To think that all children in year R should be able to go to their school disco?

[cocovira]

My 4 year old daughter has just started in year R. Today I got an email from the PTA with information about the school disco, which is in October. Each year group is at a different time so year R’s disco will be from the end of the school day until 4pm. I know from a mum friend that pupil premium children have been able to book their tickets for free all week whereas for everyone else they go on sale at the weekend. This wouldn’t be a problem, but there is a limited number of tickets with a waiting list for those who don’t manage to get a ticket. On the website there is even a live countdown to when booking opens. I don’t think the limited number of tickets is down to the ratio of adult helpers to children as I haven’t received anything about asking for volunteers - I’d happily volunteer if it meant more children could go!

AIBU to think that all children should be welcome to their school disco?

@PurpleThistle7our school doesn’t allow families and siblings to go, just literally the children who attend the school from the same year

Pupil premium maybe high at your school? The assumption is that these children have less chance of parents being able to afford a ticket. Plus the PTA won’t be privy to this info so need to sort it separately.

Also having enough volunteers for one whole school is tricky. We split ours 3 ways. Early years, KS1 and KS2. It’s a bloody long evening and with reception we often ask parents to stay.

What do you get for £5? Don’t forget the money benefits the school your child attends. 40 minutes is more than long enough for a school disco. I’m obviously talking as someone who helps organise and gives up an a large part of my Friday evenings for school discos.

@PurpleThistle7 and parents don’t attend with their children!

What are premium pupils? (I no longer live in the UK)

And no, I don't think they should have the disco of all the children can't go. My 4 year old has been to parties/ kids disco type things on holidays and loves them. He'd be really annoyed if all his friends were going and he couldn't

There can be a different capacity limit for an event that has children sitting down vs moving around. We had a magic show for younger kids as the hall could accommodate whole year groups sitting down but the disco capacity was only around 75% of the older years.

The ticket countdown is likely to be a feature of whatever booking website is being used so I wouldn’t hold this against the organisers. They might not have any say about it.

Ours does reception at about 4pm in the summer term. Basically go home and get dressed and come back. Or sometimes it’s been straight after and bring clothes in a bag.

Year 1/2 and then 3,4,5&6 separate ones on different days/times later on.

All kids are welcome! You can’t exclude some! Never heard of a school doing that.

She literally said “the more money the school makes”. I don’t know why you thought she was insinuating the PTA would take the money for themselves.

Why do you care so much? Pupil premium pupils will have paid too…….on the pupil premium money the school receive because they are pupil premium kids! Their place has already been paid for

Our school has very limited tickets for the Christmas disco because of fire safety (though it’s baffling that fire safety counts for the disco but not for the Christmas singing where the hall is so full that there are parents standing outside the door). Only about half the kids can go. It sucks for those who want to go and can’t (and there are always desperate pleas to let people know if you have to cancel). But I guess if there were no disco the PTA wouldn’t make money, and the school doesn’t want the hassle of being open after hours to run a second disco.

@EverMerge I understand that the PP children have less of a chance to afford a ticket, so I don’t have an issue with it being free for them, but they can get a ticket earlier than everyone else so it is surely giving them an advantage over everyone else if the tickets are limited?! My daughter has less of a chance to go than a PP child.

Even if pupil premium is high why does that mean they get first dibs? That’s really unfair, well the whole thing is unfair not having enough tickets for each child!

I wouldn’t assume the ticket countdown means it’s impossible to get tickets, it’s often part of the platform/used to build hype.

And???

@Blueroses99interesting, didn’t know that about the capacity limit for sitting or moving etc.

@Rooroobearbecause my daughter might not get a ticket when she’d love to go?!

@caravelawild that the fire safety is different, had no idea!

Of course I understand the PTA money all goes back into the school, but obviously my priority is my child and whether she will be able to go to an event with her friends or not. I’m sure she will get a ticket as I will be dutifully refreshing the page at the time of the ticket drop (lol) but I’m just pointing out that I think the system is unfair!

you aren’t going to have loads of pp dc so I wouldn’t stress about them getting first dibs.

@Rooroobeardo you think it’s ok to give an advantage to pupil premium children rather than give everyone equal opportunity

But they’ve already paid so what’s your issue

The money had been paid for the disco already…..it’s been allocated. So therefore they have a space

But your dd may have a better opportunity at so many other things. I would absolutely feel the same as you before I worked at a school. But you see the different experiences and advantages between being on PP and not.

We are talking about very low income families and children in care or on some type of involvement from SS.

To be fair I really like the approach.

I completely misread this, thank you so much for pointing it out. I've reported my quote and asked for it to be deleted, apologies for this 💐

Each pp child at a school will give your school £1550 included in that is things like residentials and school discos. Your school would be worse off without these pupils £1550

@Evermerge ok but she’s 4 and just started school and might be left out of something she would love to do that her best friend (a PP child) is going to

Yes, it is. Your actual issue is that there wasn’t sufficient space for everybody, which is a different matter.

Yes after working in a school I totally agree, PP pupils are already behind the starting line, anything that might try to even things up for them is the best approach.

And it doesn't always get spent on the entitled pupil themselves, other children benefit too.