SOS- I need to change primary school ASAP! Help!

[mumonedaughter]

hi. first time on mumsnet, i need help and advice.

My daughter is in a primary school in Southwark and constantly having incidents at school. There is no part at her body which hasn't been injured by other student silly behaviour :( My child is a top student at school and has no issues with behaviour.

I want her to be in a calm and courteous environment to ensure she's brought up with the correct values and try to place her somewhere away from silly behaviour.

I would love to send her to an independent primary however I cannot afford the fees :(

If to transfer her to another primary school what's the procedure ? Is anyone with past experience with this process?

i have to run away from this school, my child's safety is in danger here, no school support at all!

[SavoyCabbage]

You need to look on your councils website for information on in year admissions and go from there.

[TeaT1me]

Can you contact whatever the Local Authority education people are callled these days (here they have a register of spaces available in the area)>

If you are not both at work you could homeschool with immediate effect until a school place becomes available?

[kilmuir]

in our area we have to apply via the county council schools department not via the schools. Contact them and they should be able to tell you where they have places

[RockinHippy]

Hi you need to contact your local councils Primary School Admissions, presuming it's Southwark, then the phone number is... 020 7525 5337 - email... [email protected]

Let them know the year your DD us in. They will be able to give you lists of schools with an available place for her, you can then view the OFSTED reports & google the schools to see if there any reviews on them. Then ring the schools & ask to make appointments to view. You will need to fill in a school application form, just as you did when she started. Hope that helps

I would say in the mean time, also complain & put your complaint in writing, email is best as there is a paper trail, as the school are failing in their duty of care to your DD, ...

Keep diaries of everything & take photos
ask for a meeting with the head,
get a copy of the schools complaints procedure & follow it to the letter - ask for a copy of their bullying policy too
& then escalate your complaint to the governors, whose contact should be in the booklets they give you - if this doesn't work, contact the Educational Wealth-fair Officer (again contact should be in the booklets) & speak with OFSTED & the LEA

The school has to protect your DD by law, but I know from experience that not all are good at that, some fail miserably, not always their fault, usual lack of funding etc, but if the end result is your model pupil daughter is being hurt & turned off school - then get as nasty as you need to make it work for her until you can move her

I went through this & the only thing I regret is not moving my daughter sooner, but my getting stroppy & providing evidence, did get her moved to the best local school - even though it was full

Good luck

[mumonedaughter]

hi. thank you to everyone who left your answer here. a little update- Southwark Council is useless, they kindly kicked the ball -telling that they simple register all formality there and all other legwork i have to do myself. i have asked for a list of schools in Southwark but even with this request they were unable to help me.
so i called all schools in Southwark, only 2 had a vacancy , after research on these schools i discovered that they are not good and my child identified one of them as the new boy in her class is from there and she refused even to have a look at it.

so unfortunately there are no places in good schools or outstanding what is a common sense but understanding that families are moving and there could be a vacancy. but ....a waiting list with 15 kids is already there.

after talking to all state schools in Southwark i have started to look into private school. LCS 's fees were managable with the help from my parents, i spoke to the school on the phone, they invited us, we spend 1 hour there and then the head said she will call us to confirm if the governor approved the new pupil in their school. 2 days later the school called me back and said that THE SCHOOL IS NOT GOOD FOR MY CHILD and THEY DONT ACCEPT ANYONE IN YEAR 4,5,6 BUT JUST TO RECEPTION AND YEAR 1. i was in shock!! they knew we are in year 4, they invited us and then they refused. Do I have to know anything about applying to the private schools?

so the current situation is my child joined the school with no English, now she is overperforming everywhere , doing yr 5/6 worksheets in a yr 4 class as she is a great smart kid and she became a target for the pupils-as she is better than them, they started bulling her-Monday trip to O2 for Young Voice was horrible as kids and some classmates just had to show that they dont accept successful /intelligent kids.

i am tired of complaining to school. the school with no antibullying policy!
I am going to see the governor next week and hope my official complaint will change something in the current school... at least for the time until we find another school for my child.
if you have any ideas or suggestion how to do it please feel free to share with them, or if you know of any good schools within 2 mile / en catchment of SE1 Postcode please do advise and i'll contact them ..

