AIBU to think primary schools should not audition children for choirs?

This completely misses the point - OP has explained that there is a cap on numbers for the tv recording. So they can’t just take everyone. They need to select them somehow.

We still don’t know if it was the TV company that specified the number and sex of the children of each age it wanted.

While I'm usually one for teaching such lessons early I also think the issue that everyone except only 3 kids didn't make it makes a mockery of the "audition" and you might as well have just opened it to all.

If they chose nearly everyone I doubt they were all that good. I am just going on my experience of primary school choirs.

And I know plenty of people who did go on to work in the theatre. They were actually good rather than prima donnas but despite that weren't always given parts at school. The teachers often gave those to the loudest most confident pupils rather than the talented.

But OP’s DD is in the choir, and it sounds like everyone can join that.

This is about a particular TV opportunity where there is obviously a limit on numbers, so they can’t have everyone.

OP wants them to have done the selection based on age; they’ve done it based on ability - either way not all kids will get to go. Their way is not irrational and OP needs to suck it up.

The thing is, if this is a choir of say 40 / 50 kids, they don't need to be amazing singers to be in it, do they? They just need to be able to follow a tune, blend in and look enthusiastic.

Choising 80% - 90% of a school to sing is not 'selective.'

If you're going to take 80%, or whatever, you may as well take the lot of them and be done with the pretence of 'auditions.'

The only exception I could think of for not having a child in this type of choir would be if there was one with a voice like a literal foghorn that is never going to blend in. Or, if a child really can't sit still or is particularly disruptive.

Again, this is just a normal primary school - not the flaming Westminster Cathedral auditions!

@LovelyBranches About why.. maybe your daughter doesn't sing very well? My DS loves singing- he can't hold a tune though so obv wasn't chosen for the choir. Not good at sports either even if he likes it so not chosen there either. Like you we pay for outside activities so he can do what he loves even if he's no good on it.

I think you are exaggerating the problem- so dd isn't with her friends at lunch- not fun for her but this is all TEMPORARY. Tell her she can invite her friends for playdates/sleepovers and try to not be overly dramatic- surely this is a case of learning resilience.

It might be that she's a bit of a prima donna.

She might not be but I can think of a girl of a similar age who is, and Mummy and Daddy's hugely talented PFB star performer is is loud, irritating and not particularly talented. (That child is not OP's DD unless they have relocated ).

Why are the children who were included in the choir "not good" but the child who wasn't is a "good singer"?

The other choir OPs child goes to is probably a paid one, where they give everyone solos because they are paying to be there.

Why will the other children not be good?

The point is that there will be a reason why the choir teacher made that decision, and OP may never know that reason, nor should she. But if the daughter truly does want to pursue this path, this will be the first of many "rejections", however talented she is.

I think it is a bit different being rejected when you are older and competing against other good singers compared with being rejected from a primary school choir who accepted virtually everyone including children who probably aren't very good.

Why?

I think this is the only thing that matters tbh - the school’s response. It doesn’t really matter what we all think!

"she sings all the time and will tell anyone who listens how she wants to work in the theatre when she is older"
is probably why she wasn't chosen for the choir.

From the OP: "she sings all the time and will tell anyone who listens how she wants to work in the theatre when she is older".

Of course, she may change her mind, but if she doesn't this is a lesson she needs to learn as soon as possible.

My daughter, now in her mid 20s, said she wanted to work in theatre since she was about 5. She has pursued that determinedly and is now a professional actor. But she had to get very used to auditioning and not getting the roles that she wanted. She is still devastated on occasion, but she knows that this is the reality of the profession. She also had great teachers who explained that not everyone who auditions will be cast, and that it shouldn't be taken personally, but to learn from it and keep trying.

They don’t sound very nurturing. Have they always been like this?

Maybe you need to try and speak to a teacher quickly at the end of the day if there is time and they allow it? Your daughter needs to be ok at lunch break. How long will these rehearsals last?

So she is the only girl in 4,5,6 not chosen for the choir? Other than the girl she dislikes?

It’s not utopia at all. I’ve worked in secondary and primary and latterly doing supply in primaries with between 50 and 250 pupils. In the smaller ones, girls and boys are needed to even make a team! Things have changed since I was in primary in the 70s when we even had a yard just for girls!

My point is this - year groups mix freely, and the staff on duty will try their best to get children to engage with each other. There are friendship groups of course, but nobody is socially excluded. I have also seen pupils at the end of the day start complaining to their parents that they’ve been alone, that nobody played with them etc etc, when the reality was very different. As teachers we don’t necessarily believe everything that pupils tell us about their life outside school and the reverse is also true!

Sorry for typos above (where /were etc) - no glasses on!

My kids are now 22, 20 and 18, yet I've felt drawn to this thread because it's sparked memories of all the choir shenanigans when mine were at primary. The choir in this school (very different, London, multi-cultural, independent) was a huge deal - particularly for the girls who pretty much all very much wanted to be in it. And this was without any national competitions etc on the horizon. It was a social thing, as much as singing. I remember so well when that email would come out following the auditions at the end of Year 4 - who was on the list, , who was not, and the dramas that would ensue. I remember, one year, pretty much all the girls were put in the choir - bar one. The mum was mystified and talked to the school about how exclusionary this was - but they wouldn't change the decision. I thought it was outrageous behaviour on the part of the choir teacher, who had been there donkey's years and took it all a bit too seriously imo. I still think it was terrible and I remember that poor girl. And I say that as a mum of 3 DC who went all through this school all gained massively from the experience of being in this choir. One of them wouldn't have known he could sing really (boys often don't). He went on to be a choral scholar at Oxbridge, has been in bands and still performs now. It all started with being noticed and selected at age 10 to sing the 'Once in Royal David's City' solo at the Xmas concert. I know it sounds silly, but where it not for that opportunity, I really don't think he would ever have discovered he could sing at all.

So yes, I do think these type of decisions matter and the memories can stay with them (and you). And yes, it is definitely possible to think a pointlessly exclusionary system is just plain wrong, even when your kids are not the ones excluded. Fair enough if a school wants to select a minority for something like this. But there is no excuse to leave one child or a very small number of children out. I'm amazed any teacher wouldn't instinctively know this.

If a child, particularly one with a disability, SPLD, difficult background, or low confidence for any other reason, has found something they love, then any primary school worth it's salt should nurture this. Not slam doors in children's faces and cause them to doubt themselves before they even start. This is a small school by the sound of it. Surely they know the kids and the ramifications. Honestly, you wonder what some teachers are even thinking.

Or perhaps the teachers were clueless and/or biased.

I think it is really bad that she has been excluded. I hope the school sort it out. Were the teachers that did the selection trained singing teachers? I ask because both my (now adult DC) experienced not been chosen at primary school for performances by class teachers despite both beung very good singers. I used to wonder what the criteria for being chosen was because it didn't seem to be singing ability.