School banning party invites unless...

[Sparklymommy]

The whole class is invited. How ridiculous! What about if your in a school with three classes for each year group? Do you have to invite the whole year group?!?!

Currently organising a disco for my four children and they have got the invite list down to 66. That's NOT inviting everyone, just the children they want to come. And I'm sure a few extras will be added before the actual day. If we had to invite everyone then that would be the WHOLE SCHOOL plus lots from the dance school. I'm mad, but not completely gaga!

Coming along nicely all this school is saying is that unless you are inviting the whole class they do not want to be involved at all ie they do not want to hand out invites or ensure they go to the select few. They do not want to be involved at all in something that excludes any children no matter what the reason.

At DS's school the invitations are given to the teacher and they are then put into the book bags the children take home. As far as I know, the children don't know there's an invitation in there until they open the bag for their homework. This is for very young children though and they are usually whole class parties.

The parent contact list we have is an optional thing, but to my knowledge has everyone on it. We have several teachers and doctors on it, but no social workers as far as I know. Obviously there are cases where someone wouldn't want their address down, in which case an email address could be used?

This is just how it works as DS's school, but it does rely on everyone being pleasant and behaving themselves. I can appreciate that there might be some parents who you would rather not give your address to.

The local schools where I live have a blanket ban on handing out party invitations in school. It simply is not allowed. And I for one am completely in favor of that.

When I was a child, things were different. Most schools permitted the distribution of invitations. One of my brothers was excluded from every party. He never received a single invitation. Never. He is on the autism spectrum but he desperately wanted to be included. The other kids and their parents just thought my brother was "weird." Their casual but deliberate exclusion really hurt him, as much as the more obvious bullying he was subjected to all through school.

Too right, how awful if only a few were uninvited and why should teachers be expected to give them out anyway.

I wouldn't publicly invite all my office minus a couple of people. It's rude.

What about having friends to play?

Sometimes you see a group of friends skipping off to someone's house and another 'friend' who wasn't asked trailing along the road some distance behind with a jolly mum offering trips to the sweet shop etc in recompense.

People are always going to get hurt.

You cannot makes rules about it.

ilovesooty: I would imagine that the school is perfectly entitled to ban the use of its premises to facilitate social arrangements scheduled to take place outside school.

I love it when such simple statements are put so 'officially'!

I haven't read the whole thread but wanted to add that my friend's child's school have moved to printing out the class list with mailing addresses for the parents at the start of the year (with approval of course)....that way invites can be mailed to whom you like and aren't handed out in class which I think is a wonderful idea.

Ah I see parent lists have come up already....I don't see why a list of parents and their email addresses can't be issued. For people with privacy concerns they open a gmail address which can then be set up to forward mail to their main account. It could be explained clearly that this is purely for social contacts and no 'business' be discussed

Perfectly logical solution IMO

I think if I was a teacher I would have been so angry, I would have escorted the clown off the school premises.

He was. Mum then tried to say we should recompense her for the cost of said clown because she didn't get her full 1hr that she'd paid for. Principal for very forthcoming about his reasons for not permitting such foolish things to happen and exactly why mum was a bitch of the highest order (though not necessarily in those words) and that if she put one toenail out of line again she would be asked to take her children and leave the school.

Let me turn this on its head can anyone give me a good reason why teachers and ta's should have to deal with any invitations?

We shouldn't. But we actually give a shit about every single student in our classroom and we don't like to see any of them upset because of being excluded from a party because another parent doesn't like their parent, or because of bullying, or because they have additional needs that others aren't willing to take the time to understand. I will not enable other people to be arsesholes.

I think some of the experiences on this thread are dreadfully sad. We are are only at the beginning of all this but, in a single-form entry school, most people have had no parties, class parties or single-sex parties, which, to my mind, are all fine. There have been a couple which, either, selectively, invited a mixture of boys and girls (about half the class) or about half the girls, about which things were more (I have to confess to some discreet texting to discover if DD1 was the only ones not invited).

In DD1's class, there is a little boy who (and no one knows why) doesn't ever go to parties, but we still invite him.

In DS1's class, there is a child who appears to have substantial needs (arrives (pre-arranged) five minutes after school starts, leaves at lunch, wears reins out of school) who was invited to our whole-class party. We are only a few weeks into Reception and they declined the invitation so I only met the mother after the party, due to the above. However, he would have been very welcome and we would have done all we could to help him enjoy it.

