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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

chair rage at the leavers concert...

140 replies

Frogisatwat · 18/07/2014 17:21

I arrived at my sons leavers assembly. On time. No chairs available so I thought ok so we stand... fine. The teachers then brought out a lot more chairs and put them in front of the existing front row. So I could now have a seat.
Cue all the people who were now in the second row diving forward. I managed to get two chairs before they were all taken completely by the moving second row and a mother looked at me and shouted 'but I got here early so I could film it!!!' and tried to pinch my chairs. So I told her tough shit and it was my chair. Except I didn't say tough shit. I was slightly more eloquent.
Was I unreasonable? If it were me I wouldn't have dreamt of moving forward when the standees had been given seats.

OP posts:
ilovesooty · 18/07/2014 18:51

Any parent might simply not want their child to be filmed. There might not be a "reason".

anotherdayanothersquabble · 18/07/2014 18:59

I would have taken the seats. Possibly mouthed sorry... turned around and carried on to take my seat. There does always seem to be a group of parents who get to the best seats first. At one event recently, one Mum saved a whole row by spreading the contents of her handbag across all of the seats, packets of plasters, tissues, diary, most bizarre really!

TeenAndTween · 18/07/2014 18:59

As it has been raised, I'll explain.

Safeguarding & Photos / Filming

Schools have to get parental permission to use photos of children at the school on internet / papers etc. This is because some children may be at risk if their location is identified. Think DA victims, adopted children etc. Some people can be very diligent searching facebook, twitter etc. for school related stuff to try to spot their child. (Also face recognition technology is improving all the time).

OK, you could say that these children should be excluded from concerts, plays etc. But these children have almost by definition been through a lot. Why would you want to stop them having the lovely experience of a leavers performance just so your Auntie Flo's school friend can see photos of the event on facebook? Remember many people are rubbish at privacy settings, the school has to deal with that not just the sensible ones who manage things well.

Our school manages it well. The HT permits filming & photos, but stands up at the start or end and says only put online if you have permission from the parents of all children in the photo. For me, with the level of risk to my adopted children, this is a sensible middle path. If parents cannot follow the basic request of asking permission then the school would need to go down the banning route. I hope that never happens.

end of public service message

effinandjeffin · 18/07/2014 19:00

in that case sooty perhaps they should remove their child from the assembly. I should think that it is only a tiny minority who are at some kind of risk from being filmed or photographed and I would imagine that the head would be aware of that.

If they simply don't like their child being filmed for no reason other than they don't like it, maybe the onus should be them to remove their child rather than spoiling the enjoyment of everyone else.

effinandjeffin · 18/07/2014 19:01

X post with teen. That's exactly what our head does by the way.

TeenAndTween · 18/07/2014 19:04

effin My adopted children have been through a hell of a lot in their short lives. They already feel restricted from things they cannot do such as take part in local carnivals because we cannot control press photos at events like that.
It would be disgraceful if they couldn't take part in normal school events such as plays or assemblies because other parents are unable to follow basic rules such as not to publish photos of my child on the internet.

Frogisatwat · 18/07/2014 19:04

We have been forewarned about posting stuff on social networking

OP posts:
TeenAndTween · 18/07/2014 19:04

X post with effins follow up.

TeenAndTween · 18/07/2014 19:05

ps OP. YABU I'm afraid, I think those on the original front row should have been allowed to move forward.

morethanpotatoprints · 18/07/2014 19:06

I would have been annoyed as well as the difference between being on the front row and one further back can mean being there an hour earlier than others.
YABU and should have let the people on the front move forward and taken a second row. Its still a bonus as those behind you would have been there quite a while before you.

ilovesooty · 18/07/2014 19:06

I don't think it's good enough for a head to tell the parents to get permission from other parents - sorry.

Still I appreciate I'm diverting the thread. The school were asking for trouble placing chairs in front of the front row where the earlier arrivals had been sitting. They were bound to be annoyed.

grocklebox · 18/07/2014 19:08

yabvu. Same with your till queue jumping too. No manners.

CoreyTrevorLahey · 18/07/2014 19:10

YANBU. It's a freaking school show, not a bloody One Direction concert. There's not an executive box. If they want to film, they should stand off to the side and not lift their phones/ipads up in everyone else's line of view.

SnazzyHotFlush · 18/07/2014 19:12

Erm is there anyone here who doesn't feel the need to film/photograph everything their child participates in?

So OTT.

As for the weirdos claiming the front seats..... Puhlease.
Get a grip and stop being so bloody showy.

RufusTheReindeer · 18/07/2014 19:13

I would have been annoyed

I don't think I'd have had the front to throw myself like an ageing Starsky (or Hutch) across the seats!!!

SnazzyHotFlush · 18/07/2014 19:15

Such cringey behaviour.

effinandjeffin · 18/07/2014 19:16

teen of course your children should be taking part in assemblies and I'm sorry if it came across that I meant they shouldn't.

When I take photos of my kids at school, they are for mine and my families enjoyment only, but I wouldn't dream of splashing them all over facebook anyway, let alone pics of other people's kids. So of course, I find being able to film them and the head asking not to put them on social media, a happy medium.

However, if I was told that we weren't allowed to film them at all and I found out that it was on a parents say so 'just because', I don't think I would be too impressed.

Frogisatwat · 18/07/2014 19:16

Grockle its a mere snapshot of my life. I can do manners.. I can be annoying too!
I pull my car away from the petrol pump before I go into pay so the person behind me is not left waiting. I am in the minority on that one Grin

OP posts:
owlbegoing · 18/07/2014 19:21

Snazzy So if one parent has to miss the performance due to working their DP can't record it for them?
Or doting GPs the other end of the country missing out.
I think you're being short-sighted.

DuckandCat · 18/07/2014 19:23

It is annoying (same happened at DD's nursery Xmas concert) parents turned up 20 minutes late and got a seat right at the front. Then sat watching it through an iPad and blocking everyone else's view Angry

The supermarket till thing however... IT'S A NEW QUEUE! Fair game as far as I'm concerned, anyone can join it. I love it when someone races me to a till and then thy open a new one Grin

coolaschmoola · 18/07/2014 19:23

Is this really a 'thing'?! Chair wars at school events, sitting in an available chair is unreasonable? People there first should get first dibs on additional seating added later?

Jeez. I think anyone who thinks the op was bu needs a speedy visit to the grip shop!

TeenAndTween · 18/07/2014 19:26

effin That's OK, I realise now you were talking about the 'just because' scenario.

I find the 'ask permission' a happy medium.
But if I had any reason to believe parents at our school were not following this, I would reluctantly be asking for a complete ban.

However if my children had different backgrounds I can imagine scenarios where the risk of assuming parents will follow the 'ask permission' rule might be too great. That would be a dilemma.

Our school also always allows photos at the end of shows; I get my child off the stage quickly so as far as I am concerned they can flash away to their heart's content then.

Ledkr · 18/07/2014 19:27

School productions bring out the worst in people. My dd performs a lot with dancing and I'm usually lucky to leave doing backstage hair and make up for other kids to run around and catch her numbers, she enjoys it though so I'm not bothered.

Housemum · 18/07/2014 19:35

It's taken me years to get organised enough to be early for events to get a front row seat so I would have been hacked off if the school put others in front of me, I'm afraid. I have also been the mum who had to dash from work and only just get there in time - in those days I would go for the back or side so I could stand and video it.

MillieH30 · 18/07/2014 19:39

I think YWBU. Why not just sit in the vacated 2nd row if it didn't really matter to you where you sat?