kicked out of nativity with 5 week old.

[nativity15]

I'm just after your opinions. I have name changed but am a regular.

We received a letter about the school play and it said no children under 5 due to limited seating. I have a 5 week old new born and took her along in her car seat as opposed to her pram so she could go on my lap in her car seat not to take up space. Lots of other parents done the same. Once we got there we was all kicked out it was horrible and highly embarrassing. The hall went so quite and I'm sure everyone was looking at me. I quietly explained that we was taking up no extra space (lots of empty seats due to lots being kicked out) and she said I still have to leave due to health and safety. I do not do public confrontations well so quietly got up and left but must say I felt very heartbroken about it. I know it's just a school play but my eldest who is 6 was extremely excited her new sister was coming to 'watch' and now both of us will not be in the audience. My husband works full time and never made last year's due to work but was on paternity leave so this year we was able to all go together....it's Christmas.....we also have a new born and I was very happy about it all....abit of family time and all of us going to see her at her christmas play it just made me feel all warm and cosy and christmasy.

Anyway turns out it was nothing to do with health and safety and was an excuse to get me and the parents before me out the hall.

I have complained about this. Lots of the children have younger siblings. Not everyone has childcare so a lot of angry mum's and dads missed out.

So it turns out that this new 'heath and safety rule' was really the new head teacher didn't want any children under 5...I assume due to noise maybe. This school has always been brilliant in my opinion. They invite in parents with young siblings to do work shops etc and the school children visit other places and people in the community....that's what i like about the school makes you feel and also helps others in the community. But now this has happened I feel the opposite
I'm sure all the children and teachers worked hard for the play and now some children's families won't all be able to come and see them now...very sad.

Aibu to say under 5s are also part of our community and they are part of the families who want to come to the play to see older siblings and shouldn't be excluded due to their age.

I would.like to say this new rule only came in this year. Last year there were other children. I didn't have to think about it until this year but don't recall anything bad happening last year's play so the younger children where obviously not that disruptive.

I'm on OPs side. The school gave a reason for a request which did not apply to her, therefore it was perfectly reasonable of her (and lots of other parents) to assume the request did not apply to them. The school caused this problem by publishing an inaccurate justification for the the rule.

YABU. it said no Under 5s and you didn't check beforehand. The new headteacher sounds great.

Why on earth would you take a car seat and not just carry her/put her in a sling!?

i have seen a couple of threads like this lately. it seems to me that if your school child has a younger sibling who is not of school age your parent/s cant watch the play. i think its very sad

Why did so many of the parents think that the rule didn't apply to them?

Yabu. It said no under 5s, you ignored it and you got chucked out.

And that post upthread about discriminating against breastfeeding mothers and complaining to Ofsted? Jesus fucking Christ.

It's unreasonable for a primary school to not allow younger siblings to attend. It would be kinder and more convenient to request that anyone with small children or babies who might get noisy or disruptive sit nearest to the exit and take them out if they start fussing. My DC primary school has always had this rule, it allows people with no childcare to still attend but stops it ruining the play for others. Never been a problem.

Also they should have the decency to just say outright that babies aren't allowed in case they cry, rather than making something up about seating limits and h&s.

My youngest is 8 so none of this affects me, but I think it's very unfair to have a rule like that.

DS was at a school like this when he was in Nursery. The Head just didn't like younger children. He set up a creche run by Year 6 children (is that even legal?) to look after the toddlers. I had to leave my toddler there in order to see my older child's play. He was an arse.

My children's current primary is fine. It's a family event and people have younger siblings. No one cares and most of the children behave fine. If they don't, their parent takes them out.

PaulAnka - you may not have seen a child burst in to tears, and tbh DS didn't, but afterwards he was upset and tearful because it took him a lot of courage to stand up in front of an audience and no one heard him because of a crying baby.

The letter was quite clear. Just because you managed to have your baby on your knee does not mean that everyone else who brought under 5s managed to do that, you were most likely an exception. So should the school then have gone through the hall to determine which under 5s were sitting on a parent's knee and which were taking up a seat?

And yes, you were naive to think that the rule was solely because of the seating issue. We've all sat through nativities, end of year assemblies, prize givings etc which have been ruined by crying, talking, calling out etc from little ones in the audience.

Next time you want to break a school rule, speak to the staff first. It might have been fine, or, as in this case, it might not have been
You have to check. If you just go ahead, this kind of thing will happen. If enough of you had spoken up earlier, they might even have changed the rule/had another performance

Taking the car seat was really daft though! Limited space and you fill it with a car seat!

Babies and toddlers can be very loud. In my experience most parents do not take them out before they are in a fully blown, screaming on the floor tantrum in RL.

Ours usually do two shows, I know some parents who do this: mum A leaves her baby and toddler in the care of mum B who will linger in a playground or library near school during performance 1, mum B then leaves her youngsters with mum A to go to performance 2.

I'm on OPs side. The school gave a reason for a request which did not apply to her, therefore it was perfectly reasonable of her (and lots of other parents) to assume the request did not apply to them. The school caused this problem by publishing an inaccurate justification for the the rule.

This!! This is the logic I implied.

I don't own a sling and used the car seat as it's a bit of a walk and the pram is big.

Sorry, another saying you were unreasonable here. The letter clearly stated no under 5's, IMO the reason why is irrelevant - no under 5s is enough.

