Ostracised for staying at private school

Eeek!

I totally see their pov.
Beyond the obvious stuff… you also won’t be au fait with their “school life” so there’s less to chat about.

surely there was SOME school chat when they were 3 and applications were happening????

bluntly you have kind of fucked this up for yourself.
your son won’t care but you seem to need those friendships…
Especially as you are sahm…You must be bored out of your mind now he is in school!?!

the best you are going to manage is to try and find some kids in your sons class that don’t live in Saudi Arabia etc. and make friends with those mums.

I’m really surprised if you have a nice village school you didn’t go for “state until 8”…

They are not and never were real friends. School gate/nursery friends are like colleagues - they move on when your child does. A few may convert to real friends but regardless of schools you're expectations are too high.

Completely agree with @Mumofteenandtween

If you choose to take your child away from all the other children in the area, you can't be entirely surprised that it has negative social consequences, surely?

Its a tough one OP. Some people will read your decision as saying what's good enough for their DC isn't good enough for yours, which in truth, is the case. You are doing it because you think its 'better' (than their chikds education) this erects a barrier. Its also true that some people do judge those who use private education die to a clash of principles, and will maybe see you in a different light. That said, I do think it's unfortunate that none if the women were able to get past this and continue the friendship with you. Which would make me question whether they were real friends. I know my friends do things I don't care for but they're still my friends. Changing your DSs school is drastic as I'm sure you thought hard about the decision and did what's best for him and that should always be your priority. Groups who exclude someone are generally not good groups anyway and it would be a shame to disrupt your DS only to find this out later. I feel for you though.

The other thing to bear in mind is that your DC won’t have much interest in playing with his nursery friends. At that age kids don’t really have strong friendship bonds, it’s mostly based on being in the same childcare setting at the same time. My son could barely remember the names of his preschool friends after the first term of Reception.

We chose Private for DD for Secondary and I lost what I considered to be close friends over it.
I was very very careful not to slag off the State school and maybe some of it was natural drift but I was really upset at the time.
Now I appreciate that those weren't real friendships and the people who remained my friend when our DDs went to different schools were my genuine friends

You need to put some serious effort in and widen your net @LessorMore.

It's probably nothing to do with the state/private divide, just that now you're not at the same school, they have little in common with you. All they have in common with each other is probably the school their kids go to, so as one or two of them move to other schools inevitably, they will also drift.

As pps are saying, school mum friendships are like colleagues - mostly just for the short-term. They're quite strong when the kids are primary aged, but once they hit secondary, it all drifts off really.

Get yourself involved in other things locally instead.

I really hope you're married, even though you said 'DP'. If not, please consider the high risk situation of being a SAHP, especially when your partner is a very high earner.

I'm sorry you're facing so much envy and spitefulness on this thread OP. Your reasons for moving your son to a private school are valid and yours alone. Parents are the primary educators of their children, and thus have every right to decide which type of school their child should attend.

Having said that, I also hope the other school Mums you were in touch with previously haven't ceased contact because of your decision. I am more inclined to agree with previous posters, and argue their reason for doing so is to maintain contact with the other parents of children in the same class/school as their own child.

My DD had a friend who went to the same primary but private secondary and still lives nearby. They have stayed in touch to an extent – and especially so when they were at the same out of school groups – but it really does take more effort.

You're no longer seeing each other at the school gate, or happening to go to the same playground after school - unless you particularly make the effort of doing that. Can you invite your DC's nursery friends round for play dates after school or at weekends? Can they join local clubs?

You were in a group of people with one thing in common, kids who went to the same school. Your decision to move your child naturally ended your belonging in that group. You need to either get in with the parents in the private school, or find a new group locally that you actually still have something in common with. Any hobby groups in the village?

OP, did you move your child out due to difficulties coping in a large mainstream class/mental health difficulties?

Surely it’s not that hard to understand that the friendships that were forged at nursery were only going to continue to grow when those people are seeing each other in the schools playground every day and navigating all the new things that come with starting school. I don’t understand why you seem so puzzled tbh. Its easy to make plans when you naturally see people frequently and they probably want to be able to chat about school stuff without feeling like they’re excluding you or having to listen to stuff about your private school which is irrelevant to them.

