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!

[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!

[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?

[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.

[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

[greathat]

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

[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.

[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.