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 !

And be prepared to go to A LOT of parties in the next few months

It’ll cost you a fortune if you invite the whole class. Make sure they have a list as some parents try and sneak siblings in to the party list. I’ve paid for my other dc to play in the soft play whilst the other goes to the party, which is different. But be aware of CF.

It’s mainly people invite the whole class at that age as it can be hard to distinguish friendships.

Do what suits and works for you! Don’t feel pressured into inviting the whole class, especially if you can’t afford it.

Go with the 5 and hand invites out after school.
Hopefully no one will take offence and your little one will still be invited to whole class parties. It’s really hard at the start of term so I feel lots of parents just wait and see what others are doing!

Five kids is absolutely fine (and no, your DC won’t be excluded from whole class parties as a result, unless the parents find out about your party and are incredibly thin skinned - all of them!). Honestly, very few kids need their entire class, some of whose names they don’t even reliably know yet, and probably some siblings, haring around a soft play for two hours, when you’ve indicated it’s a financial stretch.

Have a smaller party where you can hopefully get to know some of the parents a bit better (less chaos), the kids will have fun, you won’t have a mountain of generic presents to deal with, you won’t spend £££ on 30x party bags, and you’ll come away happier and saner.

My rule always was less than half, or the whole class, you just want to avoid the situation where you've got the majority of the class with a few left out. It's amazing she's got a few select friends already in reception, I think most kids haven't narrowed down by this point which is why all class parties are more common when they're younger.

Mine are teenagers now but never had whole class parties as we always had them at home and the DC had friends from outside school they wanted to invite too. When whole class parties happened, they were invited to them. I would stick with inviting the five friends and let the group of them actually spend some time together.

In reception we did whole class, village hall and an entertainer.

then from year 1 we started doing smaller parties with the children they had developed firm friendships with.

You can do either!
If you go for the whole class party, I'd hire a hall with a bouncy castle or face painters or whatever. At least that way you can suss out the classmates and their parents!
Then next year maybe just a select few for an activity or Build A Bear or something?
But doing something with just five is absolutely fine too.

It's fine to do a soft play party with the 5 friends. When my DD was in reception there was a range of whole class parties, small soft play parties, and 1 house party with just a few kids. My DD wasn't invited to them all, but we didn't mind.

5 is fine and more like a small play date than a party. We have alternated between this and class party each year for our children.

As a pp said, the problems trickle in when inviting 10+ as it’s big enough to be a proper party and the tit for tat begins with invites.

I agree with others that 5 is fine. As a parent of an older child you are also in the strong position of, to some extent, setting the way for others to follow.

My DC were only ever invited to about 2 or 3 whole class parties each during their time in infants/early juniors, so I've never really understood why they were heralded as such a "thing". Many families don't have parties or have a small one every couple of years. With cost of living increasing, I imagine the number of whole class parties will drop even further.

At this age I would do an all class party if i could afford it. At year 2 or 3, parties get smaller because friendships start to form.

I think parties should be

All class
All boys
All girls

Or

a small group of close friends ie 5 mates.

Many parents do reciprocal invites though- so you need to think about that.

We did whole class for the first couple of years and smaller groups after that when they had close friends. It's also an opportunity to meet some parents which can be very useful.

You can't invite the whole class, parties work off per head basis, it would cost you loads, plus our soft play parties have a maximum number of kids who can attend.
It's my sons birthday soon, we're going for 10 kids (mix of cousins & school friends). This is costing £155, so already that is expensive enough. Yes he has been invited to parties in the past but some of those kids won't be invited to his party (he told me who he wants to come), and that's just how it is. You can't be expected to invite everyone, nor return the favour for going to their parties. If parents get huffy then let them, but I think there is a good general understanding that not everyone can possibly get invited to parties so some kids will inevitably be left out.

Forgot to add I too will only be having 5 school friends at my sons party (he's in reception also)
So, YNBU at all.

We did not go to every single birthday day party we had invites for we had other things on like weekends away, visiting people, having a day out, who has time to go with every invite?

And no we knew not every child could come to our child's it is not possible

Five is fine in a large class, my only worry would be that they are so fickle at that age that her 5 favourites by November may be completely different. I did class parties in reception and year one and now by year 2 real friendships are starting to form so it is easier to invite smaller groups.

*I'd always say:
less than half the class = fine
all the boys, all the girls = fine if old fashioned
a small group = fine

I'd say the same. It doesn't matter what approach is taken as long as it's not excluding one or two children (good reasons aside)

Many parents do reciprocal invites though- so you need to think about that

I've never found this - otherwise the older children in the year would end up going to more parties than others. IME parents ask the child who they want to invite (to a determined limit) and those children are invited (with reminders if they've forgotten someone). At Reception age there is high chance that your best friend in October will not be your best friend in December, so it makes no sense to slavishly "invite back".
Also, a lot of parents are cognisant that not all parents can afford parties.

This. Exactly.

Many parents do reciprocal invites though- so you need to think about that

If there are weidos that do this, it isn't really much of a loss to you or your dc if they weren't invited.
I can't imagine ANYBODY having the energy and finances to hold a whole class party, then going to the trouble of finding out which children in the class have already had their birthday (how would they even do this???) and then striking them from the list if they find a child has had a birthday and not invited said person's child
This has to be MN at it's weirdest.

Thank you so much everybody! Me and my partner have had a chat and I think we are going to go with all girls.
I've spoken to my daughter and she listed a few girls, I asked about boys and she said no. She doesn't like any of them in her class 🤦🏻‍♀️😆
So seems like all girls it is!

My child's birthday is right at the start of September. In reception we were invited to a whole stream of whole class birthday parties all year so I then did a big 6th birthday party at the start of year one to reciprocate and give him the memory of his own big party. It seems to have been the last whole class party that happened for his year group as since then the party invites have dwindled significantly. So I think it is the norm to have big 5th birthday parties in reception and then smaller more exclusive ones as they get older.

Inviting all the girls is fine though, and I would ask the teachers if they could help distribute invites, as some schools just do it discreetly anyway by slipping invites into bags before hometime.

great idea!