Inviting kids from the other class to birthday parties

I was hoping this was gonna be a working/middle/upper class debate 👍🙂

As I have said on 2000 other birthday threads we invite friends and we go to parties of friends, no I do not hire a solicitor to keep me up to date on the latest birthday rules and people can feel as sorry as they like for any children we have but no we do not spend our whole life attending children's parties there is not weekends in the year to go to them and normal family things and whatever

People decline our invites or attend, we decline others or attend, and the sun still rises in the morning

To add to the other comments, in my child the class sizes are similar (2 classes of 13-14max) and each year half of one class gets moved to the other so just because this year they aren’t in the same class doesn’t mean next year they won’t be.

I quickly decided in reception that I would not change plans so the children could attend children's birthday parties.
With 25-30 children in a class and 100 a cohort it easily gets very overwhelming.

My son invites who he wants across whatever class they’re in. People say yes or no and I don’t take it personally either way. I think you can absolutely start ensuring you’re doing fun things but also having breaks from it - unless your son is desperate to do something, it’s really easy to just decline politely.

Most school classes have 30 or 31 kids, so 24 is not a big number.

If you rent a hall and have that kind of party, it doesn't cost you more to have 30 or 40 kids there. It's usually cheaper than a 10 guests party to specific venues.

There's nothing about "Status Symbol" when people organise a class party, why would you think that

I think a lot of posters must be quite well.off to host a party for 24 kids.!

People do what they want but Childhood Parties have become like Status Symbols and competitive and the numbers out of control.

Just saying

They probably asked their child who they wanted to invite and your child was chosen. You should be happy that other children want to be friends with yours.

Wow! Imagine if all the kids from both classes were Invited except your son! That would be a whole other thread.
its an invite - some will decline, no reason why you shouldn’t have declined

Simple answer is decline. There are 90 kids per year in my child’s infant school imagine that 😀 I think it is nice for all children to be included. You don’t have to go.

Some people will complain about anything

I'm another one that thinks 24 isn't that many to invite. Whole class parties (class of 23) were normal for our DC but firstly not all of the 23 kids had a party, and secondly not all of them could make it to every other party. You'd probably get 18 at most due to illness/other plans/custody etc.

I also think at that age parties don't get spoken about for more than 5 minutes after they happen, so just say no if DC isn't bothered.

Obviously we are going to go as I don’t want DS to feel like he’s missing out

You sound very hypocritical.
You are not interested, just don't go. You will be complaining when your kid is left out.

Either it's a positive, and you are glad it's another occasion for your child to have fun - what birthday parties are all about
or it's a bother, and just decline instead of moaning about the logistics, the parents, the excessive parties.

I don’t really understand why parents invite children from the other class?
24 kids is really not a lot for a party?
Parents are nice, or want to meet other parents, create more friendship opportunities for the kids, who knows. Be grateful or decline, what's the drama?

I guess being small classes they feel it's better to invite both classes in case people don't turn up, especially if it's a hall type party.
Also while you say they don't share class time together (which is unusual in reception) they might share break time and lunch time.
Reception is usually continuous provision and many schools accommodate this by flowing between two reception classes if there is multiple classes.

OP, you should have refused the invitation.

I mean the utter horror of your uber popular child being invited to sooooo many parties.

Honestly.....

Guess schools can be different from one another! Glad we didn’t have it.

5 kids, 3 different primary schools...it's always been the norm here. Generally until the start of Year 2.

My reception child is having a party and I’ve invited kids from the other class- they went to nursery (I don’t know the parents) and she references them a lot. In their reception the play area is a mix so they do play together. You’re overthinking it tbh.

Not everyone does whole class parties - we never did, not a thing at DD’s school, 24 is a lot of kids and a lot of parties, presents etc.

If there were just 24 in the year then I'd invite them all too. Not worth doing a 'big' party otherwise, which is what they tend to be at this age. My DS was in a year of 90 kids, we had 45 at this first party because he was friends with so many people.

I too think you are being a bit whiny. If this was a full class you'd be going to near 30 parties.

Have you heard of….. playtime and lunchtime? Also I’m willing to bet that the classes are together informally a lot more frequently than you know. You’re a major Scrooge.

not ‘obvious’ that you’re going to attend. It’s an invite not a summons, as the MN motto goes. But nothing wrong with a bday party with friends! :)

In my experience large whole class / whole year / mix of both parties only happen in Reception, and then as the children create more solid friendship groups, the parties get smaller and smaller. It probably won’t be a problem for long OP.

Depend on the culture of the school. At DD’s primary whole class parties weren’t a thing so parties were just her friends - maybe 8 or 10 at the most.

Maybe because they didnt want to leave anyone out! You dont have to go but you are as you dont want your child missing out. If your kid wasn't invited and all his friends are talking about it, you'd be annoyed.

And its only one weekend so I think youre just being a bit whiney!

Probably because 24 is fewer than the usual 30 in total. People tend to invite everyone in reception to be friendly, break the ice, be nice etc. If you’re not bothered about those things, decline.