Terrible class at school, shall we move schools? Did you?

[User15643289]

DS is y4. His class are apparently a nightmare. He goes to a school that's rated outstanding but the reality seems anything but. It's a very upper middle class area. Kids in the class are aggressive and violent towards each other. There seems to be no kindness. My own child does get involved at times and I have been massively disappointed in him - he's sworn, pushed and kicked a few times. He's not the worst by any stretch but he behaves impeccably at home so it's quite galling how he behaves sometimes at school. I can only assume the culture of the class is not a good one. I have heard from others and seen for myself some of the problems. Most of the time he's fine but he does come back complaining every day of things that so and so has done to him or to someone else..children routinely taken to the head, having fights and being very rude to teachers. My son is not often involved, we've had two incidents this year - one where he kicked someone and one where he was involved in a rough game in the playground. Obviously we spoke to him at length both times. School seem unable to sort it out though I haven't kicked up as much of a fuss as I could do. They've been the 'bad class' since y1.

My other DC also goes to the school and there are no problems. Their class is lovely.

My DH and I are wondering if we should take the eldest out and send him to a new school. It would be a smaller village school probably about 15 minutes away. Results are ok and ofsted is good. I'm not worried about results, I think my son will do his best at a school with well behaved children to be honest.

But what if we move him and find similar problems? Do we uproot them both? Do we manage the logistics or two in different places? Do we scrimp and save for private for 3 years (a real push, I'd have to work full time so both kids would have to go to after school club every day).

Or do we stick with what we know and try and improve it? How can we improve it? How can I help my son not to get involved with the silly/bad behaviour at school? Honestly at home he's as good as gold. He doesn't shout, he doesn't ever act aggressively and never has. He can get angry but he just stomps off and I think is quite normal in that regard?

Would be interested to hear other people's experiences of being part of the 'bad' class at an otherwise good school.

I would find out as much as you could about the class you would move him to. Would it be 15 min driving? If there are breakfast/ after school clubs it is doable but to be honest you will compare the two so you might end up moving the other one too.

Tbh there could well be a similar class. If not now it will happen at some point. Sometimes you can get a difficult class or year group. I would also not underestimate your dc role in the issue. Tricky classes are often because there is an arrogance and also a lack of acceptance from parents that their kid is causing issues. I have never had a parent who would say their child is an issue. It is ways the influence of another kid that is the perceived issue

I would move him, you can always move him back again if it really doesn't work. I'd just move him and not his sibling to start with and see how that goes. You do get an awful class in a nice school sometimes, ds was in one but it was only for the last year that it got bad so I didn't move him. It was horrible though and if he'd still had several years left I would have been desperate to move him.

I don't think it's that unusual for a guy to be involved in the odd rough game in the playground. Sounds like that was sorted so l wouldn't worry about it. Is there actually issues in the actual classroom while learning is happening? Is the teacher experienced? Is there enough children for your ds to be friends with if he avoids the particular rough guys. If this has been impacting his learning and behaviour since starting school l would move him as long as you know his new class is well disciplined. My ds moved at age 8 and had absolutely no difficulties adjusting.

One of my Dc is in 'that' class.

After seeing how family and friends DC have struggled to navigate secondary school behaviour I'm hoping it will give them a bit of an advantage.

Like you we're hot on behaviour at home so any quirks picked up have been smoothed out. Thankfully their school reports (effort) is always brilliant so I can't ask for more than that. I'm not sure if I could give them the same for home!

I could be on here in a few years time regretting my choices though. Time will tell and our DC can be exposed to things we don't want them to be throughout life. We just have to hope they can navigate their way through.

If I'd had known the worry before having children!

@roundtable your post really struck a cord, thank you. You are right I can't wrap him up in cotton wool. I think perhaps we need to do more and home to boost him for doing the right thing at school and really work on peer pressure etc here. Maybe more open discussions.

I definitely don't underestimate the role my DC plays, but I do believe if he left the problems would remain. Put it this way, he's not on a behaviour plan and we've never had anything from the head. I know many of the boys in his class have almost weekly visits to see the head and multiple phone calls home. He gets involved for sure but honestly he's not the instigator. I think it's a few strong characters and then unfortunately a lot of boys like mine and they all add up don't they.