To think whole-class birthday parties should be banned?

[FishCanFly]

Done to death threads in this forum. People always complaining about either having to invite unwanted guests and face fallout, or somebody getting excluded.
Its not an official school event, so it should be organized privately. Or am i missing the point?

I don't want to be invited to use up an afternoon every other weekend for a birthday party of a child neither I nor my child think of as a friend. I am not at all offended if my dd gets left off the list and she usually has something better to do. I think if you cannot be bothered to speak to me in the playground then do not invite me to accompany my dd to your dc's party.
I also dislike the notion of involving teachers in out of school playdate politics.

YANBU

Thank you Murfles - I'm obviously not alone in my opinion then.

Your definitely not. It's ludicrous to expect teachers to ensure 25 invites are put in bags, then if one isn't put into a bag it's the teachers fault. I also don't allow class lists of names to be given out either. I run a school with 485 pupils and a nursery with 140 pre schoolers. I completely understand children have social lives, however, the teachers are there there to ensure children are taught, nurtured and encouraged. Even when I was a classroom teacher I never distributed party invitations. It causes teachers no end of grief at times.

if they can manage to give out school newsletters etc they can manage that.

I completely disagree. We have lovely ladies in our office who ensure SCHOOL information is given out. Stand at the door yourself and give out invitations if you must but none of the teachers under my management will do it. As I said previously, after having been asked for appointments to discuss who what invited/not invited to a specific party I stopped all invitations being put in book bags. I have more to do with my time than discuss birthday parties.

howabout. Just decline then? It's not that difficult.

That's two posters mentioning the 'if you don't speak to me in the playground'. The invite is for your child surely? Their child wants to invite your child?

If you don't like the parents (who have kindly invited you), just politely say no.

I don't understand why the school would ever be involved with invites? In my neck of the woods, they are handed out by the children.

YABU. Some children wouldn't get invited to any parties if it weren't for whole class parties.

As for the smug "networking" party. Well some parents don't have a support network, don't know any other parents, want to meet new people and make friends. What the eff is wrong with that?!

I had a whole class party as did most of the other reception kids. Nothing flash , they all enjoyed themselves.

Very much a reception/year 1 thing here. Children are friendly with the majority and usually haven't formed proper friendships. Inviting all is the safe option and it's nice to be able to meet parents.

I agree Murfles - staff are there to give out school information not to organise pupils' social lives.

Gosh - I have had them for my two. I was new to the area we were in and therefore wouldn't have known who to invite otherwise. It would seem very unfair to children like mine, who aren't part of a strong/large social network outside of school, to say they are not allowed to use school to build friendships etc outside of school. My children at four had very fluid friendships and I got the impression that some people didn't really attend parties at all, but I had no way of finding out more about this as I was never at school and ex, who was, never really spoke to the mums. Had we had small parties, we would have run the risk of next to no one attending. I don't think people who have heaps of friends with children or cousins nearby as guaranteed party guests realise what that feels like.

I am very sorry if handing out invitations caused any inconvenience to teachers (I am one, not being sarcastic if it sounds like I am!) but I really think it is the done thing round here, and was where we were a few years ago as well. However, anyone who gets arsey about it and complains to teachers about any aspect of it is an arse.

Why should teachers have to give the invitations out because your ex didn't speak with the other parents?

Where does the "should be organised privately" come in, op and teacher pps? That has nothing to do with whole class vs small parties, or am I dense? No teacher ever touched our invites and we did whole class parties. Names can be copied from coat pegs in the corridor so no list required and inviting the whole class are not even needed.

I think whole class parties are often the parent's way of ensuring little Timmy or Tabatha, get invited to everyone else's party.

I suppose it becomes an obligation thing to return the invite.

But I agree it seems to have little to do with the birthday child themself, as the chances of being stuck in a class of 25 or 30 real friends are pretty slim.

Networking? Utter bollocks. First off, any hardened networkers wouldn't waste time and money on everyone in the class; they'd pick out the ones they thought were worth their attention. Secondly, how does it make sense to complain about networking but then moan about parents 'who don't bother to speak to me in the playground'? Do you want other parents to suck up to speak to you in the playground or not? Or is this yet another dammed if you do, dammed if you don't scenario?

