to be really annoyed about school Christmas plays

[bellissima]

...when they pester you to get a horribly complicated costume (god knows how working mothers cope), make them learn their lines every night (age 6), ration out the tickets and THEN, when inevitably some are ill (in DD's class's case quite a few with some horrible croupy cough thing) refuse to postpone the thing or at least do a rerun next week. DD devastated, insisting she can go in etc (she can't) and I'm CROSS. It's not just one or two inevitable absences but quite a few. grrr. end of rant.

Making the costumes is the best bit!

Except we had a soldier this year and they provided that. I so wanted a three-king. Great fun.

I think DS's school does it very well. 3 performances, morning one where little ones welcome, afternoon and evening. Two free tickets each, then further available if any left. A few parents go in to help with costumes leaving the rest of us with nothing more complicated than a coloured T-shirt. And the head positively encouraging us to take photos as he said he thinks it's important to have them.

The angel Gabriel was a stand in as the original had called in sick that morning. She had spent all morning learning lines, was brilliant and got a special mention at the end. Only thing was it went on a bit and everyone got a numb bum sitting on the tiny seats. Must have been a huge amount of work for the teachers.

sounds like a nightmare. I have all this to come. sigh.

our school does the complicated costumes

I never complain as I can't go in to help (due to work) and am well aware that there are armies of mums and dads and grans who do help!

only gripe I have is that the play is at 2pm which means I can't go to work before or afterwards. I can get the day off but I imagine there are a lot of people who can't .

i spose they can't really rescedule a play around illness. it would never happen. everyone is ill this time of year. best just get it over and done with.

What I never understand about school plays and their reluctance to have younger dc there is .....why not open the nursery staff it with mid day supervisors and nursery nurses not needed at the play .....the children get cared for and get a taste of nursery and parents could pay £1 for the pleasure!!!.

I remember ds2 being in trouble for 'eating the myrrh kings hat'.....hed eaten the fruit pastel jewels stuck on the crown - never trust ds2 with your crown mumsnetters .

Friend's DD was a camel last year - they bought a lovely camel costume from one of the high street shops, normal price as the other costumes.

However she could have just got away with brown colours clothes and a cardboard hump attached round her.

Sadly some children are ill on the day of the performance. It can't be helped. But you can't expect schools to re arrange everything for a handful of children. With everything else schools have to pack in over these two weeks it wouldn't be possible.

So in that sense YABU.

The photos and videos thing - most schools send out forms when their children start school, which is where parents agree or not to having their child photographed. If even just one parent objects then the school cannot allow any parent to get the camera out. We had to check through the 90 forms for our Y1 yesterday and fortunately this year noone had ticked NO so cameras were allowed.

Most schools do do reruns, but these are usually before the main performance(s) for parents. Where I work each year group has done a couple of full dress rehearsals - one on the stage at the place they are performing (no audience) and one in front of the rest of the school.

We don't do reruns after the proper plays though, which for us was yesterday morning. Today we will send all costumes home and move onto the next lots of stuff we have to do before the holiday.

We have some costumes in school and some brought in by the children. I provided the Mary costume for the girl in my class as I knew my DD had one that would fit her. 3 or 4 of the children did not want a costume so did not wear one - granted they weren't the main characters fortunately. Some of the costumes just involved having white t shirts and leggins/tights, or a green top with a cut out mask.

Oh - and out of 90 Y1 children - not a single one has cried in any of our performances.

Hulababy: I doubt that DS's school has anything like a coherent policy on photographs and videos, largely because they don't really understand the issue. That's why we get officious nonsense about the data protection act, despite the fact that they've issued everyone with a programme with a full cast list and are selling DVDs of the performance. Even if they meant child protection and just got it wrong in the letter, that would completely negate any child protection offered by banning photography and video recording.

To be honest, I didn't want to take photos or videos of the less than 30 seconds DS made it onto the stage during the 90 minute play his year group put on and I certainly won't be buying the DVD. I was simply mentioning it as further illustration of how annoyingly bonkers and inconsistent the bloody awful school is. And, for the record, I don't think all schools are dreadful (his old one was considerably better), I just think DS's school is a nightmare. I'd move him school's but he went to 3 different schools in 3 years (because we moved city twice) and I think some stability might be good for him, even if I loathe his current school.

Schools not school's. Why is iPhone autocorrect so annoying?