[mary21]

What about St clement Danes in convent garden?

[SelfRaisingFlour]

I don't know the area,but you can apply for state schools outside the Borough.

[Wellthen]

There are two schools in your area with places. Put yourself on the waiting list for the oversubscribed ones and either sit it out or send your daughter to the ones with places. You say your daughter is unsafe and yet you won't go because they 'aren't good' - better than your current school though surely?

If you believe your child to be unsafe you can keep her off until they change the situation - involvement of education welfare may force them (although ruin your relationship with the school forever).

It sounds like an awful situation but I would just say this: she became a target for the pupils-as she is better than them, they started bulling her-Monday trip to O2 for Young Voice was horrible as kids and some classmates just had to show that they dont accept successful /intelligent kids.
Is hugely unhelpful. Have you told your daughter this? Please don't you will give her a superiority complex while the bullying simultaneously brings her down. She will end up feeling like it is all her fault.

Children bully for a hundred reasons. Jealousy maybe (although unlikely), but actually more likely to be a complex combination of social hierarchy, low self esteem, personal experience of bullying, alienating behaviours by your daughter etc etc. This DOES NOT excuse it. But please stop telling yourself that its because your daughter is 'better'.

[SavoyCabbage]

I don't live in London but I had terrible trouble getting my year four dd a school place anywhere. You had to appeal in the end to get her a place in any school at all.

I agree with Well that you must be careful of giving your dd the impression that the other dd are beneath her. I bet there are children at the school who are just as impressive and are also outperforming work wise.

[elkiedee]

What's the OFSTED rating of dd's current school?

When you say other schools aren't good, have you read the detail of why schools aren't good? What does it say about bullying/safeguarding etc? A school that is Requires Improvement may be working hard to improve, and taking this more seriously.

OFSTED apparently look very seriously at whether children are safe and how schools address problems.

[mumonedaughter]

Current rating for OFSTED is good but needs improvement in certain areas such ( copied from 2012 Ofsted) :
 Improve teaching by:
ensuring all pupils, especially higher attainers, are always appropriately
challenged by the subject content in lessons
allowing pupils more consistent opportunities to take responsibility and
think for themselves.
 Develop the role and impact of subject leaders by:
ensuring they monitor and evaluate pupils’ attainment and progress in
their subjects in depth using robust mechanisms, thus providing reliable
management information for governors and school leaders
using such evaluations to plan and target specific improvements in pupils’
learning and attainment in each subject.

i haven't implanted the idea that shes better or above her classmates , but she has naturally noticed this , shes been shown that shes above the national average and all her teachers praise her for her working standard.

She dosent feel like she fits in with most of her classmates, they talk about things they have seen online or on TV and most of the times inappropriate for their age " such as a half naked music video from Nicki Minaj - anaconda " all trying to tweark in the playground calling each other di-heads and other verbal profanity and mention slang terms and doesn't understand them , and when she asks us what they mean we are left with a shocked expression and teach her that its inappropriate and not to repeat.

She tries to dismiss the silly behaviour and still see her classmates as friends , but this not what a 8yr old should be spending her time at school doing .

im not trying to be a nun or raise her like a nun but i just dont want that sort of inappropriate behaviour being shown in her presence as many other parents from her school will probably agree :

Drinking water and the water bottle pushed into her gums and her teeth, poked into the eye with a ruler, kicked between the legs TWICE within the same month, leaving her to struggle to walk and spend days in pain, and the school policy for such behaviour is........ to have a 'serious' talk with a headteacher and maybe missing half of their play time if the head of year remembers about it. took me multiple emails and meetings and demands to have a student to apologise for kicking her between the legs ,only took us 2 months!!!

