To change my son’s school even though my DH disagrees

i agree with you on the school choice although i can't agree with you doing it behind your husbands back

”my son”… if he’s your son, not DH’s then it’s nothing to do with him.

or do you mean “our son”? In which case I also can’t agree with doing this without his dad’s approval as well.

Does the other school have a tutor group for children with sen? Is there going to be the same support in the other school? Are the teachers as experienced dealing with sen? Is there a higher level of sense at the other school so your dc may get lost in those with higher needs?

You may also find that the kids he was friendly with have made new friends and your son may not integrate into those friendship groups.

Most importantly has he started adhd medication? I found this helped hugely with anxiety and regulation issues.

Have you addressed his sibling bullying him? I would come down like a ton of bricks at home if one of my dc as bullying a sibling at school.

Personally I would give it the full school year and if it doesnt settle then discuss plans over the summer. Its very early days still after transition to new sxhool

With respect to your husband, your son isn’t going to be high achieving if he hates school. Those grades are irrelevant as they won’t apply if he’s suspended often, on reduced hours, and otherwise not listening and getting into trouble.

Your husband seems to think the school being better will improve your son’s odds at succeeding, when it sounds like the opposite is happening. Your son isn’t engaging well at all.

I think your husband needs to open his eyes and see what’s happening. Unless you make a change, it’s looking like son is going to flunk and that’s not even considering his happiness or health.

I would give the other school a shot before his old friends move on too long.

Legally, you can't do this. A change of school needs to be agreed by everyone with parental responsibility.

Morally, you can't do this. Your husband is your child's parent too.

So was he privately diagnosed? Is private medication and reviews too expensive? As I know they can be out of most people's budgets

I think that you need to talk again in more depth with your husband.

It is against the principles of marriage to simply do what you think because you believe you are right on such a big issue. Your husband would rightfully be very upset and your marriage would suffer.

He’s only been there a few weeks. It’s going to take longer than that to settle and find his feet. There is absolutely no guarantee that moving schools now is going to change anything. They may have a very similar set up with regards to tutor groups. Do you know who they organise their Sen provision? He may still find himself not in groups etc with people he considers friends. They may also have made new connections and he may find it harder than you think to reintegrate.
Why did you choose this school in the first place? You must have had a good reason? Does that not still hold true?
I wouldn’t move him without consensus between the two of you.

We have 3 family members with ADHD including me. Your son has a huge amount of support at his current school which is hard to find. Moving him to school where he knows more kids is not guaranteed success they all get new friendship groups at this age. He needs to learn skills to deal with bullying and how to regulate himself and it seems his current school is at least helping with the disregulation. Ask for help with the bullying.

Move him. I moved my autistic child to a worse school on paper and it was the right decision. Would your husband at least go and look round the school with you and have a conversation with the SENCO? Also get your EHCP parental application in for a needs assessment now. Don’t wait for school to do it. Also ensure school are going through the assess, plan, do, review process properly now (APDR) and documenting things properly. Have you read the IPSEA website? With the SEND reforms happening in the next few years it’s important not to delay.

I think you are too close to this to have a rational perspective.

By moving you risk the lack of re integration PP referred to.
You are teaching DS that behaving badly gets what he wants.
I don’t believe in going back, I’m all for moving forward.

DH needs to learn coping skills or you will set him up to fail or opt out for the rest of his life.

if you must, find school 3 but not until next September. Stick this out for the full school year. Address the bullying with the school.

Something similar happened to a friend of mine with her NT son. He got into a secondary school that none of his friends went to. He was on the waiting list of the school he really wanted though. By February year 7, the other school had a place for him and then so he happily joined.

The problem was, those friends from primary school didn't even hang around with each other, let alone him. New school meant that they found other people and even where they were in the same classes, they drifted apart.

It took a while for him to get over that. I think actually a new boy started after him and that was who he buddied with.

OP, kindly and been there, your son has issues. 3 suspensions not great and to classify them just as disregulation maybe misses an opportunity to work out what’s really going on. Likely to be way more than missing a friend group. If he did move schools it may not work out as you hope. The friend group may have moved on. They may not be in same classes. They may fall out. Teen friendships can be fickle. Then you are back to square one. Better to help him find a way to cope and be more resilient and meet up with old group out of school. Hoping you haven’t spoken to him about the other school as if you have he will likely be fixated. Does the current school have a buddy or mentor system?

He has no guarantee that his old friends would welcome him back in their circle. Kids at that age move on. It would be even more devastating for him if he found his friends were not interested in him.

It's still early in the year. It usually takes up until the Christmas break for things to start settling.

I know he would be a lot happier if he could just be in the school with more of the children that he was with at the first school.

You can't possibly know that.
Moving to a school with his a lot of his old friends in is not the same as moving back to the lower school environment.

What if you move him and his friends are all in new friendship groups and/or he realises he's not that bothered about them any more? What if he doesn't like one of the teachers at the new school? What if he is bullied by another child at the school? What if the school gives him less support for his SEN? These are all fairly likely and not purely hypothetical "what ifs".

I am not saying "don't move him" but if you move him he will still have ADHD and anxiety and he'll still need to adapt to another new settting. I would consider very hard whether this is really what he needs. It sounds like his current school actually is being supportive of him - are there are other things you think they coul be doing?

What did he actually do to be suspended?

you just glossed over that with ‘he was disregulated’.

you can’t just go through life behaving whichever way you feel like, and have it excused because ADHD.

the thing you need to work on is strategies to cope with deregulation which aren’t doing whatever it was that got him suspended.

otherwise you’ll get exactly the same at the new school. And, a billion times worse once he’s a teenager.

I think you need to give your DS longer to settle in. Would your DH be open to compromising with moving at the end of the year if things still haven’t improved?

I am all for moving if you genuinely feel it's an issue with the school. However, as PPs say, do you feel sure it wouldn't just be the same in another school? Often primary friendships fizzle out completely in secondary school, and your son will need to find a way to build new relationships.

I have to agree with others. There's no guarantee that his friends from primary are still friends with each other. Friendship groups change, routines and interests change. I think you think changing schools will be a magic wand that will fix everything, but there's no guards of that. How would you feel if things get worse for your son?

Ask your husband to find an alternative school. Hand off the calls from the school to him.

Well it's a non-question isn't it. You obviously can't move him without your husband's permission so you should be having this conversation with him not us.
But if you're asking whether it's ok to want to move DS, then .. maybe. It might not solve anything though and the friends may have settled into new groups by now. So I'd be addressing the bullying you mention and talking to school to work together on increasing his confidence where he is.

Your husband needs to make peace with your son’s future not necessarily being great grades and academia. It’s a hard pill to swallow, I know.

You need to possibly stop romanticising the other school. What if you move him and, like others had said, the old friends have moved on.
Your son is likely struggling because there are so many changes, new building, new teachers, new structure. You have to get the EHCP process going right now.
I would say give it more time, but I wouldn’t like a tutor group with just SEN kids. My DD was in one for a while and it was chaos. She hated it.
Also don’t bank on medication making a huge difference, it hasn’t for my DD, she is exactly the same. Been on it since May.
Partly it’s hormones too. Hormones and change.