September birthday party and starting school

[Chanel05]

I realise this is a bit premature but it came up in conversation between DH and me the other day and I'm interested to know what others have done.

DC starts school this September and has a mid September birthday. At the school I hope they will get into (which realistically they will as there was an intake of only 24 this year per two form entry) all of the children will be in school full time from around 10th September in EYFS. I clarified this with the headteacher when viewing the school as I’m interested myself as a former EYFS teacher.

For anyone that's been in this position, have you had a birthday party for your DC and invited all their new class mates? Is it too early on in the year to host a party and invite peers to it? Is it a good way to get new parents and children mingling or just a load of aggravation? If you did do a party, what did you do that all class mates were invited to?

It's a great way to meet parents and put kids names to faces..
Just ask teacher for a class list and do something easy like soft play party 🎉

Do you plan to invite everyone ? In which case I would have a party end of September with new friends

September here and we didn't invite new class. He had friends from nursery and family friends, it was lovely.
However, a few did have parties. One had a football party and invited all the boys (this was great as I met a group of parents who are still my friends), another invited kids her DS knew from preschool, which wasn't so great.

If you were planning on inviting that number of kids, I'd go for a whole class party. No one will forget it, and it's a lovely way to meet kids and parents. (Plus, DC will get a lot of invites to parties during the year).

My DS birthday is 13th and we had a party for all the class but it was only 18. My DD is 18th but i cant remember what we did for her, but we did often give them a joint party.
Also there were a lot of children born in September in both their classes do occasionally did a Halloween party instead

I didn’t and have no regrets about it. I think it would have been really difficult to organise. All schools are different but we only had the first whole class party last weekend because not everyone wants to do that in my dd’s class. I think few enough will tbh. Now that I’ve seen how it’s done, I will do it next year.

I did - village hall, party games, bouncy castle, sandwiches/jelly/ice cream, siblings welcome type of party. Invited the whole class, lots came, it was a great way to start the school experience.

My DS's birthday is September 15th. I pushed his party to the following weekend to give a full fortnight for RSVPs. I did unnamed invitations, handed out to everyone (also a class of 25). Only got about a 50% response, which I found quite low, but not entirely unexpected so early in the year.
It was a low stress, low cost party in a hall, so it wasn't vital that we had fixed numbers. I'm glad that I did it, as it was a nice way to have a chat to some parents and start putting names to faces of kids.

It depends a lot on your child’s personality I think. DD’s birthday is first week of September but she would have absolutely hated a party with kids she barely knew. We had one last party with all her nursery friends instead.

Thank you for all your input! DC is a social butterfly and is very confident in new situations. I think they'd love a party.

Same here, 5th birthday days after starting reception. The TA kindly gave me a list of all the children's first names. Invites went out on day 3. Parents also welcome and no presents. Almost everyone turned up. Really worth taking the plunge.

Whole class parties were definitely typical in reception for my eldest. From memory invites came home 1st week of school for late September. If you're planning to host any earlier then get the invites out on taster days in July.

No need for personalised ones; just sufficient for the number on the class roll eg 24.

It's common where I live for a WhatsApp group to be set up (by parents) in the summer before school starts.

(We live in a fairly small town, year cohort of 60 kids though, somehow everyone knows at least one other person to end up in the group/they see it on Facebook etc)

And a brave mum put her kids bday party
Invite on there before school started and most of the class came. Was a good icebreaker.

My DD is a 1st Sept baby. We did a whole class party on the Saturday before they all started at school, and I agreed with her Reception teacher that she would hand out invitations to all of the children on their taster day in the summer term. (School normally doesn't handle invitations but as everyone was invited an they were happy to make an exception.) We had almost 100% turnout as parents wanted to meet each other and the kids had a great time.

(If you do a church hall type party rather than one at a venue where you pay per head, it takes off lots of the stress around numbers. I said on the invitations that similarly-aged siblings were welcome but asked to be told in advance so I could do enough goody bags and check we had the right food for those with allergies etc. We got 3-4 extra kids which was no big deal and I didn't want to begin a friendship with new parents by turning them away at the door with a sibling).

I would do all new friends in the class at a soft play or leisure centre hall or similar, towards the end of September. Try and start a class WhatsApp immediately (eg put a poster on the door) or ask teacher to hand out invites to everyone