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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

WIBU to get pizza delivered to DD's school for her birthday lunch?

708 replies

PizzaMom · 12/01/2019 19:51

I apparently am known as 'that' parent and have been given the side eye the few times I've gone in since!

It was DD's 16th last month on a school day. I ordered a few pizzas to be sent to school at lunchtime so she could share them with her mates in the common room. Teachers were not going to let her have themHmm and when they relented (by the time they got cold) made her and a few friends eat them in a separate meeting room when she had planned to share them as there was enough for about 20 people!

I don't see it as being that different from me bringing in a forgotten lunch box?

I also ordered flowers and a balloon to be delivered and school refused to let her have them until after school had finished.

I was trying to make DD's day special. I really didn't think would have been that much of an issue which ruined it a bit for DD.

WIBU?

OP posts:
Thread gallery
5
pootleposeyperkin · 15/01/2019 18:07

It might be a lovely treat but common courtesy is to check with school first.

GlitterStick · 16/01/2019 00:33

For those saying "ooh, lovely treat!" etc, just where are you (UK?) or do you even have high school kids?!
Where mine are they look at like you have two heads and tell you they need to fend for themselves if you dare try to drop off a forgotten packed lunch at reception!!
Sending pizza birthday party treats for a select few, yeah as if. Just wouldn't happen. As if staff don't have anything better to do than sign for that and then go off on search for the recipients.

Lovingbenidorm · 16/01/2019 01:31

mathanxiety I really wasn’t going to pursue this cos I’m knackered and very bored but one thing is bothering me.
WHERE is it acceptable common practice to have a takeaway delivered to a school?!?!

jessstan2 · 16/01/2019 02:22

Not something I've ever heard of either, Lovingbenidorm.
You take kids OUT for a pizza in a restaurant, after school, for a birthday treat, not have them delivered to the school.

This thread has been going on for days now, I would have thought the op got the message by now.

Lovingbenidorm · 16/01/2019 02:38

Thank you jess for some sense!

mathanxiety · 16/01/2019 04:50

All over the US for one, possibly all over Canada. And several posters have mentioned food deliveries to schools in the UK they are familiar with.

mathanxiety · 16/01/2019 04:58

Why did this have to be in school?

Because that is where her friends were. The OP has stated that she couldn't afford a party at home, with the expectation of more than just pizza for the 16th birthday (drinks, desserts, some sort of music, cake, all the paper plates and cups and plastic cutlery, napkins, extra toilet paper, paper towels, bin bags, maybe extra rubbish for bin day, etc). It was a very practical solution to the issue of how to mark this birthday. You couldn't get away with pizza, balloons and flowers at home. If you think you could, then maybe you have never hosted a party for a teen.

Turns out that pizza at school in in fact a great leveller...

Again baffled by the thought process that immediately ascribes this to 'attention seeking'.
You all live in a small, small world of envious curtain twitching and incredible mean spiritedness.

mathanxiety · 16/01/2019 05:08

...the OP did ask the staff to do things, the reception staff took delivery of the goods and were required to take care of them, the OP would have been the first here if the had just been left in reception and picked up by any passing student. They had to have a room arranged for them to eat in because the school rules didn't allow them to eat that in the common room. I notice how you dismissed the school rules as "silly" and actually denigrated the teachers by doing so. You think kids at that age should be able to deal with being excluded ? Yes they should be able to handle some of it, but a private party held at school with great fanfare is still not an appropriate thing to have.
*Boris"

How many massive leaps are there in all that?

What a load of wild conjecture.

I can see the reception staff in my mind's eye lovingly hovering over the balloons and the flowers, snapping to guard them the instant anyone approached the office...

The fuss about the common room was the chosen course of action of the teachers and the reason they chose to respond like that are not at all clear.

Nowhere does the OP say there was a rule about the common room (or even about pizza delivery to the school). You made the common room rule up. The teachers were amenable to persuasion on whether the pizzas should be given to the DD at all, so I think I am right to assume they were doing a very bad job of making up the rules as they went along wrt delivery, and wrt eating them in the common room, standing on ceremony, trying to score some silly point.

