To not invite the whole class to a party ???

[ishouldprobablygettherapy]

So my daughter started reception 3 weeks ago. She has about 5 friends there that she plays with daily and gets along with well. 3 of those she went to nursery with last year, and the other 2 she has bonded well with over the last 3 weeks.
Her birthday is in November, she has never had a party before, but we thought since it's her first year at school it would be nice to throw her one, (at a soft play probably) as I know she will be getting invites to her classmates parties over the next few years, and I wouldn't want her to feel left out not having a party. But that aside -
My issue is how many people do we invite ???
There's the typical, send an invite to everyone in the class, and see who responds.. (probably won't be everyone) OR invite her handful of friends only ??
Would I be unreasonable to only invite her 5 friends instead of the whole class ? Or is this frowned upon.
I know somebody will say to exclusively invite the 5, not with invites in school , the issue here is I do not speak to their parents, so it would be difficult to do this.
Please give me your opinions. Thank you !

At that age I'd invite the whole class, how will you/your dd feel when she doesn't get invited to the rest of the classes parties.

It's fine to invite the select few, you'll need to hand out the invites in the playground as most teachers will only hand out invitations to whole class parties.

However parties can end up a bit tit for tat and you may find she doesn't get invited to other whole class parties. As long as that isn't a problem I'd go for it. Looking back I think a lot of whole class parties are for the parents because that's what they think they should do. In reality it doesn't make a huge amount of difference in the long run in terms of friendships and lots of children thrive better in smaller groups and just get overwhelmed at big parties.

I'd do the 5 friends this year and a class party next year when they have all bonded a bit

Completely honestly, I wouldn't mind at all. My only qualm would be that she would see everybody else getting an invite and not her. The same as my worry for her birthday party if I did not invite the whole class.

@Singleandproud I didn't think of this at all, that's a great idea. I'm a first time school mom so these things often slip my mind.. even when they're so obvious !!

@BrawnWild I did think this. But I've heard so many mixed opinions on what is and isn't acceptable 😆

There is no right or wrong ( as long as you aren't excluding specific individuals). You do what works for your family

Isn’t the whole point of whole class parties to let them bond and develop friendships? Then in subsequent years as the friendship groups develop, just invite the closer friends.

At that age i would do the whole class if i could afford it.
Parties are some exciting for them at that age, i hate the thought of little ones missing out.

Infants is the time when party going is at its peak! Usually whole class, but 5 sounds reasonable as its not like you are just leaving out a couple of kids. The main issue is, how will your DD feel if other kids throw parties and she's one of the few that isn't invited? Because lots of kids do get upset when they hear of a party they aren't invited too, so some parents make a note of this and intentionally won't invite yours. Equally, will you feel awkward taking your daughter to a party of a child you didn't invite to hers? It's very political and why I always did whole class parties. There is nothing wrong with just having 5 kids there though.

What can you afford and what does the soft play offer?

I've found that parties have got eyewateringly expensive recently and our local soft play only offers parties for particular size groups. Those would impact my decision hugely.

I don't do invitations any more - I just track down parents on the class WhatsApp. I then make a separate group for the party. Obviously depends on there being a class WhatsApp.

I’ve never held a whole class party. Only invited their friends.

I would invite the few that you want via parents on a WhatsApp group. It's early days, she doesn't know all the others yet. My rule has always been a handful, say less than 10 (in a class of 30) or all of them. Have also just invited the girls before (year 1 and 2) as my daughter has 12 girls on her list, but I didn't feel it was kind to leave the other 3 girls out in this case.

5 is fine, whats awkward is when a parent does something like inviting 12 out of 14 girls in the class, or 24 children out of class of 28, so excluding a very noticeable few.

I'd always say:

• less than half the class = fine
• all the boys, all the girls = fine if old fashioned
• a small group = fine

5 is absolutely fine.

I think the rules are - pick one option from:

• less than half the class, just friends
• all the girls
• all the boys
• all the class

That way, you shouldn't ever have just one or two kids obviously left out.

Either go small or whole class - there’s no in between at this stage

It's tricky when they're one of the older ones in the year as it's the elder children who kind of set the precedent, but there are no rules. Certainly in my experience the whole class parties were more common in reception and year 1 but equally I can say that there weren't 30 individual class parties throughout the year so not everyone had one, some did smaller affairs and possibly some nothing at all. We did all class parties for their reception year (I have Feb and May borns so slightly easier perhaps) and then scaled it back from year 1. If you do go down the whole class route you will find the village hall/entertainer option is easier as you can invite a larger crowd. Soft play tends to be more expensive per head and might not be able to accommodate the whole class.

I think 5 is fine, and whole class is fine. What I think that is a bit mean is say, 20 invited and 10 left out.

Cant comment on the tit for tat invitations but suspect it is a thing. My daughter was in a mixed reception/nursery class last year and went to lots of whole class parties, and had one too. She then got an invite to one quite last minute which was almost entirely reception (she was nursery) plus her, and to my knowledge she wasn’t super friendly with the birthday girl. I suspect she was invited as the birthday girl had been to hers the month before and they had an unexpected space and she got it on that basis!

IME not everyone does whole class parties. Both my DC in reception probably went to 5 or so whole class parties and then a few smaller things. The teachers have always given the invitations and I think it would only be a problem if jist a couple of children were left out. We've usually done parties for about 10-12.

@PandaExpress I do understand this. It does seem very political and it somewhat puts me off throwing a party at all!
I personally wouldn't mind if my daughter wasn't invited to parties that others were invited to. Providing she wasn't the ONLY one. As I would explain that everybody has different friends, and some families prefer smaller parties (me included... I really hate the idea of a huge whole class party. But I WOULD do it nevertheless)
The views are so mixed, I think I'm going to have a good think on this.

I have 3DC, and we've just had our last primary school party. We've never had an all class party, can't imagine anything worse and I think as one of the first in the year to have a party you will set the trend for the rest of the class so please don't have an excessive and expensive birthday party. I do think it varies with area though, my nieces grew up in north London and there was a perpetual round of all class parties. SIL regifted as many presents as she could because it was all so excessive.

@SausageinaBun we cannot afford a whole lot. It would be a strain really but we would happily do it. Luckily we would be going halves with her grandparents so it would lessen the financial blow quite a bit. The soft plays we have been looking at are all pretty flexible. They are pretty much all inclusive (meaning lunch and cake) I think it's around £10 per child although we did see one very close to where we live that is around 15 per child and it is a TINY soft play !!

@Talkwhilstyouwalk this is a good rule. I may adopt this one. I was talking with a family
Member about it and they said there's no way you can leave other children out at this age.
But my idea wasn't to leave a couple of children out of the class, I'd never do that. It is very unfair.
I feel it is less unfair if only a small selection are invited.

@TheLightProgramme this is a good way of doing it, and it was pretty much my thinking. I wouldn't dream of leaving specific children out.

@Lemonademoney so it seems. I have no problem with this really though. I am just torn as what to decide overall