My DD'S school has strict capacity rules due to fire regulations, and babies wold be counted in any numbers. So only 150 odd parents could attend for 90 children's performance - if you add younger siblings to the mix even less go.

DD's play is tonight, I am going and DP is staying home with DD2 as we can't all go. Disappointing but I totally agree with the school policy.

If they don't, their parent takes them out. Problem is, people DON'T take them out but spend their time wrestling with said toddler, trying to shush them with food, toys, handbag contents etc resulting in everyone around them missing out on what is, let's be honest, already a fairly inaudible performance on stage.

IIRC at First School there were two showings. One afternoon one where everyone was welcome including screaming babies/unruly toddlers etc. then an evening one when the adults and older children went.

Both performances were ticket only though and limited to two per child.

If this had been me my thought processes would have gone:

'No under5s allowed...' Oh dear.

'because of limited seating' Oh, wait a minute - she won't take up an extra seat. But it does say 'no under 5s'. So I'd better check do they mean 'no under 5s if you expect a seat for your toddler' or does it mean 'no under 5s, no ifs, no buts'.

On finding out that it meant the latter, I'd have asked if next year they could consider designating one performance 'no under 5s' and making the other one open to everybody. Or letting parents with little ones into the dress rehearsal. That's what my children's primary school did 15-20 years ago, so hardly a groundbreaking way to accommodate everybody's needs.

If DD's school decided under 5's weren't welcome there would be 1 possibly 2 parents from her class able to attend, most of the parents haven't family locally so no back up for childcare, in fact last year 2 of the teaching assistants took any younger sibling who was restless to the Junior Infants classroom to play with the Winter show was on. All parents saw the show, no noisy younger children running around the hall, everyone happy.

It looks like this thread is going the usual way.

Op-was I bring unreasonable?
99% of posters-yes.
Op-no I wasn't.
99% of posters-you were.
Op-I wasn't and here's the one that agrees with me.

Oh well.

Agreeing with Casper and Fluffy et al - this was a ridiculous scenario- what 5 wk old baby can be separated from its mum? The nativity is meant to be family oriented - that includes ALL family, little and large. If the baby was v upset the OP could have made the decision to leave at that point, but I have yet to hear a 5 wk old cry loud enough to disrupt an entire performance. Well done to the school for upsetting an entire family with its silly rules. I'm fuming on OP's behalf. Also with the letter referring to space and seating restrictions it would not have occurred to me that it included newborn babies who wouldn't have been taking up a seat in the first place.

My experiences are exactly like that, tiggy. Most parents do not leave, they jiggle, cajole, reason and shush until baby is screaming with a purple head or toddler drumming the floor with fists.

It's probably something to do with their public liability insurance or something, I bet there's either a maximum headcount or they're not insured for under-5s (or both).

YABU. You were informed beforehand, if you thought the letter was ambiguous (which it wasn't) it would've taken a 30-second phone call to the office to ask whether you could bring a baby in a car seat or not.

haven't got time to read through. But my son's school welcomes younger siblings to the weekly chapel service and we've had all ages from 7 days old upwards. This is a short but formal service held in a college chapel ...

I would have raised it before going rather than ignore however bullshit H&S excuses really get my goat and I would have challenged that quite forcefully - I usually tend to point out that I know the local HSE office quite well (I work in construction) and we could give them a quick call for clarification as I have their number right here.....
Thankfully we go to a primary school that is rather sensible about things like this. It's a huge school with a very mixed demographic and they always seem to cope with huge numbers of parents and siblings for plays and performances without a fuss or without them being disrupted. For example DSs years carol concert this year had 100 children performing - 2 performances where they invited parents, siblings and the local church congregation. Yes there was some enthusiastic younger siblings but they just added to the family feel of the occasion nobody least of all the yr3 performers were bothered by it. Primary school children are very likely to have younger siblings and its bonkers to expect otherwise.

Answer Ofsted would be very polite to you on the phone and then file your complaint in the 'batty parent' file.

Where schools have introduced a 'no under fives' rule it's because they've had a bad experience in the past and have planned not to let it happen again. They are protective of the children in their care, have seen them and the staff work hard to put together a performance for children to show their parents and want those children to have their moment to shine. It's important to those children. Yes, some watching parents find it very cute to see toddlers rolling around, climbing on the stage, trying to set off the fire extinguishers, crawling under the stage, babies screaming.... but others don't. Some watching parents will ignore their wandering/getting into danger toddler and expect school staff to wrangle them because they're watching the performance and you can't expect toddlers to sit down. Some will watch and smile fondly and get snotty when someone retrieves their child and brings them back (howling with rage) because it's not RADA, it's a family thing and they love seeing their toddler stage dive, it's cute! And unfortunately when you plan to politely ask as needed for people to keep their toddler sitting with them or to please take out their screaming baby who is preventing anyone else from hearing anything, you will get someone who will hoik their bosom, tell you this is what children do, you're a school and supposedly child friendly, and they are not leaving and you can't make them, plus will be telling Ofsted on you. If asking people politely to leave always worked, there would be no need for a ban.

Unfortunately the natural result of everyone expecting the right to do whatever they want at all times, not caring how they affect others, always thinking they are the exception to any rule or boundary given, and regarding any request to change their behaviour as a personal insult to go to war about, is that blanket bans that penalise everyone are going to be more and more common.