I don't care if I know parents or not when an invite comes in: it's for my child, not me. I also think it's parents' responsibility to give out invitations. Teachers are employed to teach. And I would far rather just invite everyone and have a less expensive party than play favourites, or have some kid wondering why they got missed out. Where bullies are involved that's different, but fortunately that's not been the case in my experience. Invited the class 'problem child' and wondered how it would work out: they behaved beautifully.

May be offensive to your own child if they are made to have bullies at their own birthday.

but that would be if the parent chose to invite the bully, that's a parental failing, it's got nothing to do with "whole class parties". I can only assume you want to ban something simply because you are incapable of simply not inviting someone to a party.

YABU.

Banned and enforced by who? Teachers? Yes, we have nothing else to do!

Ilovesooty ffs, I never said they should. I don't know how they managed the giving out of the invitations - maybe the child did it himself? I just said I hoped it hadn't been a problem, but I also think if a child has working/shy/non-English speaking etc etc parents or carers, then it is not too much to ask that a reception teacher ameliorates the impact of that on the child and facilitates the giving out of invitations. It should not continue as the child gets older and no one should 'kick off' if there is any problem with it, but my child, and many others I am sure, didn't find this kind of stuff easy and I do feel the school/teacher could find the time to say 'Little Johnny is handing out his invitations now - off you go Johnny." I don't see that as asking too much. And to be fair to ex, a lot of women blanked him - it was not all his fault that he didn't find the drop-offs and pick-ups a breeze. I don't either when I occasionally do them.

Worra That is ridiculous, really. How many four year olds even have any 'real friends'?? Mine didn't, and it mattered to them how may children attended their parties, it really did. I am sick of people on here saying someone must be showing off just because their circumstances differ and they are doing something someone else has never done. FFS.

Names can be copied from coat pegs in the corridor so no list required and inviting the whole class are not even needed.

This is where schools differ. I don't allow parents into collect children from cloakrooms, therefore parents never see names on pegs. Parents wait in the playground and children are not let out of school until they recognise the parent/childminder/other. Each of our classes has a their own door for children to leave by. Teachers have a list of who can collect children and if they're not on that list the child remains in school until the parent is called. I never allow class lists to be given out due to some children in classes being on the child protection register.

Not all kids who have whole class parties are 4 years old, so I'm not sure where certain ages come in?

Lots of kids of all ages will be able to pick out 10 or 12 of their closest school friends to celebrate with.

I didn't mention showing off either. I mentioned that imo it's often a way of the parent ensuring their kid gets invited to everyone else's parties, out of obligation.

They are very common here. I dislike them because of the noise and clamour you inevitably get with a herd mentality situation.

It's appalling.

Sorry - my dc were 4-6 while they had whole class parties, so I was generalising.

Well, maybe parents do want to ensure their child gets invited to other parties, because their child has no 'special' friend and may otherwise get no invitations while they are little. What is so wrong with that if it is the case?

If the parents are working or otherwise not in a position to give out invitations themselves I don't think it's up to the teachers to "ameliorate" anything. It's up to the parents to have appropriate methods in place for the distribution of invitations if it's so important.

We had whole class parties for our dds, it was a nice way to meet the other parents and put names to children's faces when working full time. We always had class lists so I could run down the names of the children and when it got to 28 out of 30 just invite the whole bloody lot.

My ds has given birthday parties and has never attended one apart from family friends or our dds. I would like it if a child in his class had a whole class party.

I think in reception and infants its nice, until the birthday child wants a smaller group of good friends.

When they are little it's not much more expensive to have 10 or 40.

I don't expect teachers to be involved.

Just to throw another point of view... DH and I both work full time and DD1 goes to before/after school club every day of the week. Consequentially, we don't get to see any of the other parents/guardians at the gate.

Fortunately, school were happy for DD1 to bring in a bundle of invitations (carefully kept together in a large envelope) and assist with or carry out whatever process resulted in one being put into each book bag.

By having a whole class party, it actually gave us a chance to meet with some of the parents/guardians and collect some contact details for the future!

If you are going to make a song and dance about handing out invites, you need to do the whole class.
If not, do it in your own time. Using your own networking skills.
There is always the option of not having one at all, too!

X post, AvaCrowder.