Why do school leavers have to have 'Proms'?

I think the school 'formal' as we call it here in Queensland originated as simply the end of year school dance. We certainly had the school dance at Heckmondwike Grammar 1956-61, and I think they had them here too. Anyway, they are nothing compared with the utter waste and madness of weddings, with struggling working people paying thousands for the dress alone.

Luckily for us, Halloween is generally ignored. Some kids make a half-hearted attempt at trick or treat, only to be greeted at the door with "what the hell are you on about?" We are not so mean ourselves and usually buy some sweets, only to eat them ourselves later.

The food is another matter - but really, we are multicultural in our eating habits, here and in England. I don't think the Americans eat curries very much, for example, and apart from the dreaded fast food chains we have our own food traditions. Some are even passed on the other way. I once read about a Yorkshireman on tour in the USA. He called at a restaurant in a Native American area and ordered 'savory pudding' only to be served a perfect Yorkshire Pud.

It's a ghastly idea. Why are we always inheriting nauseating ideas from America. With apologies to Americans we've managed to adopt plenty of their bad things. Halloween has been made too much of. November 5th should give us sufficient jollity and is truly our own individual day.
I would like to add, although it might be deemed as irrelevant, that our eating habits have also been adopted from accross the Atlantic. Unhealthy or what!!!

I could not have afforded to kit my daughters up the way they do today. Apparently some primary schools also run proms which is truly disgraceful. Locally they wear glorious dresses and arrive in limousines - I thought we were in a recession.

Here in Queensland my lads went to a low cost catholic co-ed school, and while some went overboard for the 'formal' as they call it here, most lads just hired suits, and the girls' Mums or Grans made their dresses. As I mentioned before, one lad chose to go, the other chose not to, but he did go in the end.

He became a high school teacher, teaching 15 year olds to school leavers, and one year the girls in his grade 12 ancient history class persuaded him to go to their formal. He did go, and there is a wonderful photo of him sitting, big grin on his face, surrounded by 8 beautiful girls in different coloured evening dresses.

The children love it really - it is their first grown up function, they are taught the etiquette and behavioural rules beforehand, and they have a great time. My part of SEQueensland is not a snob area - perhaps that helped. Maybe it is a snobfest down the Gold Coast or in the posh inner suburbs of Brisbane, but while I would have preferred something a bit simpler, it seemed to work well here.

My two eldest grandaughters have had proms on leaving secondary school.They both had short but smart dresses costing under £100 pounds.Niether have worn the dresses again.They do not live in what could be called an affluent area, loads of unemployment etc.Some of their school mates went over the top, huge ballroom dresses, expensive hairdos and make up with pupils arriving in limos.Parents competing against each other about who has spent the most money.It has not reached the primary school stage yet but as they say, watch this space.

The thing about proms is that girls – and that's what they are – think they are living in a soap opera. Think of all the US television programmes around now which are full of having your own telephone line (as well as the cell), swimming pool, car, prom dress (compulsory), stretch limo (compulsory). It doesn't bear any resemblance to how life in this country works but, sadly, it seems real to them and something that should happen.

I think that school proms add a lot of pressure to hard up parents. It's keeping up with the Joneses all over again. Our modern world must be very hard to live in for young parents. It is big businesss literally from cradle to grave via expensive weddings. My daughter's school has so far resisted the prom culture and hold a low budget BBQ for school leavers with a different fancy dress theme each year and entertainment provided by the pupils and some staff.

Baggy I use the term prom circus as to me it is a circus. There are so many people involved as well as the prom princess.

Parents are expected to fork out hundreds of pounds for one evening/night along with shoes, bags, jewelry, hairdos, tanning sessions, hair adornments and transport. Some have limos, horse and carriage and other expensive ways of getting them to the venue.

As whisper says these days of the credit crunch parents are forking out as they would for a wedding. We must also bear in mind that they will do this for a primary school prom then again when they leave senior school then again for a wedding. Parents need very deep pockets these days. I also agree that ipads, blackberries etc are not for the young children. parents need to take stock and decide what they are prepared to pay for and tell these children that there are more important things to spend hard earned money on.

Love the term "prom circus", burgundy!

Hi Ladies, I am new to Gransnet, so I hope I don't get it wrong. Reading your thoughts on Proms and dresses made me very happy now I know I am not the only gran who feels this way. I had hoped the up side of the credit crunch would be that parents began to pass real values onto children, how can they have any real values when at 11 years old they come home and expect parents to fork out for prom dresses and everything that goes with it, often costing a couple of hundred pounds. My own grandaughter of 12 talks about the kids at school with their ipads and blackberries, for goodness sake surely thses are adult toys!. My values were taught by growing up in the country working on a farm for pocket money, being taught the animals were fed before us because they could not feed themselves and they brought the money in, we got treats but we earned most of them, we never expected any free meal tickets. I think end of term school disco is fine kids just coming together to chat, dance and eat hotdogs a nicer idea.

I think that it is barmy and far too costly...blah blah bah...

When my elder daughter left school there was no prom, she is 35 this year and she wouldn't have been bothered either. Her sister who is 31 this year had a prom but she didn't want a meringue dress or go over the top so she just went in whatever she had in her wardrobe!

My neice had her prom last week and her parents found a dress on e-bay, in the sales they got a bag and shoes, her best friend's grandad has a rolls royce and took them to the prom.

Spending astronomical sums of money is ridiculous dress, bag, shoes, hairdos, tanning, transport etc etc. Some parents spend around £800 for an evening. Mad.

