School nativity plays - no younger siblings allowed in the audience!

[TamsinG]

Rather ironic I feel, given that these are Nativity plays! Have other parents encountered this? And how do other parents feel about such a rule?

The rationale is that badly behaved younger children can drown out the voices of the children actually supposed to be performing ( rather than your toddler who is bawling and beating the floor because he has dropped his biscuit -providing a good example of how to make one's voice heard without amplification). So I understand the point...but surely we can just leave when the toddlers start dismantling the electrical equipment? Just kidding. I'd leave before then, honest. There is always the chance that you get that magical moment where your toddler gazes adoringly at the DC1 now elevated to stardom, while DC1 basks in the attention....Also, for me it creates quite a difficult situation as DH works away, and not many other family members around to look after DC2 while I admire and applaud DC1.

Parents, teachers - any comments?

Should I shut up and start investigating childcare, or am I right to feel somewhat aggrieved at the exclusion of DS2?

Definitely no toddlers.
Our PTA would run a creche for younger siblings...worked really well.

our PTA runs a creche for young siblings too. there just isnt room for them in the place our play is run. we are getting many complaints from the pushiest of parents and i am totally on the side of the headteacher. so much nicer without them there!

Ours is a small school, and I think all the mothers would remove a noisy toddler. The school always welcomes siblings at school events and the Christmas play is no different. It'd be a nuisance to have to get a babysitter to go to the Christmas play.

Can't you just double up with another parent who is going to a different performance and baby sit for each other.

I have tried to do that, DownbytheRiverside, never works because the other parent always has closer friends/family they'd rather leave their younger DC with. Or they simply don't want to get emboiled with any sort of chain of repaying the favour, I guess. Very frustrating. :(

I have offered to run a creche for PTA meetings & other events; everyone looks at me like I'm crazy (I am CRB checked to the hilt).

There'd be uproar if younger siblings banned at our school, at least for day performances; plenty of grumbling as it is, that babes in arms or toddlers must have own tickets for events.

This year's nativity is the first performance I know of at which children are banned. I know of one parent who was hopping mad with the school but I pointed out to her that she was getting angry with the wrong people. It's the fault of the parents at the last couple of things - harvest festival and something else - who failed to take out noisy babies/toddlers. I think the deputy head actually had to have a word with one of them at the time.

I think it's such a shame as the school is a very welcoming one but, knowing how much work and effort goes into all of the performances, I unfortunately have to say that the school has made the right decision. However, I might ask the head if they would consider letting the handful who can't get childcare watch the final dress rehearsal. As my youngest is now in reception I can suggest that without having a personal bias, so they might go for it.

Usually the children are coached so badly and speak too quietly & fast & not clearly
Yes some children are quiet or fast in my nativity, but they are 4 and 6 years old! We can coach til kingdom come, but children are nervous and many have naturally quiet voices and on the day they are nervous. It's not through lack of teacher effort. Or maybe we should only choose the children with loud, clear speaking voices instead of giving anyone a speaking part who wants one.

Our school has this rule and everybody supports it. We had a situation at nursery last year where the parents where trying to "shu-shu" the younger ones and nobody could hear anything.

But: our school provides room for a creche. We have three performances as the school is small and not all parents of the 190 pupils can come at the same time. Therefore there are always some parents free to volunteer.

I think it's a fair enough rule for toddlers. Our school runs a creche for babies over 6 months. But I do feel a wee bit aggrieved that my ebf newborn is also excluded. I totally get it though.

I think the No todddlers rule makes sense. I also think it's a great idea to offer another show/regearsal that Mummies and toddlers can attend if they so wish.
Unfortunately, some Mums are totally oblivious to their baldly behaved toddlers and it can ruin the performance, distract the audience, upset the performers.

Abigail you're right to pull me up on that, I didn't mean to make it sound like the staff don't try or only natural-born public speakers should get parts; I think maybe school staff haven't had enough experience in drama, sometimes, though, because I have helped out during rehearsals & itched to say "You really need to tell that child how to speak slower and louder and try to euniciate more, I know they can do it!" and also told simple things like not turning their body away from the audience and holding their heads up when talking, not mumbling to the floor (again, children who have the nerve, this is not a problem of shyness). Years of sitting thru assemblies, it's clear the pupils aren't coached enough in "stagecraft" if you will, I know the teachers have more important things to learn & achieve, but it's second nature to notice these things if you were forced to attend Junior Theatre like me.

Also, the teachers don't end up sitting in the back of crowded audience, so perhaps don't realise how bad the acoustics are.

