It’s kicking off on the class WhatsApp…

[Creamice]

So limited number of tickets for (after) school event.
It is now sold out. Parents are upset that other parents have bought tickets for their younger children meaning that school pupils can’t all attend. Though I suspect there were never enough tickets for all pupils anyway…
should younger (preschool) siblings be allowed to attend? And if so do they need tickets? Discuss.

Any event planned for the infant school children should have enough tickets for all of the infant school children to attend. In this case, tickets should have been limited to the actual children and not their siblings. Whoever has organised it needs to be educated in how to plan school events!

Why are older siblings allowed to go to an infants dance? If you don't have enough space to invite everyone then it needs to be separated into year groups. It's bizarre that siblings are invited.

Twins and singleton in the relevant year groups.

Tbh if I was organising that, I’d limit it to school children in the infant school. That seems pretty standard for a school disco.

But it’s not something I’d bother to complain about.

Well okay, then just do year groups as I said and do away with the ticket system. You don't need tickets for events like this is it's done properly. My kids are at a tiny school and they still manage to run every event / dance / play with everyone invited. If the infant school dance didn't mess about inviting older siblings it'd be fine.

Yes, it literally never occurred to me that a school event would be inclusive of preschoolers.
But these are the same people who make you feel bad that you haven’t invited their preschooler to birthday party of primary aged child.
I understand the issue - I have several children and have had to decline parties if I couldn’t make it work with my younger ones. And I have also had to pay in advance for younger siblings of party guests to attend if one parent was away. But other families have just pitched up as a full family and assumed that their preschooler was invited to said party which costs me extra.

People may need to do that if no childcare at time of the event. Partner at work and grandparents not around…

I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be annoying. I was just in shock that our WhatsApp group had descended into anarchy over an event.

Just saw the title. I love class Whatsapp kick offs. We had many. The most crazy one being about - secret santa pressies - or not. I'll read yours properly now.

Exactly. Same at ours. A simple system that would prevent a lot of the drama mentioned in this thread.

Is it a drop-off or are parents expected to stay with their children? If the former then the PTA (or whomever) will need to re-evaluate their risk assessment to ensure supervision ratios are appropriate for younger children. Our PTA does not allow children in the nursery class to attend the infants disco for this reason.

Depends on the event, doesn’t it? If it’s an after school halloween event, then yes, the organisers cocked up in opening it to siblings without ensuring there were enough tickets for actual school pupils to attend.

Parents who are peeved should direct their frustration at the organisers, though, not parents who have simply bought tickets for children/siblings if this was permitted.

Some parents just get really passionate! We had a similar thing with a church event been ticketed and it went a bit wild 😂 I was working so just enjoyed the drama of the what’s app and the shock on the gloating mums faces when I said I didn’t have a ticket nor intended to get one (basically the goat was lost on me 😂)

Mix of both - parents can stay or drop off. One would assume not dropping off their toddlers!
However, I was always shocked that every time I went swimming with my under 3s I was told that I had to stay with them and couldn’t leave them in the pool alone - I thought surely that would be obvious!

Can they not provide enough tickets for all the pupils?

when our school had this issue with capacity we said no siblings and if possible find another adult to chaperone your child to maximise as many tickets as possible for the kids. No way should kids from other years / schools get priority over kids whose school disco it is.

It is a ticketed event with limited tickets and the tickets are allocated on a first come first served basis so I would say that the disappointed people should simply have booked their tickets earlier. That's it. That's the message. The lesson that needs to be learnt is that the early bird catches the worm. This is a skill issue on the part of the parents who left it too late and next time they should book much earlier.

If the space can only hold 100, there can only be 100 people in that space. If it's numbers based on safe ratios of adults to children, same, that's that.

If someone has younger children and the event was open for any age under 7 then that's also fine. If the event was only for 4-7 year olds then the tickets shouldn't have been sold to the 0-3 year olds.

We've had a range of approaches to our Halloween parties over the years - they're held in half term not after school but it's not limited to children who are in the school. And it's lovely when they can bring along siblings who are maybe at the local special school, or cousins or friends who live in our area but go to the Welsh medium school. We've held 2 or 3 with different age limits and the main message from parents is that they prefer when all their children can come to the same one. We have to limit how many we have as it's too much to ask of our volunteers to do more. It always sells out and it's a motivation for people to book it early.

Are you sitting comfortably? with popcorn, and a giant fizzy drink? I mean why waste a good cat fight?

but if its school pupils who are losing out then that is wrong and unfair. Should be enough tickets for all pupils to attend.

If its a school party then no pre school child should be allowed to attend and the parents buying them tickets is bang out of order IMHO

They asked if this was allowed before tickets went on sale and were told yes and that preschoolers would be accommodated.

I realise that you're not organising this event or even attending it but I absolutely guarantee that there will be some CFs who try to drop off their toddlers.

Yes, I’m not unsympathetic - when I’m off my OH is working and vice versa. But I still wouldn’t have assumed my preschoolers were invited.

They shouldn't be when it means that there aren't enough tickets for actual school children.
The parents are right to complain to the school and the head should be refunding the tickets for the pre schoolers so they can be sold to the kids who go to the school.

Surely the tickets should go to the children at the school and 2 parents/carers

Oh God this is giving me flashbacks to the PTA. Organising events for NO WAGES and based around what the school said but getting alllllll the shit for it. People need to grow up if their kids miss out IMO. They won't though.