To compalin to school about costs of dressing up days?

[NaughtyBetty]

DD is in year 3 and so far this year they have had 6 dressing up days, that's 1 a month & if the children don't dress up they need to go in in school uniform. It's not always as simple as cutting up a sheet or buying bits from a charity shop, it usually works out as about £10 a 'dress up'.

We are really struggling financially and DD gets FSM, final straw was today when she is expected to pay £12 for a school trip.

I wonder what they have done with their pupil premium for FSM children? AIBU to complain, it's just getting really expensive!

[dibbletribble]

another person getting really peed off with the number of dressing up days. Our latest request points out that the children who don't dress up feel left out. Grrrr.

[quoteunquote]

When this got out of hand at a nearby school, various parents spoke to the governors and head,

They took no notice and dismissed the parents explaining they couldn't afford it, a large group of parents boycotted the next, pay a pound to attend school day, and fund costumes.

they kept all their children off that day, went for a picnic instead,

the school no longer does these days.

[greathat]

Just realised this is a really old thread, not sure how I ended up on it

[greathat]

My daughter has been spending a lot of time being a penguin from a book recently. She's got a swimming costume (because they swim), oven gloves for wings, and a pair of her dads socks for claws. She's 3 and a half though, when she's bigger she may not fancy going to school like that

[AThingInYourLife]

How the fuck does forcing a child to make a costume increase their love of reading?

If you need to dress up to prove something is fun, that just proves that it isn't really any fun.

Reading is brilliant. All you need is a book. You can do it anywhere, any time, no matter who you are, what you look like, how many friends you have, how rich your parents are, what you're wearing.

Encouraging children to read by making them wear weird clothes is like encouraging them to swim by teaching them mental arithmetic.

Except mental arithmetic is brilliant and dressing up is a complete pain in the hole.

Putting so much emphasis on attire, on physical appearance and grooming, seems to me to send a pretty dodgy message to children.

Spending hours on your clothes is boring.

You can pretend to be a pirate/Victorian/Roman/nurse/alien/orphan/crone without looking like one.

It all seems so literal and mundane.

Dressing up as a character from a book?

The important things about characters in books are rarely their clothes.

[nailak]

hw for parents? thats not the schools fault is it? thats the parents fault? I gave my dd some card and some foil explained to her what to do and she made her own crown, with a little guidance.

if the kid is thinking about the characters in the books, which ones they like and identify with etc and would like to dress up as, that is part of the process surely? and part of increasing the love of reading?

[Remotecontrolduck]

It sounds like schools these days have an insane amount of dress up days?!

It was three per year max when mine were in primary thank god, and turning up on world book day in jeans and a T shirt as Tracy Beaker was perfectly acceptable.

There needs to be some kind of parent revolt, having so many often awkward themes sounds like a nightmare, not to mention of no benefit to anyone!

[TheDoctrineOfSnatch]

If DS1 brought home an art project, I'd happily google it. Plus he'd be doing it and we'd be helping. If school sent home a "Parents! Write a story/paint a picture/prove Fermat's last theorem and send it in on a piece of A4 on Monday", I wouldn't. Making costumes feels like homework for parents.

Luckily my school is sane and only does WBD, nativity play and colour day, and I just hit eBay, but I am feeling the fear just reading other people's situations.

[WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes]

Well, I agree that you need to support all the things your kids do, but it doesn't necessarily stop you finding some aspects tedious and difficult. I haven't breathed a word of complaint about any of this in front of the DCs, that's the great thing about MN, somewhere to let off steam away from them.

[Doyouthinktheysaurus]

I hate, hate, hate dress up days! Ds1 is 10, has to dress up as a Roald Dahl character. That's fine actually, he'll be charlie bucket in his brothers too small clothes and I've just made a golden ticket and wonka bar they look shit though

Ds2 though has to be a Harry Potter Character They don't do dress up out of school, never have so I've had to buy an outfit! I bought a harry potter thing with robe, glasses, wand that they aren't allowed to take! Now he just wants to be a random Gryffindor student, not Harry Potter anyway so the glasses won't get used either

I don't have a sewing machine or dark sheets so by the time I'd bought material for a robe and sewed it together I would have lost the will to live and spent more than the ready made outfit cost.

I work nights too, just finished this morning and WBD is tommorrow so I'm knackered and having to sort out this crap!

[lainiekazan]

One of my favourites was when ds came home with a note bearing "Please send your child in dressed in a costume from their favourite African nation".

It was the favourite bit that got me. So even if you managed to construct an excellent authentic Zambian costume, it might not be any good because, actually, your dc's preferred nation was Malawi.

