Special dressing up days at school - number day nightmare

[Bluebells81]

Our primary school takes part in days where the children where special clothing - today being 'Number Day'.

These are always massively stressful for my DC (9). We make a plan led by them. Sometimes I relent and buy some rubbish off Amazon that will be exactly the same as half the rest of the kids (e.g for Egyptian Day, Victorian Day etc), but generally try to avoid this and make something from what we have at home.

As day nears DC gets increasingly stressed about their outfit - generally I think they'd just rather wear school uniform every day and not have the disruption to routine. Today, yet again, we had the mother of all tantrums about their outfit and were all late for school with everyone crying. How can I make this the fun educational experience that it is supposed to be!? Or is it a nightmare for other families too?

If i could i would just keep them home.

I love World Book Day but I am militant that it has to be mainly cobbled together from things you've got already. The whole point is that everyone does their best but it's all a bit approximate. The internet has ruined it because once someone has bought an actual Alice in Wonderland costume online, anything homemade looks very subpar in comparison (see also birthday cakes) so now it's stressful and not fun 😞

It's absolutely fine to colour in a bit of paper yellow and write Golden Ticket on it - pin it to normal home clothes and you're Charlie from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Its stressful when the school wants something at a couple of days notice when every penny is accounted for until payday and you are at work so even if you had the ability and fabrics to be making stuff you dont have the time

I remeber thinking it would be an idea for someone to make good quality outfits thwt could be rented out for these days. Leave deposit and get it back when you return outfit. Unfortunatley i dont have the sewing skills

I don't really stress about it too much, maybe as DD is younger. I don't think the school wants parents to slave away for hours or buy polyester Amazon outfits destined for landfill.
She just wore her own clothes for number day. We didn't have any with a number on - but the school said if no number clothes then any is fine.
For Victorian day I ordered from vinted, seller didn't post in time so she wore her Elsa dress 😅 and actually so did a few others!
The wear yellow day she just wore some rainbow clothes. It isn't a big deal in our house!

This thread is a revelation, as I thought we were the only ones who hated these! DS alwyas ends up in tears saying he's not going to school as it causes him so much anxiety. Luckily there seem to be less and less of those days, in reception/Year 1 it was constant!

Sympathies!

Surely as part of the SLT he should be encouraging the school to keep these days to a minimum??

Is there an educational benefit to them?
They are perceived to be fun, but do the kids really enjoy them?
Huge cost esp for families with multiple kids.
Boys outfits are often all in 1 jumpsuits that fasten up the back, a pain to go to the toilet in
Environmental impact 500 outfits worn once or twice in the bin, even getting passed on.

Our headteacher limited these days as much as possible as said they were a nightmare for the staff too - kids were stressed/overexcited and didn’t obey normal rules. She said that if if coincided with a windy day she knew she was going to have utter chaos and destruction. For no added benefits. But the local authorities enforced some .

It was so stressful! And you could never reuse the outfits. They went in the dressing up box but were never used as much as the other dressing up box stuff. I think about once I managed to lend DD’s friend a Roman toga for something (DD herself was, of course, cast as something that required an entirely new costume 🤦‍♀️) but that was it.

I made a tunic from an old pillow case ( with braiding and buttons for decoration) for DS 1 Aztec day. Said tunic also worked as tunic for DS 2 Roman day and Egyptian day with different belts/sashes/hats. 🤣

A large number of children don't dress up on these days. Mostly because they forget. Why the anxiety? They are completely optional.

Just chill- I think you are winding the kids up into the tantrum, because the stress is really yours- just draw some numbers on some calico/ rags you have at home and tack them on- done, it doesn't need all the drama. I've never met a schoolchild yet that would rather"wear school uniform every day".

They did number day at our school last year and I just bought some sticky numbers from amazon and put them on a jumper. They didn't do it this year.
My eldest hates dressing up so I always dreaded these days but my youngest seems a bit more keen.

Because nobody ever wants their kid to be the only one, we all think makes us look like we couldn't be arsed, forgot, couldnt afford, don't care about our kids.

We also know kids are sheep, they want to be the same as their pals, not be the odd one out

Schools never make it out as dress up days are optional its always 'come as xxx'

Thank goodness that DT’s school didn’t do any of this. Both would have refused.

If it's any consolation, my friend who is a TA in year 6 was telling us about number day at her school and they have sworn off doing it again. Apparently most of the kS2 children turned up with 6 7 on various t-shirts and hoodies so the whole day was massively disruptive as the children were constantly shouting/ screeching 6 7.

That's hilarious 😂 .

I personally thought it was funny. She however was rather scarred by the whole ordeal on Friday.

This is all behind me now, but a friend missed a small night out because she was making a calculator costume. I felt that was probably pushing the show off crafty mum vibe a bit far. My dc used to wear football/cricket shirts.

I guess you didn't have to be there 🤣😉

Sadly I am (a) useless at making anything - crafts, costumes, sewing I’m just utterly dysfunctional at it and find it insanely stressful and (b) am a single parent and sole carer to a child with mild SEN plus have an incredibly demanding full time job. Afraid for me the only option was buying the wretched things

This made me laugh as well. Surely schools could have foreseen this was going to be a nightmare this year. My 6 year old thinks 6-7 is hilarious still and will cackle with laughter my time 6-7 is said. It sounds like it is still very much a thing among younger kids. My older one just eye rolls and says it’s ‘so last year’ so maybe it might be starting to be on the way out (hopefully!).

These days wind me up, this past 10 days we've had numbers day just gone, greek day tomorrow (wear holiday clothes...yeah cos I holiday somewhere wet and cold 🙄) and Friday is express yourself day so a fave outfit then have world book day next month and newsletter has Egyptian day mentioned for next term 🫩

I used to hate this my DC are much older adults now but Amazon wasnt a thing and it was all so very expensive I didnt have the money to waste so had to think very laterally with cardboard boxes as pyramids, sewing onto Trackie bottoms etc etc
My kids hated it too as they knew they would never be going in an elaborate and expensive outfit

But the local authorities enforced some .

Nah!
Under local management of schools LA’s do not have any rights in dictating what schools choose to do.

Mine love it which can be equally unfortunate as she seems to think we can just buy things with a weeks notice and no money, honestly sometimes wish she would rather just go in uniform 😅 to be honest I usually just send her in normal clothes and the school are fine with it, not a lot of kids dress up in my daughters school they tend to just wear normal clothes and call it a day, luckily only got one in primary school now so less stress with the whole thing, my daughters high school doesn't do any none uniform days much to her dismay 😂