Perhaps it is the BF-ing hormones, but I was very weepy reading some of the above (and horrified at some of the parents). Yes, life IS brutal, but I hope I can bring up my children to be considerate and empathetic to others (and secure enough to shrug-off petty rejection). Kudos to the mother of the 6 year-old up-thread who took a principled stance.

Oh, and when all other explanations fail, I have (in a slightly different context) had to say that I don't understand why So-and-So said such-and-such and that people can, sometimes, be rotten and mean and unkind for no apparent reason and it was best just to realise that and leave them to it. Horrid for DD, but, I hope, a lesson she will learn so she treats people courteously and can measure people for their real worth.

Invites are not allowed to be handed out in my children's school. (USA) Or birthday cards/presents. We have to use the postal service. It is a very very good idea, it avoids upset.

I had this discussion with DD on Monday, after they had an article about it on Newsround.
She, not wanting to be unfair, wanted to invite the whole class to her party. I told her it's not always that easy as you may only have space/ food for a few people.
She came to the conclusion that if she couldn't invite everyone she would save a space and invite somebody who doesn't get many invitations or is having trouble making friends, because although it's still not fair it is kind.
I'm proud of my thoughtful little girl.

My boys school has this policy, has had it for years. No issue, for the parties where it's a small number (the normal type in our house) I have the contact details of the parents already as they are already friends. Ds2 is having his first party and all the boys in the class are invited. I gave out the invites outside the gate.

There is also a class contact list, always has been. Where I work is not something I want generally know, so I have a home email on it. I have to say I'm a bit at anyone. who says contact lists are terribke because then strangers would have their contact details (an attitude seen only on here on here, in my boys's school all children in each class have some form of parental contact down). it's not as if just because your email is available people all go mad with the urge to email a 'stranger'

It does minimise exclusion, not handing out in class, it doesn't remove exclusion as there are sadly, some horrible people out there who will not invite that one child anyway.

AnneTwacky

Sounds like you are bringing up a star.

I'll never forget my ds' face as his arsewit five year old reception class teacher handed out invites to a select few as they all sat agog on the carpet at the end of school...

Bloody right it should be kept out of school.

If these things have to be negotiated totally out of school, surely it will just mean that parents will invite the children whose parents they already know, so anyone who is new to the area or has a shy parent or a parent who works full time or a parent from a different social class will simply never get any invites. I can't see how it will lead to less exclusion.

Not if the school is a bit organised and gives every parent a list of email addresses with the child's name next to it. Like they do for form reps. Then your child chooses the children and you email the parents. Peasy.

That would be the solution, Hully. But for some reason many school refuse to give out any personal details, so then you're pretty well stuck. We never had a list of any kind.

Handing out invites at carpet time or in the classroom does sound one step too far, though: at our schools it was always done by parents in the playground; nobody would have thought it right to saddle teachers with that.

Ask the TA or the teacher to put them in book bags, not difficult, they manage to put letters home in book bags.
No place for it in school, get in early and catch the parents and give the invitations to them.

Oh, and between the induction days over the Summer and the start of term, one child had left and one joined so, even though we had a list containing allt he children's names from the induction day, the school office wouldn't give me a complete class list anyway, I managed to establish who had left and provided an invitation filled in bar the name for the Reception teacher (as well as another spare in case I had boo boo-ed) and, on hearing a child was away in the run up to our party (short notice as the beginning of term), I put a First Class stamp on it and got the office to address and send it out (fwiw, they weren't back in time but were pleased to be included).

Annetwaky that is lovely of your dd,, se sounds fantastic, I wish all children thought that way. My dd6 used to be lucky with parties in her mainstream school, people used to be great, but as she became older, the whole party thing stressed her out and invites petered out. But it was lovely that people thought to invite her. Now dd is in a special Autistic school so no parties

In our school its either a whole class invite or .Single invitations have to be given out not on school grounds.

Ask the TA or the teacher to put them in book bags, not difficult, they manage to put letters home in book bags.

On Friday afternoon (whilst trying to teach), I had a newsletter, 2 leaflets, a magazine, school photos and assorted head bump/cold compress letters to put into 30 book bags as I have no LSA anymore. Frankly, I would rather spend my time teaching your children and let parents give out their own invitations after school!