Year 6 end of school party cost

[yearsixparty]

£40 a ticket. The PTA, who do a grand job, have organised this.
There’s pizza, ice cream, fizzy pop, crisps and sweets, and a fairy cake to take home. Disco, games, photo opportunities. It’s in a hut in not quite the middle of nowhere but certainly not the most obvious choice and not the easiest place to get to.

AIBU in thinking £40 is a bit steep for what sounds like a standard birthday party type set up?

We are up north so not paying London prices or similar.

YANBU £40 is a bit steep
YABU £40 is about right

40 quid?! I can only assume you are in a rich part of the north. I am in a ‘deprived’ part and that price would be prohibitively expensive for most families round here.

Our school only has a free to attend disco at school. The school would never agree to the PTA running an event with such high ticket costs as it will inevitably exclude some students. We are in London.

It's not a bargain. Your experience is extortionate. Who is providing these things for your school because I can't see it being the school, most pupils would be excluded due to the costs.

Also how can a disco cost £36 each to attend...

£36 to attend a disco and £33 each for a photo book.

That's absolutely ridiculous!!

Tickets for my DD Yr11 Prom were £40. This is at a nice hotel, with catering and DJ. Mixed demographic, but largely middle class area.

Parents are expected to transport their dc and stay on site. Parents are welcome to bring their own food and drink if they wish to eat and drink Siblings can attend at an extra cost.

Fuck that shit for a lark. If it included transport then it might be worth it. Can't think of anything worse than hanging around at one of these things.

Crikey! Ifvyoubthimk thats a bit steep
1.You are not in the real world

1. You ain't seen nothing yet...

Ps. I'm up north too.

I’ve paid £15 for my daughters leavers party, similar idea but with bouncy castle, slushy machine, paparazzi style photographer and inflatable props. We’ve also bought a red carpet, ballon arch and sparkly curtain which we will gift to the school for subsequent years to use.

My daughter just had a disco at school 5-7pm or maybe 6-8. Bit of party food, most of the boys wore their football kits and some but not all of the girls “dressed up” in party dresses. There was a ban on limos or anything similar.

£40 a ticket is mental for the year 6 disco. I paid about £25 for my daughter’s year 11 prom ticket and that was organised by a committee of parents and independent from the school who wanted nothing to do with it. 3 course meal, disco, security underage drinking in the loos at a nearby football stadium.

5yrs ago, ours was about £80/100 in total. Last day; 2hr prize giving assembly ,open top bus through town, yr book, fish n chip lunch, hoodies then picnic at next door village park, cake provided x
Year 6 leavers Disco party in school was free, pizza n ice cream, red carpet and Photo Booth !

Ours is costing the same for a similar thing. I think it's far too expensive, but I don't want to get involved in the planning so apart from a brief comment about it seeming expensive I'm going along with it. I know what the food and hall costs, and have come to the conclusion they must be spending a lot on extras, eg decorations, photo booth, my son won't care about. But I don't want you be on the organising committee and i guess some kids are more into those things, so sucking it up. It's parents who volunteered to do it, as school don't arrange a party, so can't complain.

Our PTA covers the costs for the year 6 leavers party from fundraising we do throughout the year.

we hold events for different year groups and only include a charge if it’s out of school time (for example “movie night” in the school hall is £8 per child and they get a bag of snacks and a drink. Plus a small gift of chocolate lollipop and stickers)

sounds like the PTA haven’t really done any forward planning for this at all.

my child wouldn’t be going

Absolutely extortionate! I’m charging £80 a head for an insanely fancy 3 course black tie dinner in London!!!
£40 for a kids disco is a total rip off

Does your DC want to go? They might want to go to do something else to celebrate with just their friend group which might be cheaper.

£40 is ridiculous IMO and likely to price a lot of people out of going. I would be tempted to say something to be honest. I might ask for a breakdown of costs if it’s the PTA, I genuinely don’t think it should be costing that much for room hire, half a pizza and a few prizes. Maybe they’re outsourcing services to friends who are charging whatever they want 🤷🏻‍♀️ a bit like the government and PPE during Covid.

Better be one hell of a party for over £1k for 30 kids! Especially if only £50 is hall hire

Is this the first time it's been done?
Do you have children lower down in the school?
It sounds like they're trying to emulate end of secondary school Proms. Sigh.

Then hoodies and year books. And the residential (different thing, but all part of year 6 costs). It's getting a bit silly.
DS2 missed all this because of covid.

Just say you're concerned some parents won't be able to afford it so is there a away to cut the costs. Ask to see where the money is being spent so you can see if you can get things cheaper or free through friends. If its legit costings they'll share the info.

While it sounds expensive for a year 6 party, and simply from that perspective it's probably inappropriate, I do think people do underestimate how much hosting an event for a lot of people costs when you don't have a free venue and other resources to work around. And it does sound like they've thrown everything but the kitchen sink at it. Things like photo booths and food trucks tend to be fairly pricey. So I wouldn't want that becoming the norm, but I don't think they're ripping anyone off.

The one thing with that is you might have to put your money where your mouth is! I thought ours last year was a bit extravagant, but I also wasn't going to organise it myself either... so it stayed expensive.

Why would she need to host one? The school have organised a leaving party and this is an extra. If anything hopefully the excessively high price puts lots of people off and they decide they suddenly don't need a second party.

Ours is £20 and sounds like a similar event.

I can’t get my head around any of this, surely the end of primary school is an assembly then everyone signs shirts, we sent in food for a class party. This was it when I was at school and when my DD’s were at school 15 years since the younger left primary school (year 5). For the end of high school (year 9) they had a “prom” but that was a disco in the hall, funded by the pta, the dj was the headmasters son who can a gift card as a thank you, there was lemonade and sweets for sale, very few fancy cars, novelty however was all the rage so think 8 kids on a tractor trailer, back of big brothers motorcycle or neighbours car, didn’t hear of any rentals and DD’s dress cost £25, no one wore full puffy dresses and many lads wore smart jeans and a jacket

It's a bit ridiculous but mainly due to the fact they already have a party organised so why the need for a second one? Doesn't make sense at all. If the PTA wants a few more bells and whistles then why not offer to fund the party the school are organising and do it for free? That's what our PTA do. There's no cost for the venue as held on school grounds but they donate funds for decor/DJ/photo booth and tuck shop. That's all they really need surely?