year olds do!

Yea, this. My twins had their birthday during the Easter holidays, so I just tried to get a preferred date from the parents (and particularly for their closest friends). We got most of the class, so it worked ok.

It was the October holidays

Why don't you make a separate WhatsApp group with the parents of the children you want to invite and you can feel it out that way? That will also remove the need for invites to be handed out in class, which a lot of schools don't allow

Could you just set up a new WhatsApp group for your daughter's birthday, then you can just include the parent's of the invited kids only.

I am one for personal invites too though, mine love handing them out to their friends.

I would personally never host a party that fell into the school holidays, as this is always the case for mine, I do their parties the week before.

One parent did once send invites out which fell in the school holidays, she was quite distraught that alot of people were declining it. Sadly she took it personally but people were genuinely not going to be around for their kids to attend.

We have an October half term birthday, I always hold the party on the Sunday before school starts as I think that’s when most people are likely to be back if they’ve gone away.

I agree with the above posters and would just put it out for everyone, you may find a gender divide occurs without directly asking for it:

Hi everyone, it's X's birthday on __ and we're throwing a princess party with a princess visit. Could you please let me know if your child can attend, X will be wearing a princess dress so they're free to come in their princess costumes if they would like to.

You're unlikely to get all of the girls anyway, and it's likely that most of the boys may not come.

It’s a bit weird to not invite everyone at that age. We had DD’s 5th last week, whole class invited (plus some nursery friends) we had to do invites on first day of term and she knew no-one at all, but it’s a great way to kick things off.

Please don’t do a girls only thing, that will go down very badly. Not the done thing at all.

We got about 2/3 attendance and it was short notice, and as I said they didn’t know each other yet. I was happy with that.