AIBU to feel disappointed about my daughter’s former primary school not inviting her back?

[JustAnotherDay27]

My daughter left primary school this summer and is now in Year 7.
Her former primary school is inviting some former pupils back to share their experiences of secondary school with the current Year 6 pupils.
Her former Year 6 class was very small, with only a handful of pupils. I recently found out that at least three of her former classmates have been invited, including two who now attend the same secondary school as my daughter.
A few weeks ago, my daughter asked me whether we’d received an invitation from her old school, so I think she was hoping to take part.
She seemed disappointed when she found out that some of her friends had been invited but she hadn’t.
I completely understand that the school may have its reasons for selecting certain pupils, and I don’t expect everyone to be invited. However, given how small the class was, I do wonder whether this approach could leave some children feeling excluded or overlooked.
I’m considering sending some polite feedback to the headteacher, not to request an invitation, but simply to highlight how this might affect children who weren’t selected.
AIBU to feel the school could have handled this more thoughtfully? Or is this just a normal part of school life that I should leave alone?
I’d genuinely appreciate other parents’ perspectives, particularly if your children’s schools have organised similar events.

I think you have to just accept the disappointment and move on.
When my children aren't chosen for something, they discuss it with me, I can tell they are disappointed, I listen and hopefully in a few days they will have accepted the situation.
Unfortunately this is life.

Please don’t contact the school. This is not something to be upset about. Not everyone gets picked for everything, a good lesson in resilience.

You can't protect them from every minor glitch in their life, entitlement isn't something you want her to feel. It's not a thing to get hung up about. It's sounding more a you issue than your daughter's. What do you honestly expect the head to do once reading your email? Change the rules? Drop someone else? Think about their actions? Apologise? Those actions are centred around you not feeling disappointment, feeling less than. Don't pass on that need to your daughter

First life skill for her to learn is we don't always get what we want, life is full of disappointments. I would be telling her that. I certainly wouldn't be contacting the school!

Darling, take it from me she will learn a lesson from this it’s called life, and you’d do better to explain that to her sensitively so she builds resilience and bounces back in one piece. We all go through knocks/set-backs,disappointments in life and become more rounded people for it. The earlier you learn these lessons the better her life will be.

celebrate your daughter for who she is and don’t bring her down by comparing to others.

YAbVUz

you come across as very precious. Your daughter will be disadvantaged by this if you can't rain it in. Just tell her no she wasn't invited and that is ok

YANBU to feel disappointed, we all want opportunities for our children.

but I’m gobsmacked you want to contact the school! As others have said, perfect opportunity to teach resilience.

Let it go! Your daughter was not selected to attend for some reason and both you and her need to move on. As in a previous comment, use this as a lesson in resilience, sometimes life serves up a disappointment but dd needs to focus on accepting that she will not be the top of everyone’s list for the rest of her life.

The headteacher will already know the effect not being selected will have on pupils. They’ll see it daily but also realise it’s part of life and needs to be dealt with and experienced.

But also - if you’re writing to suggest something is handled more thoughtfully it’s good practice to suggest how.

So what’s your suggestion?

They can’t all go back. Simple as that.

Would you honestly expect the primary school to invite the whole class back just to avoid one of them feeling a negative emotion?

Your child is disappointed, it's a normal human emotion that she is going to feel throughout life. It's your job as her parent to help her manage her response to that.

This is a really good opportunity for you to practice managing disappointment. This is so common all the way along in secondary and after when colleges and universities do it too. It really is not just you affected.

Madness. They can’t in them all, even you admit that.

It’s October, her secondary journey has barely begun. She has been in a small school and now she’s one of many. There are going to be countless times when she isn’t top of the pile. You are doing her a disservice to perpetuate the myth that she is more important than the other children. Because that’s what you are saying. That you know they can’t all go but your child should.

You're being that parent.

Please don't be that parent.

For once tell your child they don't always get what they want.

Will all due respect, get over it and don't embarrass yourself by contacting the school. You and your child need to learn this is life. She won't be chosen for everything. She needs to learn not to be so jealous when others are chosen for things or get given opportunities.

The school have done nothing wrong and it is totally normally and fine for them to select a few speakers. They can hardly call their whole cohort of past students in. If your child was called in then someone else would have missed that. Would that be OK for you?

Primary school is done and dusted. It's over and nothing to do with you about who goes back and for what. It's time for you both to move on.

Our primary school severely let down both of my children to the extent that we took them out and moved elsewhere. I have been tempted many times to send a quick email saying “turns out that DS1 is actually severely autistic and DS2 is not exclusively the child from Hell”, but I haven’t, because I’d look completely unhinged. It’s also not fair on the school for former parents to criticise them. I expect every school gets enough of that from its current parents.

I work in young people’s mental health and couldn’t agree more with this. So much saving our children from bad feelings rather than teaching how to manage them

Secondary school is going to to be full of disappointments like this because not everyone can do everything. I suspect that in a small primary school she didn’t experience this much. You really shouldn’t contact the school- you can’t expect your own child to be picked for everything.

Oh dear. She is a little fish in a big pond now and isn't going to be chosen for everything (as I suspect she was in Primary school). Wether that be a sports team, a school trip, awards night, a university place or even a job and unfortunately you are both going to have to get used to it or spend the rest of your live being upset and disappointed.

Maybe they picked the names out of a hat ! You won't know TBH. Your DD may be a little Quiet? I would not contact the headteacher .Its inappropriate DD has left her old school now .Time to move on in secondary.

I would leave it. I remember lots of times in my life when others were chosen over me and over my children. But there were other times when we were the ones who got to do something while others didn’t. I also remember children getting the spotlight simply because their parent was in charge or had some influence and it really wasn’t fair. But that doesn’t reflect on anyone else’s ability or suitability. My feeling would be, it’s a bit annoying but it happened yesterday or the day before and it’s time to forget about it.

Bookmarking this thread so I can remember the username in a few years time when someone posts about their DD failing their driving test, being rejected by a job, overlooked for a promotion, not invited to a party, misses out on London Marathon ballot, doesn’t get their first choice uni and someone wants to send some ‘polite feedback’

Why is it thoughtless? Our children need to learn at some point in life they can’t be at the centre of everything. I bet they’ve chosen a small number. A whole class in front of the year sixes simply wouldn’t work.

Ohhh you have years and years of disappointment ahead of you. Time to develope a thicker skin. Just wait to see how uni applications work 🙄