Names of friends

[NoPinkPlease]

It's Ds(nearly 5) birthday soon and we're having a party in about 3 weeks. He's poss ASD and has S&L delay. So getting names of friends at school is a bit random and often actually characters from something special. So I asked the SENCO if they could tell me the names of 10 friends at school. If they could't do that, could I give them 10 blank invites to write the names on and give out. Then it'd be up to the parents if they wanted to get in touch. The school have said no - that's shit isn't it? What can I do? Or tell me I'm being unreasonable??

Yes. That's shit. Put your request in writing. Then they have to give a legitimate reasons for refusing and actually THINK before replying.

IME The school secretary or the class teacher can give you a class list of all the kids in reception and then you can talk to your DS about who to invite. They should give you a list anyway for Christmas cards.

This is what I was told after I asked the SENCO, in an email:

I asked Mr H (head) about the party invites and unfortunately the school never give out names of children to parents/carers - I'm sorry about this.

Agree it is crap of them not to do it but another suggestion is to look at the pegs where they hang their coats to see if they have names on. I did this to check if the 'friends' DD talked about were real children or the imaginary kind.

I suppose they just ask the kids to do donations instead of Xmas cards....!
Be sneaky and check their coat pegs, if they won't play ball.

you're not being unreasonable. when I've asked at parents evening about who my DS is friendly with, the teacher is always happy to give a few of the names.

DS sounds like your DS in that mr tumble would get an invite :)
All the schools he's attended have given me a class list without me having to ask,so that he can send invites Christmas cards ect
So yes your DS school do sound unreasonable

Is this a MS school? I wonder if they have any looked after children or ones adopted with legal orders out limiting contact with family etc? Otherwise it seems extreme and very 'jobsworth.' My DS's fairly formal school gave out a class list during settling in sessions before they actually started school!

Volunteer to be class rep. Give the teacher a welcome letter for her to hand out to all parents requesting their email addresses and name of child and their dob. Put in the letter it is for the purpose of meeting up for the odd coffee, enabling parents to see who has birthdays together so they can either link up or avoid competing for the same weekends etc.