DD (5 and a half) starts school on Tuesday. She should have started last year according to birthday but was deferred for a year as she's under assessment for ASD and is a little behind her peers in most aspects.
During the last year at nursery, I have been called in for several meetings with health visitor, support worker, head teacher of the school (it's a feeder nursery, attached to the school) and head teacher of the nursery. The main focus of these meetings was discussing how to properly support DD in her transition from nursery to school as she doesn't do well with changes and will often "shut down" and go non verbal in unfamiliar settings.
DD does not interact well with other kids. She wants to, but when it comes to actually going over and joining in play or integrating herself into a group she can't do it, she just stands on the sidelines and stares then gets upset if they don't take that as a cue to ask her to play. Because of these social/communication issues, it is incredibly difficult for her to make friends. During her 2 years of nursery she very gradually built up a bond with 2 children, a little boy and a little girl, both 4 years old.
These kids have really taken her under their wing and brought her out of her shell a little.
Due to class numbers, the primary 1 kids have been split into two classes, p1a and p1b. The nursery teachers were asked to inform the school of any children who should or should not be placed in the same class.
For some reason, the nursery teacher (I don't want to sound like a massive dick, and I know I do, but this woman did not like my child. DD can be challenging, infuriating even, and her group leader could not deal with it and I've had a few heated discussions with her over her treatment of DD, for example, telling her off for the design of her backpack and telling her she's not allowed to bring it to nursery any more, asking her to wait and walking away with no intention of coming back, which, due to DD's nature, ended in her standing there aimlessly for over an hour, and telling DD she can't be a chef because she's a girl, which really upset her, to name but a few instances) has told them to put the other two kids into one class and DD into another. The way things have worked out, DD knows literally no one in her class. Everyone from her group (the nursery was split into 8 groups), including her friends, is in another class.
DD was looking forward to school and now doesn't want to go.
I have spoken to a family support worker from the school who refuses to believe me - "maybe she just likes these kids and speaks about them at home because she's fixated on them, they can't be friends or the nursery would have said, we specifically asked about her and were told there was no one specific she'd prefer to be with."
This is not the case, I know the mothers of her friends and the kids speak about her at home too, and I witnessed them playing every time I dropped her off and picked her up.
Would I be U to ask the head teacher on the first day to switch her into the other class? I hope this made sense, sorry, I'm stressed and tired