I don't believe that primary schools should have proms, there have been parties at the end of year but posh frocks, stretch limos etc at that age or younger is totally ridiculous.

My grandaughter who lives in France like me is 10 and the prom circus hasn't arrived here yet. she is not keen on that sort of thing she says and is not sure she would enjoy it.

I think the whole thing is getting right out of hand. I have 3 gd's and 1 has had 3 proms ,1 at the end of her 5th school year then at each of the 2 6th form years - 3 dresses and a stretch limo each time. The other 2 shared big taxis with their friends but again had the new posh frocks, 1 of them having 2 proms from 2 different schools.
Their parents could just afford it but that's not the point, I don't think there should be this pressure on them to join in this silly system. What can you do?

I hate the idea of these proms. My grandson's school had one for the leavers aged 11 and there was just one little girl whose mother refused to let her go because she could not afford a fancy prom dress. It was such a shame for her to be the odd one out like that. They also had stretch Limos for the kids.

We just had a leavers do at a hotel when I left school at 16. Not everyone went to that and it was pretty much wear what you want !

I agree with everyone - I think proms are a complete waste of money and not good at all for children. When my daughter left high school at 18 they just had a dance - local hotel and we drove her and her friends there. There have been threads on Mumsnet about proms for primary school children and the general feeling there seems to be that they are not good.

I have to say, when my two were children, the people who spent the most on their children were always the ones who, on the face of it, couldn't afford it.

I do think its gone too far, my own daughter now aged 30 was one of the first year groups in her school to have a prom, she looked lovely in a dress her granny had made and walked to school as normal, we would have laughed if anyone suggested she went in a limo for heavens sake.
As for primary school children having proms I think its a shame that everything comes to them too soon - too lenient heads perhaps

I'm glad my sons just made their own minds up about the school formal. As I said before, one went, the other didn't. It is a big social occasion that some kids really love, and as long as no-one goes overboard with the expenses I don't mind it. The lass my youngest son took to the formal had a dress made by her auntie, and she had dyed a pair of shoes to match the colour, so I guess she didn't spend too much. The taxi was cheap enough as the venue wasn't far away, which was just as well, because we were going through very hard times. Still - I'm glad I only have sons.

'I don't understand how fools and their money got together in the first place'..absentgrana..what a wonderful statement!

Our primary school always staged a ceilidh for the p7 children who were leaving. I think at that time they got it more or less right, but not sure what has happened in the last 4 years!

I am appalled at nusery/primary proms. It's on a par with all those ghastly baby bras and I'm a little princess/bad girl whatever T shirts. Childhood is vital to developing well balanced adults, so stop all this expensive, foolish nonsense. I want my grandaughter to be a child for as long as possible, to develop self worth not based on frocks and competition. Time for parents to exert power and say no to nursery/primary schools wanting such events. It's not difficult to do.

Has the world gone completely mad? Proms, posh frocks and limousines for junior school children and weddings that cost on average more than £20,000? What I don't understand is how fools and their money got together in the first place.

Sadly what happens in America seems to make its way across the Pond eventually. I thinks proms are way over the top and can cause unnecessary upset. Teenagers have enough problems to contend with. When I was at school our term ended with a casual barbecue on the beach with the odd glass of cider. My father collected me and a couple of friends at 10 pm and I remember some of our male classmates helping us up the cliff and across the field to the road to meet him. When I visited the site much later I couldn't believe I got up that cliff especially as I don't like heights!!!! No prom dresses, just jeans and a sweatshirt; no jealousies just a great time - and cheap.

I agree with the last two comments on here that it all seems rather over the top. I just left school after my A-levels and only went back for the results. I'm still in touch with my best friends from those days even though we have never lived near each other since then. Surely that's what matters in the end, not expensive frocks.

I'm an ex primary teacher and we'd never have gone in for the whole prom thing at any of the schools I worked at, most of which were in poorer areas.
I don't agree with it at secondary school either.
Our local paper has been full of photos of 16 year olds in expensive ball gowns this week. I really feel for the parents and young people who just can't afford all this nonsense.
Schools exist to educate our children, not push them to be mindless consumers, I think they should be taking a lead on this and all of you out there who are, or know, school governors should be putting pressure on the schools to do just that.
Its clear from all the 'Princess on board' stickers in cars etc that some parents don't think through the messages they send out to their kids.
Others don't seem to be able to resist the peer pressure.
I'd like to say to any young parents who feel uncomfortable with all this that its o.k. to say no to your children as long as you explain why.
They'll still love you and grow up to respect you and what you stand for.
It worked with mine.

If I couldn't afford something my kids wanted, or had what I thought were good reasons for not buying it, I told them. They always understood. That said, it's quite possible that they didn't ask for outrageous things because they knew what the answer would be. And no, there is no estrangement between us and never has been. Where are people's guts nowadays?

Perhaps my kids feel they same about all this stupid peer group pressure. DD1 is talking about home-schooling her kids, DD2 decided not to bother with all the university graduation fuss (she'd got her degree and didn't feel the need to 'party' about it). I was the same; my parents came along and we had a quiet meal out together wearing nice but 'already owned' clothes. It was just fine. Recognition was given, a sense of achievement was felt. All the important stuff dealt with without a fuss.

There seems to be a deep-seated fear in most people to say "I can't afford that" which attitude is not helped by the meanness of others then calling anyone who does say it a cheapskate. Nasty.