Secret Fucking Santa for 8-9 year olds???

[AaandBreathe]

Just had a letter home from school about a Secret Santa. Each kid picks three names out of a hat over the next three weeks and has to buy (three gifts shouldn't cost more than £10) a gift and at some point over the week secretly deliver it to the child.

The aim of the exercise is to learn how to keep secrets and how to plan strategically.

I have to sign a form saying that either my DS will take part any by signing he is agreeing to keep secret:
Who his gifts are for.
What the gift is.
If he spots anyone else delivering or wrapping their gift.

Or I can refuse to let him take part. Because that will be fun when all the other kids in the class get gifts.

DS has ASD & ADHD. He has never understood the concept of keeping something secret He will happily hand you a gift and say "open it, it's your new X".

He still believes in Santa.

WTF are the thinking and what the hell do I do next?

Oh and AIBU for thinking the school are miserable tossers who want to destroy my DS's Christmas?

My DD school has "secret friend" (a good deal of children don't do Christmas, but funnily they all take part in the nativity play so, well).
They draw a name, spend £1 (we take them to the charity shop) and give it with, I think, their name on it. So nobody would mind if they told them beforehand and all the children get a present.
It seems much more proportionate.

What would happen if your child got the name of someone who bullies and picks on them? Or if their bully had to pick a gift for your child?
I had not thought of that but I imagine the teacher at my DD school would manipulate to avoid this.

This is a horrible idea. Cost, secrets and tbh just the potential for there to be upset involved. I'm not one to mollycoddle my kids but I can just imagine a situation where child X is regularly mean to child Y and then has to buy them a present as part of this. I can see the present being used as a mean little message in some way but maybe I'm over sensitive because of issues dd is having....she's also 9 and IME they're quite dramatic sensitive at this age

Ok, so the sheet is badly written and each child picks one name. Then gives that one child three presents. (Wasn't just me, TA had also misunderstood) Thus avoiding one child getting all the cheap gifts and one getting more expensive things.

They believe he should take part else he will become even more isolated from the rest of the class.

There is currently one child not taking part although the teacher believes child will change their mind when it comes to do the draw...

She said that every year some kids spill the beans - usually the girls! And some will most likely turn up with a class list and try and figure out who their secret Santa is.

They will tell DS (and the other DC) that they are only allowed to tell their parents (rather than keeping it secret - I pointed out that I need to know!) and the TA. TA will help DS hide the gifts. I just have to remember so send them in on the right day 🙄

[sigh] something else for the to-do list...

I'm surprised that teachers have the time for this nonsense! At my granddaughter's school the parents have organised a secret Santa (loathesome word) for after school on the last day, nothing expensive, just a bit a fun to end the term.

Schools should not be teaching children to keep secrets. This is awful and i would be putting in a serious complaint to the head

Aside from anything else, the school shouldn't be forcing the expense of this onto parents. They could just as easily have done a similar exercise with a handmade craft/card instead of asking the parents to fork out for gifts for random kids.

I wouldn't want DS to feel left out but I'm not sure I could bring myself to agree to pissing a tenner up the wall to buy tat for someone else's child.