[Owllady]

I don't mind doing the roman/greek days or world book day as you can usually knock something up with stuff you have around the house but I agree some of the other stuff begins to get too expensive. I have three at three different schools too, which proves a bloody nightmare

[nailak]

you might not be good at everything your kids need to do, but you learn how to support them, you learn what phonics is about or whatever maths scheme they use is about, you google it.

I am rubbish at arts and crafts.

[WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes]

I'd far rather do the maths homework Aldi - I love it.

There, I have just finished being creative. I can crochet (I lack imagination rather than skill in the craft department) and I make little animals for the DCs. DD needed some ears and a tail so I bought a massive crochet hook and used the animal patterns to create scaled up ears and tail in very little time with some old brown wool.

[Fluffy1234]

We managed to come up with an outfit for each occasion using a combo of white sheet, large white shirt and a pair of black pedal pusher type trousers. My DS's looked fine and I never spent a penny. There was always a couple of kids that looked amazing, a few wore there usual weekend type clothes and my boys were in the middle.

[Arcticwaffle]

We've always found dressign up days easy, as my dc love making costumes out of old boxes etc, but we've been stymied by this year's Red nose day - come in pyjamas and dressing gown. DD (8) was a bit horrified at going in her manky old too-young Hello Kitty dressing gown and shabby pyjamas. Her nightwear is perfectly fine for bed, or youth group camping trips, but doesn't stand up to a daytime school scrutiny.

So we've gone out and bought a £14 onesie. Dd is happy, she'll be on trend. But I think really that's not quite the aim of Red Nose Day.

[aldiwhore]

What some (not all), of those who love this stuff don't seem to realise is that if you are not a creative type, it's like being tone deaf or colour blind or something. I literally look blankly at a WBD invite and would be unable to think of anything, let alone how to make it if I did come up with something. We aren't being lazy, it's just outside our ken.

^ Totally understand that, I am crafty, creative and LOVE spending my evenings sewing sheets into various constumes, I have the natural ability to see how something could be used for something completely different.

But show me my son's maths homework, that has to be done with a lot of parental input and I glaze over, I really can't think beyond the floating numbers on the page, let alone extract any meaning from it!

I think that some schools have gone dress up crazy so I'm not disagreeing, but I do think the ocassional dress up day isn't a bad thing at all. (One a year!)

[differentnameforthis]

Itsnotahoover

Poor lad, my suggestion is hopeless then! :(

[Miggsie]

It is the time that gets me with all the dress up days, I can't be scouring charity chops while working and being disabled I have limited mobility anyway and DH works as well, inthe end the best costumes are always worn by children with stay at home mums with the time to sort this stuff and the best costume is always won by the child with a SAHM who likes to sew and obviously has spent days and days making a caterpillar costume.

Even DD told me she wasn't going to bother any more when she was 6.

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

I'm shocked at talk of "fines" and "seclusion units" for DC's not taking part.

Some schools don't even seem to have an elementary understanding of inclusion.

Ofsted should ask about what provision is made for those not taking part on dress up days.
It's only a good thing to be doing if the children are having a positive experience, and that should include everyone.
Schools should provide more support and definitely more understanding.

[WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes]

We've never read the Twits, I loved many Roald Dahl books myself as a child but had never heard of that one till fairly recently. I haven't enjoyed reading them with the DCs as much as I thought I would, sadly, and the DCs haven't been all that bothered either, not sure if we've ever actually finished one.

[Itsnotahoover]

favourite character from a Roald Dahl book (because I just have one of those lying around!), plus £1 to pay for the privilege of having to buy new clothes (£12 in total as couldn't beg borrow or steal from anyone)

Twits - scruffy hair, scruffy/stained clothes. DONE. Free!

Except the twits terrify him for some reason!!

[WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes]

At our school they do PJ afternoons once or twice a year for a class at a time when they collectively score enough points on some sort of reward system. They take their PJs in in a bag and change after lunch and then to go home again, that is a much better system.

Red Nose Day they have just said wear Red, luckily DS has a red onesie and DD has her old Rainbows trousers and hoody which still fit. It's WBD that annoys me above all others.

[DaveMccave]

Yes, I went out an bought her a fleece onesie for 7 quid especially. Thought at least she could use it for camping in the summer but I don't think it will fit by then. And I thought it would fit her normal clothes underneath, it's really thin and close fitting though ffs! May send her in normal clothes with this to change into. I was really looking forward to book characters too, we'd got a character costume early for a change and then they spring another last minute letter.

[ThatBintAgain]

Oh Christ, YANBU.

My children's school are dressing up TWO WEEKS RUNNING. Book week this week, red nose theme next week. DC1's outfits have been handed down to DC2, but have just had to spend £15 on two costumes from a supermarket and one of them is shite. Am not happy - I don't see why they couldn't have just gone in non uniform and worn a red nose next week. AND then I need to send in a donation as well, it's just one thing after another and shows no consideration.