Hi all
I’d love some advice!
my 12 year old DD started at the local secondary school last September in year 7. We selected the school because it had a lovely vibe when we visited, it seemed well rounded and down to earth and just a fairly good school. There are some extremely good schools in the Borough but we knew she was unlikely to get them at that time due to catchment. So we went for the local one.
When we shared which school she had got into, other parents expressed deep shock and surprise and warned us it wasn’t a good school, we were surprised at the negative response. Despite this, she got off to a fairly ok start, we were pleasantly surprised with how good the SEN provision was and how supportive they are of her anxieties (she often gets overwhelmed and anxious with sensory overload etc, she’s undergoing assessment for autism and has quite low self esteem too/ finds it hard to maintain friendships.) The quality of teaching seemed good but we realised there’s quite a high turnover of staff leaving/moving on.
The real issue seems to be the other pupils in the school and since November she’s been asking to move schools. She finds it hard mostly because of the behaviour of other pupils and says she has no friends, though I know she hangs out with a couple of people from time to time. The school is based in South London and the number of pupils from particularly challenging backgrounds is higher than average at this school. There are clearly issues with behaviour in the school as well, our daughter has witnessed at least 10 fist fights in her short time there.
She often comes out of school upset about things she’s seen, heard or witnessed, for example there was graffiti in the girls toilet saying ‘k1ll yourself’ and just all round general horrid stuff and lots of violence and aggression.
I know all secondary schools have issues and are difficult places to be, where you will see and hear inappropriate things at times and so I worry that moving her may not solve all the issues.
Looking further into local schools I realised the school she’s at actually has the lowest number of applications of any school in the Borough though, which speaks volumes - I wasn’t aware of this before.
she’s adamant she wants to move to another school and has one in mind that have told us they may have a vacancy. This school is on the other side of town, in a much more affluent area (which I worry may come with a whole other type of b1tchiness)
Sorry for such a long post but my question is: what would you do? Would you move your DD or keep her where she is?