To want to move DD’s school again

[Sohardtochooseausername]

My DD is 11 and has just started secondary school. We are in Scotland and they have been back for a month.

She has always been an unpopular kid since she started primary. She has been on less than 10 play dates since she started school. Often we have invited kids but she is never invited back.

Lots of the kids in her new school were in juniors and her isolation seems to have ramped up to bullying especially now they all have phones.

One of the kids didn’t move up to senior school with them because she was being bullied by the same kids my DD is being bullied by.

I have been onto the school already about it and the head of year says she has told the kids to ‘give each other space’ but DD was being bombarded with mean messages on the way home. I’ve blocked all these kids now but I’m not sure what to do next.

AIBU if I look for another school? I already moved her once 3 years ago. I don’t know why the kids don’t like my DD. I was an unpopular kid myself so this whole experience is really hard as I never resolved it for myself.

Personally I would move her now if you can, if these are the same kids who were unkind in primary it is unlikely to change. DS1 was assaulted by a teacher in Y7 and the whole thing was badly handled by the school so we moved him. In Y8 we emigrated to Aus, six weeks in it was clear we had made a big mistake with his new school (the promised dyslexia support was a fantasy). We found another we thought would suit him much better, he grumbled a bit but moved at the end of term and had a wonderful time for the next 41/2 years until he left at the end of Y12 with much better grades than expected. If anything it helped his resilience and he has no problem going places where he doesn’t know a soul. Don’t leave an 11 year old in a school where she is miserable, some kids just don’t come into their own until after school but meanwhile she needs to get through it.

Thanks, I am sorry your DS had a tough time - that sounds awful! But glad he found his place.

The dyslexia point is interesting - my DD is on a waiting list to be assessed for that and some other NDs. I wonder if that is a factor for us to consider. The school she is at are very dismissive of my concern that she is underperforming.