Me too support the "no babies/toddlers" rule. As someone said, some children only get a couple of lines that they are wildly excited about saying and then some baby/toddler starts kicking off and the moment is lost. In my experience most mothers/fathers don't take crying babies out because they want to see their child - that's understandable but it isn't fair. Like the idea of creches or 2 performances. My gr/dghtr was Alice in Alice in Wonderland in year 6 of her primary school and one child made a terrible din while she was singing her solo. I could have throttled the mother - I stared hard at her but she didn't take the hint............aaaargh.

lljkk are you for real! You thank Abigail for picking you up and then in my opinion you add insult to injury by more or less repeating what you said the first time. And children not coache enough in stagecraft how much time do you think teachers have.....maybe they should all be made to attend Junior Theatre like you and then it stagecraft would come second nature to them! I don't know if you mean to sound superior and vaguely insulting but that's how you are coming across.

One of the joys of nativities and other plays is seeing little children come on stage and say their lines too quietly and too quickly - it's par for the course and brings tears to my eyes. And teachers do very often sit at the back of the hall - we are talking about little children in a school play here not the RSC.

Fantastic idea. It wouldn't happen if people took their toddler out at the first sign of a squeak, but unfortunately they don't.

They often have a special one for younger siblings-but ban them from the others-it seems fair.

NO toddlers. Naughty or loud children are never taken out. Children shouting out or running around is only cute if your child is the one doing it (or not even then)

Last year at the nursery nativity one family brought an ill school aged child that cried the whole way through. The poor boy just wanted to be home to bed.

My 3 year old is always captivated by the school plays, he sits on my lap quietly totally lost on the performance and utters not a word but that's him, last play his slightly older pre school friend sitting behind us made a racket on and off through the whole performance while kicking the back of my chair the whole time. All toddlers are different and all parents react in different ways to it. Had my ds acted like his friend did I would have removed him (even though I would have had a very heavy heart at missing the rest of the show) but his Mum just shushed him from time to time and stayed put, we all react in different ways and have different thresholds of what is manageable/acceptable from pre-school children during school performances. There is no way for schools to ban pre-school children on a case by case basis so they have to draw a firm line somewhere. In the case of our school they do an afternoon performance where pre-school children and babies are welcome and then 2 evening shows where no child under 7 is allowed (this is helped by being a small village school and plays involve all year groups excluding reception who have their own nativity, babies and pre-school children welcome performed in the afternoon. Reception children get to see the main school show at dress rehearsal so no need for parents while children in both shows to take the younger ones again).
It works well at our school I have to say although I do have the pang from time to time that I always get the afternoon show where I may miss parts of the play due to young children in the audience while dh gets to go to the nice quiet evening performance but hey, I could opt not to take ds and go to an evening show myself only I know how much ds enjoys the plays, they really are so well done I enjoy the ones where my dd is only singing in the choir just as much as they ones where she is actually on the stage.
The idea that the 'cute' interruptions from pre-school children add to the play is really rather frustrating, your pre-schoolers antics are cute and funny to you but not to all the other parents, especially the ones who just missed their child's moment in the spotlight because of the ever so cute shout out of another parents pre-schooler drowned them out/made them miss their cue/upstaged them.

Usually the children are coached so badly and speak too quietly & fast & not clearly,

I am speechless!

My DD's school nativity has a no pre-school children rule. I think it's a very sensible rule as some parents seem to think it's ok for their baby/toddler to screech the place down.

I will be going alone to one performance and DH will be going to the other so we can take it in turns to look after 4 month old DS.

Sorry to have caused offense.
I just wish I could hear what most the children were saying. Most dialogue rather unclear in all Navity plays I've attended. But it's nothing to do with preschooler noise, and instead comes down to lots of other factors (in our case). Lousy hall, too, which I know no one can fix.

How serious is this nativity play? (I have no experience of attending one yet). Maybe there's a correlation between failing to respond to a situation (ie remove kicking off toddler) and general failure to be aware of any situation said adult finds themselves in...these people are often blissfully unaware pains in the proverbial and certainly jangle my nerves! There's a generalisation for you

Oh no. Our school hasn't mentioned anything about siblings. I have an exclusively bf baby and the show is at 2pm. Am I going to be refused entry. I've nobody to have him.

Another school that has one performance where younger children are allowed and another when they are actively discouraged.

Toddlers are not predicable and some parents won't take them out. We had to take DS2 out of one play as he was starting to get unsettled and we could see which direction things were going to head. Its really not fair on the children who have worked hard on their play to have it disrupted.

lljkk - maybe you could go on another thread, because you just keep repeating your offensive remarks about children's nativity plays. These are small children facing a lot of strangers. Maybe you should stop going to nativity plays and enjoy professional theatre instead!

I don't think toddlers enhance most experiences, and most other parents probably won't find their appreciative clapping or whatever cute. Dump em with someone or don't come, I would have thought.

Every school performance I have been to has had at least one toddler screaming through a large part of it. That's despite the HT asking parents to take out children if they need to. The school's nativity play is even in a church that has a sound proofed room from which parents can see and hear their performing children - and they still won't take screaming toddlers out. It's a case of if everyone behaved responsibly there would be no issue, but because a few don't it spoils it for everyone.