[mumonedaughter]

thank you. looks like an amazing school but i am nowhere near their en-catchment area , I am SE1 :(

[upwizard]

I am sorry you and your daughter have to experience this it sounds horrible. I had similar experience in my own childhood and hated every day at school. For my daughter after serious consideration I opted for private. If you can afford private look at them. LCS fees look low though and probably other private schools in your area will charge more.

[ChalkHearts]

Ignore the ofsted reports of the schools with places! Ofsted tells you nothing of importance. And is out of date by the time it is published.

Look round both schools with places and choose the best one.

It won't be as bad as your current school. Most state schools aren't like this.

Or home educate while she is on waiting lists for other schools.

But don't leave her there!

The selective schools won't take you in Y4. Non selective private schools - who don't get such good results - probably will if they have a place. But it's done on interview. So if your 'face don't fit' you will get rejected from them as well.

[Dungandbother]

Could you pop her on the train out a bit? If you were going to find money for private could you pay someone to accompany her to school further away?
I'm not sure there would be places but from Waterloo east is

New cross
Lewisham
Blackheath
Eltham
Welling
Hither green
Lee

And plenty others.

Google map search school down all the train lines.

Year 4 was a huge birth year and the biggest squeeze on places for many areas.

[Lurkedforever1]

Ignore the ofsteds. Dds was requires improvement for ages, for a host of stupid reasons, none of which stopped it being amazing.

As a word of advice, I'd also recommend you drop the attitude the other kids are jealous of her being ahead of them. Age 8, it's massively unlikely they give a monkeys. If you intend looking at other privates, I would definitely leave that attitude at the door. Along with the thought that you won't even visit none outstanding primaries because of your childs ability. Whether you intend it that way, your posts come across as slightly irrational, which won't endear you to any school that can pick it's pupils.

[mumonedaughter]

i simply want to send her to the good/outstanding school as all parents want the best for their child , i would also base it on a visit to the school and general internet views and reviews not just on ofstead .

ive been past a few schools and you immediately get a feeling for the school control when the kids come out at 3:30pm.
and i want to send her to a school where she can enjoy learning and not be distracted by silly immature behaviour in a school that does control their students correctly .

its not much to ask for is it ?

[spanieleyes]

Except generally Year 4 pupils ARE silly and immature!

[Lurkedforever1]

Nothing wrong with wanting the best for your child. But ofsted deciding a school is outstanding, or good, or requires improvement has absolutely no bearing on whether it is any of those things in reality. If you want the best for your child look at the actual schools and form your own opinion, don't go off the opinion formed on league tables and some fools with clipboards seeing a snapshot and forming often questionable opinions on what constitutes good.

I'm pretty sure you'd love one of my local primaries on first sight, and hate the other. I'm very glad I didn't think like that, or my dd wouldn't have had the lovely years she did.

[LadyIsabellaWrotham]

Do you attend church? It makes a huge difference to where you'll sit on various waiting lists. Also bear in mind that your "waiting list" position has nothing to do with how long you've been on the list. If you live close to a good oversubscribed school and, crucially, you are ready to move schools instantly, then you might get a place over someone who's been on the list forever but lives further away, or someone who might not really want to make such a big upheaval when push comes to shove.

Also do check out the nearest schools that aren't in Southwark. The gov.uk website lets you search by proximity to your postcode, so if there's anything you fancy close by in Lambeth do get on their list.

[mumonedaughter]

not my child

[Wellthen]

If you are prepared to leave her where and is, facing daily violence and tearing down of her self esteem, than move her to a requires improvement school then the 'bullying' can't be that bad. No one puts a bit of classroom disruption ahead of their child's happiness/safety.

[se17mama]

Hi my son is experiencing the same thing. Could you pm me? I am new to this app and can't find a way to message you.

We are in Southwark also.

Thanks.

[LadyIsabellaWrotham]

se17, if you click on the three little dots below one of mumonedaughter's posts then you should see an envelope marked PM, standing for Private Message. She might get back to you with advice.

Or start your own thread in Primary Education - you'll probably get some good advice but try to avoid the "my child is too good for any but the very best school" attitude - that way you'll get more sympathy and constructive hints.