Seeing her friends versus being in the right sets - WWYD?

[izzybobsmum]

My dd is in Year 7. She's having issues with a couple of girls whom she's been at school with since primary. Low-level bullying - deliberately ignoring her, not picking her in PE, making remarks about her complete lack of boobs or bum, spreading untrue gossip etc. It's starting to get her down now.

School is divided into two halves. The halves currently spend lunch times together, but are separate for breaks and lessons. Once the girls go into year 8 (after half term) the two halves are completely separate for everything.

My issue is that dd has gone and made herself some new friends to hang around with, all of whom are in the other half of the school to her. So when she goes into Year 8, she won't see them at all anymore.

She wants to swap halves. She is currently in set 1 for every subject. School have said they can accommodate her in the other half (with her friends) for all of her lessons, except for Maths and Science where they only have room in Set 2. School are worried that being in Set 2 for these subjects will not stretch her enough. I understand what they are saying, but I just want her to be settled and happy so that she is in the best mind frame for learning.

What would you do?

*As an aside, she has previously expressed worry about being in Set 1 for Maths, as she says they go very fast and she's struggling to retain things they're teaching her. She always does fine in her homework, but her end of year Maths test result was at the bottom end of the class.

Thank you in advance for your wise words of advice!

[OldEnglishSheepDog]

Move her. Settings change all the time anyway. She won't learn if she's that unhappy.

[DrinkYourGreenTea]

Ask for her to move into the other half. I would push to have her in the right set for all her classes. Surely there is one extra seat in the appropriate sets for Maths and Science.

[BewareOfDragons]

Move her for all of it. A happy child is a child that will learn

[Changenameday]

As a teacher I would say swap her, if the system changes for yr8 then there is a good chance there will be set changes anyway for September and it’s better to get her moved and settled now rather than waiting til September.

[AssassinatedBeauty]

Are there any other differences between the two "halves" of the school? Or do they all get offered the same education irrespective of which part they're in?

Given that it sounds like Maths might be better in set 2, it's only science that might be a noticeably lower level, I'd be inclined to move her. There should be opportunities to move set at some future point if she really is finding the science too easy. But, a set 2 teacher should be able to cope with someone working at set 1 level, given there's going to be some overlap between abilities.

[rainingcatsanddog]

Move her.
If she achieves well enough then they will put her up and someone down.

[izzybobsmum]

Assassinated Beauty there are no differences at all between the two halves, it's just logistics!

Thanks everyone. I have to ring them back tomorrow with our decision. I'll ask them to move her. She'll definitely be happy!

[gravytrains]

Move her. Surely there is some movement between sets occasionally so if maths suits but science is a bit slow, maybe she could up up if someone comes down of leaves later?

[gravytrains]

Oops, posted too late! Good luck!

[izzybobsmum]

Thanks gravytrains late comments always welcome!

[unfortunateevents]

How many "sets" are there? At DS' school, there were eight sets so the difference between sets 1 and 2 was negligible, DS2 was in set 3 for several subjects and many of the students in those sets were still pretty much A students across the board so unless there are very few sets, I don't think it will make any difference to her opportunity to achieve her best results.