To think listing best friends in the yearbook is cruel and unnecessary?

[LadyFuckrington]

Dd is eleven and has always struggled socially but in this last term she has blossomed and made lots of good friends among her year group.

However, we received the yearbook yesterday which comprised a page by each child all done to the same template. One of the boxes was a short list of 'my best friends'. Only one of the girls had listed DD.

She was distraught yesterday and cried for an hour. We've smoothed it over and told her that she's so special to everybody that they didn't need to list her. But really, this is bound to happen with lists like this, isn't it?

Aibu to be really fucked off with the school? I'm glad to see the back of it tbh, onwards and upwards to secondary.

Yes, I agree Nur , your experiences would be really off putting and damaging to many children whose voices are fine, let alone one who really can't sing. Singing solo as punishment is awful. I have no issue with children singing quietly in the background as long as they're giving it a go.

The thing with the compulsory vs non compulsory and musical vs non musical productions is that you get it in the neck from parents, regardless of what you do.

Non compulsory musical - 'Oh, my X would have loved to be involved but he was too shy to put himself forward. You'd think you could take the decision for them at this age' 'Y didn't want to do it because none of the other boys did. It's not fair, you should have made them.'

Compulsory musical - 'X doesn't want to do it, you're damaging her self esteem by making her' 'We're far too busy for this'

Musical Production - 'this is really unfair, there's never a big part for X because she can't sing well'

Non Musical Production - 'don't you think it would be better to give more children a chance by doing something large cast, like a musical'

I've learned to just nod and smile over the years and do a mix of all of the above!

mumsneedwine that's lovely and a fantastic idea.

manic at my kid's current primary the school production is an extra curricular activity - any child who volunteers is guaranteed some sort of part, but they audition to see who does what. It runs like a club for 6 months and the kids choose which play to put on (from a choice of 3). I personally think that'san eexcellent way of doing it :o

Mumneeds my DD's year 5 teacher did this too. Bloody marvelous she was.

yanbu. horrible idea.

Sport can be such a challenging thing for kids if they aren't very good at it, my DS has dyspraxia and really really struggles with sports, rounders is about the only thing he doesn't hate, probably because there's just lots of standing around rather than getting physically involved. My DS had half a day full of sport at his trial day at high school and came out really upset as some kids were laughing at him and calling him names for missing the ball. Some teachers are great at noticing these things and some are oblivious to it.

That American teacher sounds lovely, I hate thinking of children being isolated and lonely at school must be so hard for them.

I don't usually teacher bash as a lot of my friends are teachers BUT I read stuff like the OP and wonder if the teachers at the school have any clue about children / bullying/ excluding / peer pressure

mumsneedwine that's lovely

Dame mine too...but I think a person who has been popular hasn't got a clue genuinely.

I hate this yearbook and similar shit, it must be making so many more kids feel miserable.