She decided to do a parcel for each gender group based upon the class sizes and not counting the siblings and new intake. This may have worked if some people hadn't sent their children without paying for them!
In the end we had a parcel aimed at 17 boys when we had 23 and one for 10 girls when 12 turned up. It was quite hard work as the music stopper making sure the parcel stopped for different kids each time, though other parents asked previous winners to pass on to someone else. Once the girls' had completed theirs we got all the winners from the boys to move out of the circle. Even then of course we had some who couldn't win (including my 3 year old son!).
At this point the lady who did the parcel (her son is 7.5) said well that's life. Myself on the other hand thought it was too unfair for children aged 3-7 to be only in a very small minority to have nothing especially with my son crying! So I gathered round all the "losers" and said don't worry when Father Christmas came to the school he didn't take all the presents home!
I then raided the leftover Santa gifts from the last Christmas Fayre and gave the 7 children a little prize. Would you have done the same or would have let 1/6th of the kids be upset from losing out?