TimeForDinnerDinnerDinner · 16/01/2019 05:24

Clueless.
Stupid idea.
Impractical.
Utterly ridiculous.
No sense whatsoever.
You're like a kid in an adult's body.
Oh, in case you're unclear, YABVU... and an idiot.

GingerbreadBlob · 16/01/2019 05:35

So VVVVU.

I don't even know where to start.

Your school did good, hopefully it will prevent other kids starting a hideous trend.

GrammarTeacher · 16/01/2019 06:37

It is not jealousy to think someone is a show off when they act like this. It is a horrible 'look at me I'm so much more important than you. This is my day to be Queen and select a chosen few.'
There is nothing special about a 16th. A 'sweet 16' is an American import. I celebrated mine like all good mid-90s teens by buying some cigarettes and a lottery ticket. Now I could just buy a lottery ticket. Seriously, what is important about turning 16. You can't leave education anymore at that age either.
I'd also be exceptionally annoyed at such disruptive behaviour (because you can bet anything you like they would all have been gossiping about it afterwards) in the run up to mocks. And yes, I can control my classes thank you very much.

BoneyBackJefferson · 16/01/2019 06:40

mathanxiety

You post that other people's posts are conjecture, whilst ignoring that yours are exactly the same.

iklboo · 16/01/2019 07:21

I can see the reception staff in my mind's eye lovingly hovering over the balloons and the flowers, snapping to guard them the instant anyone approached the office...

Where does the OP's daughter go to school? Mallory Towers?

CoughLaughFart · 16/01/2019 09:09

Because that is where her friends were. The OP has stated that she couldn't afford a party at home, with the expectation of more than just pizza for the 16th birthday (drinks, desserts, some sort of music, cake, all the paper plates and cups and plastic cutlery, napkins, extra toilet paper, paper towels, bin bags, maybe extra rubbish for bin day, etc). It was a very practical solution to the issue of how to mark this birthday. You couldn't get away with pizza, balloons and flowers at home. If you think you could, then maybe you have never hosted a party for a teen.

Wait, hang on. So takeaway pizza requires paper plates, cutlery, cups etc. AND creates enough extra rubbish to be problematic if you have it at home - despite the OP having had 16 years’ notice of her daughter’s 16th birthday, so perhaps enough time to nip to Poundland. Yet when it happens at school, without prior warning to the staff, the need for plates and the problem of rubbish just magically disappears. Magic pixies take away the empty boxes and leftovers. Somehow none of the things are a problem for a busy school.

If you can’t afford to host for 20 at home, do it for 10 or 15. Half the pizza, half the cost - instantly you have budget for cake and a fiver’s worth of paper plates after all. ‘Some kind of music’? Does this teen who is expecting a fuss for her 16th not have an iPod or a Spotify account? The OP doesn’t have to book Calvin bloody Harris.

You’re right about one thing - I haven’t thrown a party for a teen. And if said teen thought they could tell me as the parent what I can ‘get away with’, I wouldn’t be throwing one either.

BorisBogtrotter · 16/01/2019 09:24

"I can see the reception staff in my mind's eye lovingly hovering over the balloons and the flowers, snapping to guard them the instant anyone approached the office... "

But they were required to take delivery of them, and keep them, yes? That meant that they had to do something that isn't part of their job. And yes had anyhting happened to the pizza or flowers or baloons whilst they were sitting in the office, or reception the OP would have complained.

"The fuss about the common room was the chosen course of action of the teachers and the reason they chose to respond like that are not at all clear."

Leap of faith there, many common rooms and schools don't allow take away food on the premsis for any number of reasons. Blaming teachers, again. Nowehre does the OP say that there isn't a rule about the common room, so as the teachers weren't allowing them to eat in there the most likely explanation is that there is, not that the teachers were making rules up just to be difficult. Again you are making this up. It has been explained on this thread many times that lots of different schools do not allow this sort of thing for many justifiable reeasons.

