Teenage wrong friendship groups

[Jimmyjimjam1]

My son is in a good state school, he is 13 years and fairly academic, but doesn't seem to enjoy learning. He can be a follower - albeit an innocent one - and has not chosen a great friendship group, but I do accept that there must be some common ground for him to have formed these friendships in the first place; he is at an age where he thinks hanging out with the 'popular boys' is cool - they are not dangerous kids, but don't seem to want to do much with their lives and it is difficult as I don't encourage him to hang out with the same boys during school breaks, which causes arguments. I am wondering whether a move to a different or even independent school would make a difference assuming there were places. Has anyone been in the same position and can offer their thoughts? I just don't want to leave it until it is too late, as he is about to start his GCSE syllabus. Any advice appreciated.

We were in a similar position with our DS13, to cut a long story short he was seeking out the wrong type of friendships so we moved him to another local high school who have been amazing with him, they buddied him up with a lovely boy when he first started and DS was brought into his friendship group and now they are all firm friends.

They’re not the cool kids by any stretch of the imagination, they’re just nice, normal kids and DS has really found his tribe.

It was absolutely the right thing to do for DS and he is a completely different child going to school now, does extra curricular clubs, goes into breakfast club to eat with his friends, it’s lovely to see.

I’m glad that we nipped it in the bud before things escalated as it was heading that way.