Is this really a breach of data or just plain ridiculous???

[ishouldprobablygettherapy]

So I need to send birthday party invites out fairly soon. My daughter has not long started reception. I've asked the teacher yesterday morning if I can please have a list of either all of the children in the class with the girls highlighted, or just a list of the girls. So I am able to write the invites with my daughter.
This is a fairly normal question - in my opinion.. as how else would you go about it ? (No school WhatsApp groups etc)
She told me this was probably not possible, and they will have to essentially hold a talk about this, as handing out the children's names is not allowed.
I can somewhat understand.. but on the other hand I find it ridiculous.
When I was at school (which isn't really that long ago) we are able to request register lists from the teacher to play with at breaks, lunchtimes ... and they weren't accounted for and nearly always came home.
Forgive me if I'm being stupid... but I cannot think of another way to go about doing the invites without having the children's names !!
What do I do?

I'm amazed that there isn't a class WhatsApp group , thought this was standard. Before WhatsApp it was Facebook groups

@bellsbuss I thought there might be, but no. I think for many reasons.
The school is in a highly populated area, and I think a lot of the parents (me included) have sent their children there as it's the only option they had. (Saying this.. it is actually nice school. I do like it)
Most of the parents if not all of them will not interact with the others at all. Completely ignore eachother bar one or 2 that like a quick chat with the teacher.
And the other reason I think is that the school is incredibly diverse, and English is not the first language for a lot of the parents.

This is one of those times where I realise how completely different it is to live in a small rural village to how most other people live.

I know every single one of the 15 and 11 children that are in my two children's year at school. I know where they live, I know the basics of their family life, I know their siblings, I know their parents on first name terms and I know what cars they drive. For most of them I know roughly the date they were born within a few days and even if they were breastfed or not depending on if their mums came to the village playgroup.

The teachers would look at me like I had two heads if I asked for a class list because we all know each other and the whole school only amounts to fewer than 100 children and perhaps 40-50 families, most of whom are related in various degrees of separation.

I'm boggling at the idea that people wouldn't know each and every child in their child's class but completely recognise that it's probably the norm and we are the strange ones!

@pastabest I think you are living my ideal life !! 😆 I live in the very centre of a large city, and I know absolutely nobody at my daughter's school and nothing about anybody we live around.
Compared to how your family live, I think living in a largely populated area can be very sad and lonely actually. I hadn't really thought about it like that before! X

About 4 years ago I was able to find a full class list of names on the schools own website. Before that, if you asked, they'd print one off for you.

You'll get to meet even less of them if you only hold parties for girls. In my experience single sex parties usually start around year 2, it's quite unusual that your daughter only plays with other girls at her age - unless this is something you encourage for cultural or whatever reasons.

In your position I would start a class whatsapp group - even if it starts off with only you and a couple of others, after a while I'm sure you'd have most of the class on there. Class whatsapps can be annoying, but they are also useful for reminders and sharing of practical info.

@Luana1 I personally don't want to meet and get friendly with the parents, I have no interest in it as I do not like where we live and we don't plan to stay. I want to do this purely for my daughter's sake.
The only girls thing is as to not single anyone out, as we wouldn't hold a whole class party due to cost reasons x

I read your explanation but I'm still not clear on the danger. So a child, Sarah, isn't with her birth family due to abuse. Her classmates parents have a piece of paper or an email with a list of 30 names, there may only be one Sarah, there could be two but anyway her birth family are looking for her they know she is in say Manchester.

How do they persuade a parent from each school in Manchester to hand over the list so they can identify where all the Sarahs are? I'd think it might be easier to just go round all the schools in Manchester and watch them come out.

I can see the risk, even with first names, if the list was published on the school's website and anyone could access it but that isn't what the OP is asking for or expecting.

We always had class contact lists but the class rep would go round the playground and ask if people wanted to be on them against the name of their child. Then they have given express consent so it's ok.

Maybe teachers don't want to be given yet another job to do which isn't really part of their role?

Aside fom the GDPR issue, PLEASE don't ask school staff to do any more work than they already do! Imagine if 30 times a year, parents asked for lists with certain names highlighted for parties! And even more importantly, don't ask them to hand out the invites! There isn't enough time in the day to get all the school stuff done that needs to be done, let alone having to do non-school stuff!

@OuiOuiMonAmi I appreciate that teachers have a lot of work to do, however they have my daughter for 7 hours a day! I know they are overloaded with things to do, a large portion of the time, but they are much more capable than me of handing out invited considering they are able to just pop them in the children's bags at lunch / break. I am not able to do this. I don't know the children, nor the parents.

It's not their job and no doubt if one invitation goes missing they'd be getting blamed for it.

@Iwasafool I wouldn't be blaming anybody if that's what you mean. I would be grateful if they were to do it. Mistakes happen

Because birth families whose children are being removed repeatedly to foster care, and they want to be able to track them down, don't call their children "Sarah". They call them "Taeylor-Elleoueeese". And because they keep PR in foster care, no one can change it, and they say they have to be called their full name. And children are often placed in foster care locally-ish.

Just because your life means you're privileged enough not to have to face these issues doesn't mean they don't exist.

It might surprise you to know that I have been involved with children in foster care and residential care and they have all had perfectly normal names. The first two girls who spring to mind have names that definitely look unremarkable next to Sarah.

You still haven't explained how they are going to get the parents at the schools in the area to hand over the lists.

I think the teachers are best placed to assess the risk rather than me coming up with scenarios. But yes, these scenarios exist. As do vulnerable kids with unique surnames.

And no, vulnerable kids should not be expected to change their names to make privileged parents lives easier.

First names sorry.

There are two pieces of data- first name, and school. I can see why the school are protective. It might not even be a kid in this class they have to protect, but by having a clear policy protects all.

Yeah this. Find out how many girls there are, and ask the teacher to hand them out. No need for names.

I can see why you might think you’re doing a nice thing and now feel deflated. But the more I think about it, you definitely can send party invites without names of guests. You just need to print the same invitation and maybe the teacher or your daughter could write names on in class before they hand them out. But if not, there’s nothing wrong with issuing a generic invitation in these circumstances

I can't believe there's no WhatsApp group

@ManchesterLu I will have to ask the school this, as my daughter is only 4 and will not be able to give a clear enough answer x

@contactme yes I think this is the best suggestion I have. I do feel a little stupid for not thinking of this first. It just didn't occur to me that I'd be able to do this for some reason! But I think it's the option I will have to go with.

@redribbonrose is it really unusual? I have no experience with this so wouldn't know. I do know as I explained previously that most of the parents are in the same boat, and only sent their children there as it was the only // easiest option for them.
So nobody really interacts with eachother at all.

@Catleveltired you do realise life exists outside of cities with problems! We aren't privileged (mining town) yet I've just checked our class Watsapp group and we do have a class list someone shared last Christmas scrolling down it and multiple of the names aren't the names the kids are known by.

OP we are sending unnamed invites as the though of getting DS to write out 20+ invites isn't worth it. He's actually dropped a picture of the invite in the kids WhatsApp group