Can you go back to telling me why this is an example of why PP kids don't perform well please? That was fucking funny.

The OP asked teachers and school staff to facilitate a private party at school. School is not the place for this and nor is it their job to do so.

You make all sorts of things up in your posts and evidently have some sort of chip on your shoulder about the UK education system.

BejamNostalgia · 16/01/2019 09:29

they were doing a very bad job of making up the rules as they went along

Teachers are allowed to make rules up as they go along. They can’t have a procedure which covers everything lunatic parents might do. They’re professionals, they can make judgements on events.

Bekabeech · 16/01/2019 11:28

The only schools where delivered food seems to be common place that I know in the UK, are boarding schools. And this is only for additional food in the evenings.

At my DCs school on occasion the students have been allowed to bring in special food for a celebration - either end of year or when a student is leaving.

Students are also not allowed to leave the premises during the school day until they are Sixth Formers (unless they have special permission to go home).

BoneyBackJefferson · 16/01/2019 19:58

Nowhere does the OP say there was a rule about the common room (or even about pizza delivery to the school)

sometimes you try to rely on common sense.

Getting a load of pizzas delivered to a school without informing staff = stupid

trying to have a private party in a communal area = stupid

getting flowers and a balloon delivered to the school - in two minds about that one.

CoughLaughFart · 16/01/2019 21:17

sometimes you try to rely on common sense.

Exactly. And if the teachers then tell you you can’t do it, that’s pretty clear.

Ladyflop · 16/01/2019 21:58

I think what you did was lovely and it was very wrong of the school to deny your daughter of her birthday treat. What harm was it doing? None. Was it impacting in anyone negativity? No.
Schools just love enforcing silly rules for the sake of it that make no sense.

MaisyPops · 16/01/2019 22:00

I agree boney and cough.

Threads like this remind me why some schools end up having lengthy overly prescriptive rules and policies because there'll always be someone who willingly abandons common sense and when challenged says 'but technically you haven't said I'm not allowed to drive to school and pass a KFC order and multi-pack of red bull to my 11 year old child, take their sweet order and return with sweets they can sell in school during class' so who are you to tell me and my child that's not ok?'

Most people will tell you there's common sense and to get over the school being sensible.
A few will argue it's just a parent looking out for their child (who would and up passing out if denied the chance to guzzle energy drinks and sweets), and anyway it's a sign the school are failing in their legal duty to provide the right food for the child in question. They'd also play naive about how they were just making sure their child managed to eat, and they can't believe anyone would ever have an issue with a parent ensuring their child eats. Bonus points are available about how the OP feels so sorry for everyone else's children who don't have their own KFC and red bull smuggler. You're probably only jealous of them anyway.

BoneyBackJefferson · 16/01/2019 22:32

Ladyflop

Where have the school denied the DD the birthday treat?
She got the pizzas
She got a private area
She even got the balloons and flowers.

The only thing that she didn't get to do was show off.

mathanxiety · 17/01/2019 01:04

sometimes you try to rely on common sense.

..And sometimes you just simply make stuff up.

mathanxiety · 17/01/2019 01:14

Exactly. And if the teachers then tell you you can’t do it, that’s pretty clear

What is pretty clear?
That there were rules about pizza delivery and birthday celebrations in school?
No, there were no rules. Otherwise the teachers could have folded their arms and said 'no way' to any of it. But they gave in to persuasion every step of the way.

They were persuadable on every single point:
They gave her the pizzas.
They placed her with the pizzas in the meeting room.
None of the deliveries was turned back with the delivery person.

They made idiots of themselves trying to appear to be strict but not actually doing anything effective.

mathanxiety · 17/01/2019 01:17

BoneyBack
She got cold pizzas and wasn't able to share them with the 20 people who could have enjoyed them.
She got her balloons and flowers at the end of the day.

She spent her birthday lunchtime arguing with jobsworths.

So that went well.