To move my sons school

[Str3bor]

My son is 11 and going into year 7 in September. I have recently moved to another area so I wanted to move my son to a local school.

He has a place in a school where I used to live and he is adamant he doesn’t want to move as he wants to go where his mates are going. I’ve tried explaining you make new mates in high school but he just kicks off and gets upset.

the reasons for moving him are not for my convenience as his sister goes to the same school he has a place at but as she will be going into year 10 I don’t want to disrupt her so I will still have to take her to school anyway (it’s a 20 minute drive). I just feel sad for him that he has no mates by where we now live, all his friends go out by our old area and he gets frustrated he can’t go as we live to far away and there is no direct public transport so it’s no easy to get to without driving. He can’t see that I’m thinking of him and he thinks I’m being mean.

am I being unreasonable to move him?

Which school has better results? Does the new school have any strengths compared to the old school? E.g. does it have a team in his favourite sport which the other one doesn't have?

Probably a daft question, but is there actually a space for him at the local school?

I actually think the school he has a place in is the better school although the other school is in a better area.

I just feel bad for him that his mates aren’t local. I’ve tried to get him a local football team instead but he is resisting anything by where we now live and it’s hard because I’m only trying to help him.

Let him stay where he is.

11 year olds don't have the long term perspective to make informed decisions about their education in my opinion. They're understandably concerned with the here and now, what their current friends are doing, where their current friends are going.

For all the issues in Year 7 where parents are upset/worried that their child isn't in a class with their best friends, or they're in a class with nobody from their primary school, most people who've been through it realise that the friendship groups change quite quickly once children get to secondary.

I'd not give him a weighty role in the decision, but would say as a parent you need to weigh up the quality of education in both schools and balance it against the social side. It might be that staying with his friends in the better school is right, it might be that he's better off in the new school because the ability for him to do enrichment and make local friends is better for you.

He won't settle in the new area if everything he does is in the old area.
Long term, moving school at the natural breakpoint of moving into year 7 will be better... short term more painful

They make new friends at high school anyway
My son has just left school( year 11)/
He has,a,solid group.of friends and none of the.went to the same primary school as him.

I would let him choose. There's something special about growing up with the same set of friends.

I think you're right to move him (unless the school is much worse); this is absolutely the best time for him to get stuck in to making friends in the new area. You don't want to be tied to getting him to school for another three years after his sister finishes. It might restrict your career if you're committed to a school run. It's going to be tough to convince him, though. Perhaps you could point out that you might need to move him at year 9 and so it would be better to make new friends now.

Have you checked out whether there is a space? If they're having a transition day between now and the end of term, can he be included on that?

If he moves now, he'll arrive at a time when a whole cohort of new Yr 7's are coming fresh to the school, ready to make new friendships, and the school's pastoral system will be geared up to settling in the newbies. If a move becomes inevitable later, moving into friendship groups will be harder. But of course he won't have that long-term perspective.
It's a common thing, even if a housemove is not involved, to be in this situation; it happened to me, and I can still remember worrying about it. No transition days back in the day, but I found one kindred spirit pretty quickly, and from that, a group formed.
You can reassure him that you will ensure that he keeps in touch with old friend, and hope that he finds his feet in a new setting.

I think it's best to rip the plaster off and put him in Year 7 in the new local school. There will be kids in a similar boat whose BFFs have gone to different schools or are from a smaller school and have two people they know in the form etc.

Many friendships change quickly in secondary. If he goes to the same secondary as his sister and is unable to go round with his mates much because he lives further away than everyone else and depends on lifts to get too/from meet ups, he will end up left out and less independent.