To think short kids should go at the front

[TheObstinateHeadstrongGirl]

DD is the shortest in her class by some way (year 5).

Today her entire class had a poetry competition thing happening with other schools, where the class all spoke a poem/piece of writing at once. Also lots of actions and hand gestures etc.

Well I took 2 hours off work, drove to the church it was happening at, paid an entry fee to sit through it all without seeing DD once. Because She was at the back behind the tall kids. now and again I saw a hand raised up when there was an action but that’s it. This isn’t the first time this has happened.

WIBU to complain to the teacher and say in future can she not just put her at the front where I can see her. They rehearse the moves and she would have been out at the back for the beginning.

Equity not equality.

Dd was a tall child. I generally couldn't see more than the top of her head because she was always at the back, but never more than a couple of inches bigger than the child in front.

They need to use benches or similar.

Yes I agree that tall children shouldn’t be hidden. I think all faces should be seen.

Yanbu. But I rarely saw my short children in anything like this during their childhoods. They were always positioned behind a pillar, other children, at the back, or I was inevitably sitting behind a tall person, big hair, etc, on the odd occasion they were possibly visible. It was incredibly tedious, but I just had to accept it and not let on to them that I'd barely seen a thing.

I am a teacher and yes it is common sense to have short children at the front.

However, I doubt that this was a malicious attempt to upset your child or you.

More likely :

A new and inexperienced teacher who didn't notice or think about it as too stressed thinking about all of the other things that could go wrong.

Your child was very nervous or shy and the only way to get her in was by putting her at the back (I have had this happen and then not want to admit it to a disappointed parent).

Something went wrong on the day and they stood in the wrong places - again, this has happened to me on a couple of occasions. Once the first row stand in the wrong places, subsequent rows are forced to too.

I think it'll be one of those but you'd have to ask to find out. Please do so nicely, we are all absolutely beleaguered by trivial petty grumbles at the moment.

I can’t think of a good enough reason as to why they’d put the shortest child directly behind one of the tallest children

Then ASK!

PP wasn't asking you to think of a reason. They suggested you ask!

That's great if you were putting adults behind children. But the height difference between a load of shorter and a load of taller primary school children generally isn't enough to see the ones behind. Like I posted my DD was one of the tallest, always at the back, could never see her.

Another reason might be not wanting to upset the short children. One year I can remember asking them to organise in height order and lots of children just didn't believe - or want to admit - that they were short and needed to be on the front row.

I was always the shortest in school and I hated being made to go to the front
I can see that it's annoying for parents though

Then they need to use banked staging or benches as a pp has stated. But in the absence of those things, if there really is no option but to line up the kids on a flat stage, then the only vaguely reasonable answer is to put the smaller ones at the front. Do you disagree?

I was the short kid (now a short adult). In my school photos I was always in the front row but usually in the front row sitting on the floor.

My teachers obviously had common sense.

its like when tall parents sit at the front

I don't really agree or disagree tbh. Because as I said there's rarely so much of a height difference between a whole class that you can see all of them. On the face of it it may seem reasonable to put the smaller ones at the front but then if they're the only ones that can ever be seen year after year, that's not really fair on the others either. Schools need to organise themselves better so that every child can be seen.

If there is a range of ages then yes you get shorter front would make sense but you are talking about children of same year group! There will not be sufficient differences in height between the shortest 10 and tallest 10 to ensure that the shortest at the front aren’t blocking the tallest at the back. Yes with some individual children this would work Joe is only up to Mary’s shoulders so he should stand at the front. But agree the whole year group this wouldn’t work if they did shortest front every single time. What would happen is you are a parent of a 10 shortest child would have a full unobstructed view of your child at every single show face arm actions leg actions whatever. Whereas, Parent of tallest 10 child wouldn’t. Some shows they might see their whole face, other shows the tops of their heads. Is that fair? Really?

But if there are some significantly smaller ones, they should be at the front, right? The others, whose heights are all similar, can presumably be arranged so that faces are lined up with the gaps between the heads in front? If you put a tiny child behind them, they won’t see over the shoulders of the ones in front! It’s just common sense.

only if the height differentiall between every tall person and every shirt person was such that you can still properly see the tall one.

Yep my daughter is one of the shorter ones and I totally relate to what you're saying.
She was the main character in a performance they did last year (just a song not a play) and I could only see her feet. There was 3 taller girls placed directly in front of her the entire time and it did annoy me a bit. All their mums had lovely photos of their girls that day and I didn't get a single one of mine because she just couldn't be seen at all.
But my daughter enjoyed herself and was happy knowing I was there and we made a big fuss of how well she did so she never knew we hadn't seen her properly.
I agree it's just common sense. Yanbu.

See my post above at 9:57 👍

I expect its not always as simple as you think due to environmental constraints and this would also lead to full view, always, of the shorter ones and never of the taller ones. Teachers are damned whatever they do if parents can't see that they have to think of the whole class.

In a class of 30 you might get one or two who are unusually short and one or two who are unusually tall. Obviously in that case yes the tiny one should be in front of the giant. The remaining 26/28 are going to be much of a muchness - as for lining them up with gaps, good luck getting primary school children to all stay rooted to their spot, especially if they're singing with actions etc.

Hmmm. Well, I am a teacher (admittedly not primary, so I rarely have to put kids in rows for concerts…) so I do sympathise with staff. But I’ve never seen my children’s teachers get it spectacularly wrong by putting tiny kids behind the tall ones 🤷‍♀️

Do parents really need a full view of their child? Isn’t the important thing that every parent can see their child’s face? In which case, lining them up with gaps, with the tinies at the front, is surely common sense?!

One of mine is one of the tallest in their class and for these things have always been on the back row. And I can see them, sometimes not all of them all the time, but I can still see where they are and they can see me.
Never questioned it as hes taller then alot of his classmates and thats just plain common sense isn't it?

Shorter kids at the front, tallest kids at the back. Its not about singling people out for the height ffs, its about common sense so all the kids can be seen, at least as best as they can be!

Also the school he attends, at the end of anything like this where there are multiple children, they always, always bring them in at the end in smaller groups, in a single line so parents can get a photo. They even announce what group is coming out so parents can come to the front to take their photo. So even if there were similar height kids during a performance, where its difficult to see everyone, there is still a photo op of them on stage, as it were, and clearly seen.

That's what I mean by full view. Plus some hope of seeing actions and gestures if relevant, which is something OP drew attention to. If there's a way of all kids being seen then of course that's the solution. If not, people will need to take it in turns. Is it not also wrong to make it such that you can only see foreheads of the tall ones? I'm not sure lining up with gaps works because they move.

I have both a tall child and a short child. I would expect the tall one to be at the back and the shirt one to be at the front so that we can see them both. Like you say the parents have taken time out of their day to go and watch performances so all children should be visible!

If I was the smallest child in the class by some way, I'd be well aware of it, and I'd know that the rest of the class were aware as well. And it wouldn't be something I'd want extra attention being drawn towards. If I'd taken up a place toward the back, having the teacher move me to the front row in front of everyone else would be a humiliating experience.