Aibu to consider moving dd school

[Litttlepinkegg]

Dd in year one at school 1
Plus points- she’s doing ok, she is friendly with lots of people, school has good reputation
Downsides- class sizes are big (32 in dd’s Case) and uneven she is one of 10 girls. Despite ofsted outstanding school is not doing great , results declining. Dd complains that it’s noisy in class and hard to concentrate.
Split to secondarys is over 4 different high schools (all decent schools) so she will go with some friends but not loads.

School 2 -
Plus points- much smaller class size 22 and balanced.
Ofsted is a good but results much higher than current school.
Dd could be introduced to friends beforehand I know someone who dd goes there and has offered to introduce dd to everyone.
Preschool on site for ds.
Feeds into one secondary only so more friends to go with- better results than 3/ 4 of current options.

Downsides- disrupting dd who is settled and doing ok.
Might knock dd’s Confidence.
We only know a few of the parents so might struggle socially possibly

Posting on aibu for more traffic (and honest opinions!) thanks 🙏

Are you within the catchment for junior and senior schools

I thought that legally year 1 and 2 classes could not go over thirty (without employing an extra teacher).

Your DD will probably settle well. But, in primary school friends aren’t everything, the pastoral care and broad and rich curriculum are. I’d be less worried about results and more concerned about that.

You may want to check the classes. Mine was at a school with 20 in the year but they combined years, eg reception were out with half of year one, the other half of year one were out with year 2, etc. They did it on ability and confidence, mine went up each time but others who stayed down their parents somehow thought they’d ‘failed’. We moved in year 3 for other reasons but I’m glad mine is out of that peculiar system.
Now he’s in the bigger school he has more friends and there’s LOTS more after school clubs for him to enjoy, particularly sport. It was very hard to get a netball team/football team from a class of 20!

Out should actually be put in that post!

As she gets older, having local friends around is really helpful, so I would also look at which school is closer to where you live. Plus look at why the second school has such a small class size if it’s doing better academically. Perhaps to do with location?

One of my dc's was in a similar situation in a large Yr1 class at an 'outstanding' state school. The teacher was fine but it was still a chaotic & noisy environment. She really found it stressful. We moved her to a private school half way through yr1, and it was the best decision we could have made. The change in her attitude to school & learning was immediate

22 in a class would ring warning bells for me. A state school not that full will be really struggling for money within a year or two and could need to regroup classes or mix year groups in funny ways year on year.

Yes they'll end up mixing, not that this is necessarily a problem though.

School 2 do mix think they say year3 and 4.
School 2 foundation year

Sorry foundation year has larger classes

Ime mixed classes higher up the school only really work for children whose academic ability is more or less average. If your child is very able, or less able, they can be problematic.

I actually don't think that's true barbarian, in the experience of the school my dc are at.