AIBU - Not allowing school to film my child?

Sure, if you plan for it.

But it's still a pain, especially for video. If the club hasn't accounted for needing to do that, that is half an hour/ an hour of someone's time to do it.

It means everyone misses out on photos of their child, and they are important to me.

Summer clubs are one thing but there have been yearbooks made up for y6 leavers at school recently (overkill, I think, it’s only primary school, but whatever). There are a few children who have never been permitted to be photographed on the school website, sports Instagram pages etc. Fast forward to the end of school and the yearbook photos have been sourced, and it’s clear those parents thought the school were taking photos with all kids in, not publishing them, then taking photos with only the permitted children which would then be published.

In reality there are no photos of their children at all; they were asked to step aside when photos were taken. Sitting out is fine; I don’t see why everyone else should miss out on updates. Obscuring photos is far too onerous.

Does “everyone miss out” without photos? I don’t think so.

This is completely normal practice at every club and activity my child attends. It's the conventional solution these days not an extraordinary request.

You are paying for your child to take part in the activities, all of the activities. Not to sit on the side and be noticeably removed every time they want to get some shots for their Facebook page. For activities in school that we run, photos are taken of smaller groups, so as to position children without photo permission out of the shot. They still take part in everything the other children do. This would be the most reasonable response from the summer scheme, instead they are trying to guilt trip you into giving permission.

I like seeing pics of what they’ve been doing so I would be a bit disappointed if one person’s preference stopped me getting pics and videos of my own children.

That said, when we have kids with no photo perms, we just try to take pics without them in it or with position them at the end so we instantly just crop them out.

I take pics at my club and send to the parents then delete them . They all love getting them

You can’t have a blanket “we will take videos” t&c where kids are concerned. There are very legitimate reasons why some kids can’t have images published, and parents are often thoughtless about what they post on social media. There’s no need for the child to sit out, in a group activity it’s possible to photograph without including the child by taking smaller group shots.

You are well within your rights for not allowing your child to be filmed. However, your child should sit it out while they are filming. Other parents want the pictures. You can’t have it all your own way. I voted you are not unreasonable for not wanting filming but not wanting your child excluded from filming is most definitely unreasonable.

Hmm good spot.

Well, was it or was it not in the Ts &C's when you signed your child up to the summer club that they would take videos?

Going through a whole bunch of photos and videos obscuring multiple kids is a massive pain in the arse, and will undoubtably have to be done by some poor sod on min wage in their own time.

If OP doesn't want their kids photographed or video they can just sit out for a few minutes.

Why did you put "school" in the thread title when this isn't anything to do with school?

i also can’t stand this mentality where people think the world must cater to one person.

This. How entitled to spoil it for everyone else!

It sounds like you got what you wanted (at the cost of other parents who might have wanted pictures) so why are you complaining now?

This. Fine if you don’t want them filmed , but then you can’t then dictate that they miss out when being filmed.

Your child would miss out on what?

Filming is likely to take minutes unless the Panorama crew are going to be there?

You don’t want you kid filmed. Fine.
They offered a solution, you didn’t like it. I think that was unreasonable, but to each their own.

They found a different solution. It’s not clear whether you’re happy or not with that?

What do you actually want?

Sure say no and explain to your kids that they have to miss out expecting anything else is ridiculous

It is a 2025/26 phenomenon; that a group shot of six year olds is akin to inviting the child catcher around for dinner

There are now a lot of emojis over children’s faces on any pictures we get from school. I do know sometimes there are important safeguarding reasons as to why this is the case but more often than not there aren’t. See also parents who want to be influencers on instagram but are clearly concerned about their child’s safety so stick an emoji over their face!

YANBU to not want your child filmed but you are unreasonable to insist they not be pulled aside for a moment for the filming as now its resulted in no one getting filmed and other parents might really want to see pictures and videos of their children having fun but you've prevented that. Just agree to your child not being in the pictures and videos.

You are absolutely not being unreasonable. They can still include your child and put a smiley over their face. Sounds like they are more bothered about advertising then having dun with the kids.