The majority of school mum friendships are based on having the same thing in common at then same time or about making sure their child has play dates, rather than being a deal and meaningful lifelong relationship.

@LessorMore - I know you haven't said what your "other reasons" are for using that school rather than your local primary. They are absolutely none of my business and I'm absolutely not asking you to explain. But it does occur to me that if they are religious or cultural reasons, the result may have been to "other" you as far as the local mums are concerned. Even something like a Quaker school might cause that sort of response.

I’m glad to say that my state school mum friends stayed my friends all through secondary even though my son was the only one to go private. The only comments I ever got were if they had the money they’d do the same (the local state school wasn’t great). Never got a single derisory comment. It’s not a tiny village though (I did live in one briefly before children and hated the claustrophobic vibe).

I’ll edit that as I remember the only derisory comment I got was from an anti-private school friend who ended up putting her child in private because of relentless bullying at the state). I never said a word 😁

Oh wow I’m not sure I’d agree with a school that did that!! Maybe the locals don’t like the whole aspect of it.

But are you happy with the school? Is your son happy?

Kids drift apart if they go to different schools, unless they do clubs together. Stop reading more into it. My DC1 had a best friend from nursery and they went to different state primaries. We had play dates for a year and then it just stopped. They just move on. DC2 best friend form nursery is in her brownies so we have gone out sometimes.

You need to concentrate on new friends from the new school.

Something does not add up. Your child is 6 but only left Nursery at Christmas? Or did he go to the primary for a bit or are you not in UK? I find it very hard to believe that so many children are boarders, I have a relative with a child who boarded from 8 and she said that nationally the number of boarders in the younger years has nosedived in the past decade. I therefore cannot believe that the school your child attends has so many. I think you have made it seem to your neighbours that the local school isn't good enough for your child. You have decided to other yourself. I think you need to try harder to get to know the parents of the children at the private school. There must be parents in your situation. You have admitted there is no boarding until 7 so all your child's class mates must be day pupils.

The person who said that parent friends are like work colleagues is spot on. That is exactly how I see parent friends - we are people who were thrown together at a particular place in a particular time to do a job together.

I would say that I have 4 types of work colleagues:-

1. Completely cordial - work together well, have a perfectly pleasant chat but if they left tomorrow I would struggle to remember them in a year or so.
2. Friendly colleagues - work together well, have fun together, have in jokes, really enjoy their company but don’t really socialise outside of work
3. Friendly - socialise together outside work although if they or I moved jobs then we would undoubtedly drift apart
4. True friends - these are people who I happen to have met at work but who are now a big part of my life.

4 is really rare. In 20 years of working I probably have about 6 people like that.

It sounds like you were in group 3 with the other mums so now you don’t have the day to day in common you are drifting apart.

Someone in my family was very similar to you. The local state primary was great but their little girl wasn't thriving. Didnt have additional needs but was very, very shy and suited more structure so they made the decision to move her to private. It was not a comment on the school and they sacrificed everything to make it happen. The vitriol was shocking. She got poison pen letters and friendships never recovered. It was shocking because their older child had been at the primary right through and was at a state high school so it wasn't as if they thought they were too good for state.

In small rural communities drama can thrive (saying that as someone in that community).

Anyway its probably not in your head and sorry you are going through that. In the end my relative found a new community through an art hobby and her life is better without petty people

You’re being silly. Your son doesn’t go to the same school as all these other children, most mums chat at the gate and form friendships. If you’re not there then unfortunately these mums are basically going to forget about you. It’s likely nothing personal, you are just not part of their circle now.

You seem bored and lonely, maybe volunteer at your son’s school and try to make friends with the parents there. Not all can be borders surely?

Im not surprised to be honest. It sounds odd but try not to take it too personally, as PPs have said it's much more likely that the shared school is the biggest thing these mums have in common.

Relying on school mums as your main friendship group is a very risky strategy anyway and can go tits up at any moment for all sorts of reasons. Cast your net wide and you will make new friends from a range of activities.

There’s no way that I could have maintained many non-school parent get together as at primary, not with a job and 2 kids.
I did the kid/parent stuff with the school mum and dad’s and the ‘grown up’stuff with a whole other set of friends entirely. I’m not sure I would have had room in my head to remember to invite parent A from the other school to everything separately though s/he would have been welcome if they’d have asked to come to the Friday after school whatever…