How do I not invite the child who left the class last year but mum is still in the WhatsApp group?

[Lochroy]

It's DDs birthday soon and we're doing a whole class party. The easiest and most normal way invitations are done is WhatsApp. The problem is there is one boy who left last year but whose mum has stayed in the WhatsApp group and occasionally does social evenings. My DD has not seen this boy since he left last July and they weren't close even when they were in class together.

Recently a whole class invite came out and the mum replied yes, DC would love to come. I was a bit surprised to see this! And now I'm worried.

I've already taken a punt on a few people declining so I can fit in my other DC plus one friend for him. If we have any more decline then I've got friends from outside school DD would prefer to invite ahead of this boy.

How do I do a whole class invite but without this one child?!? Wasn't it a bit cheeky of the mum to accept that invitation when I know the inviting mum hadn't realised she was even still in the group! I cba to set up a separate group; if she accepts, would it be rude to dm her and say I'm so sorry we haven't got space, or can we wait and see if we have space?

Do this..

We had this until recently....someone had left but 6 months later they were still on the group. It wasn't really appropriate especially as she was still very opinionated about school activities that had nothing to do with her. The admin removed her under the guise of "oh I didn't think you'd want to be bothered by all the school day to day stuff"
I honestly don't know why she chose to stay.

When my DC were primary age many parties were all the girls or all the boys, which would work out nicely for you as you have a DD and the child who left is a boy.

The reason for not just setting up a new group is because I'd have to go and find a class list, or make a note of everyone in the current group and then set up a new group. Plus I don't have some saved as contacts and some don't even have their names on their profiles so all in all, it's a pita which I won't be doing.

I think, based on replies here that she's possibly a bit cheeky and I feel it's fine not to include her DC, I'll crack on and use the group, but won't shy away from apologising but saying no/wait and see via dm if she does accept.

Personally I would just set up a new group - it can’t be more than 30 mums so won’t take long much quicker than writing a Mumsnet post
but failing that just label your invite …my daughter would like to invite her class to X….please rsvp

Admin needs to boot her out

I would just put the invite in the group. Then if she accepts say...

'Sorry Jane, I didn't realise you were still in the group. Unfortunately I only have enough spaces for the current class.'

No drama, what's the worst that can happen?!

Actually this is a good idea.

I think WhatsApp groups need auditing every now and again anyway. We had a horrible situation recently where an old group had some members who hadn't been active for years and people forgot they were there.....

This- plus for parents that can't attend it'll be a lot easier to have party related messages in a separate group that they can leave, rather than all mixed up with everyday class stuff.

It'll take a couple of minutes at most!

WhatsApp didn't exist when mine were young enough to have parties. I used to make simple invitations on the printer to reduce the admin. Tho even if you went the paper invitation route, people might talk about it on the WhatsApp group .Personally I'd set up a new group - even if you stress that the invitations are only for the class, sounds like this Mum might assume her DC is invited too.

On the whole the WhatsApp groups are a great time saver, so much easier to fire out a message (and in our group people usually do a photo invitation so it's easy for others to check the details, so the DC can get involved with that if they want).

Why not go old school and make it fun for your son writing the invitations out ? Good spelling and writing practise and exciting maybe I'm just an old fart ?

Just invite the classmates he likes best plus the other friends from outside school. Don't bother with the whole class!

I’d also set up a new group for the party and be careful to include all the parents as it’s easy to miss someone out when there is a large number.

It's SO much more work though. OP probably doesn't have a list to hand of all 30 names spelled correctly so she'd need to trawl through the WhatsApp group to make the list and then keep track of individual RSVPs - many of which wouldn't come without the reminder of other parents posting in the group.

Exclusionary efforts??

I suppose you could say in the message that it's for all the children currently in mrs/ms/Mr whoever class

That way it's clear.

Lots of gender stereotyping going on with all this Miss/Mrs.

Set up a new WhatsApp group called “x’s party”. It won’t occur to anyone that it’s basically everyone except this child, not that it matters if they do

Send the invite as a broadcast message on WhatsApp. You only write one message but it will send it to everyone individually

WhatsApp group just for the party 'adams birthday' or whatever and invite who you want

In terms of doing paper invitations, I'd actually be happy to do that, but I'm old school (and just old!), so many mums just don't pay attention to paper plus it seems like manners went out with the arrival of smart phones... if I put it on WhatsApp with an RSVP deadline, I can chase as required. Paper just goes into a black hole.

Do you have to invite the entire class? Sounds like space is limited and you have non-school friends you’d rather invite, so just include the kids your child is actually friends with and start a new chat.

Can you not just block the mum's number on WhatsApp and then when you put the message on the group chat everyone will receive it except her?