To think kids move schools too much

[wakingimpossible]

Ok, I know there are lots of reasons for children to change schools- bullying, poor standards, relocation etc, but aside from this, I just can’t believe the amount of moving around that has gone on at DDs schools. I’m talking about primary and secondary (for transparency, this is in the private system and I don’t know if it’s the same at state). It’s not something I ever experienced as a child - indeed I basically had the same classmates aged 4-12 and 12-18.

In year 6 the class of 20 had about 8 original pupils from reception remaining, and it looks to be going the same way in secondary. Many of these pupils have just gone to another school in the same town or nearby.

Parents seem to whip their kids out for all sorts of reasons - friendship issues that would likely resolve in time, not liking a particular teacher, getting specific bees in their bonnets about eg sport, school trips, the lunch offering - maybe thinking maybe that the grass is greener. But no school is perfect.

DD has gone to just one school for primary and secondary and, yes, it’s not always been smooth sailing. We’ve weathered friendship problems, bad heads, low level bullying, less than brilliant teachers and disruptive classmates. Of course, I know I am lucky that these have been largely surmountable and of course I would move her if she/I was genuinely happy over an extended period. But, in general, I’ve found that most things do work themselves out over the course of one school year.

Each to their own, I know, but I can’t help but feel this has a negative effect on the school community and is setting a poor example to children about resilience, figuring things out and seeing things through.

Preparing to be flamed but please don’t think I’m getting at people whose kids have been genuinely miserable and needed to leave. I’m just wondering if parents need to consider whether problems/gripes should be worked through a bit more.

My DDs went to 4/5 Primary schools but that was all due to house moves. Fir DD1, current Yr9, this was difficult as school places were in short supply as it was the baby boom cohort. (I worked out between the no school places and then Covid, she attended school 11 weeks in Yr4!) There was definitely no random moving in her year group.

Definitely a private school thing. I taught 16 years state and am now in seventh year in private and the movement is far more. Sometimes there are genuine reasons, sometimes it’s because the flashy marketing of private schools is generally very good leading to a “grass is greener” perception. Sometimes the reason for moving is literally given as “we just fancied a change”. I remember my first year in private I had a Y12 form group and they had all been to at least four different schools before that one! In state the good schools tend to be full so moving isn’t as straightforward and most parents would only attempt it when things had gone really wrong or for a house move.

As a private school parent, you are a consumer. If you aren’t getting (or feel you aren’t getting) what you’re paying a lot of money for, you’ll look elsewhere.

My daughter’s school is academically very selective, phenomenal, multiple applicants to every space at all entry points and NOBODY leaves. Ever. Unless they move away. She’s been there for 5 years and not one single child has left.

Her previous school, and older sibling’s schools, were often like some kind of merry go round of starters and leavers, for a variety of reasons. But her school now is so good, parents don’t even consider leaving. Nowhere would even come close to comparing.

I’ve noticed it in my kids primary school, we’ve had about 8 leaver and joiners in a class of 20, sometimes for the silliest reasons like they moved house 10 minutes down the road so moved to the next school over because it was closer, without a thought for their child who had a lovely group of friends, or the ones who moved their kids from another country to our school, then a year later moved them to another school because they didn’t like the teacher at ours (she’s fine, she’s not going to set the world on fire, but she’s absolutely fine) I feel sorry for the kids and the parents alway console themselves with ‘kids are resilient’ I mean yeah, that’s fine if they have to be but I’d prefer my kids to be settled and happy.

This hasn’t been our experience at all, our eldest went to primary (state) with 24 other children, when they left primary they had gained 3 classmates over the years and lost 2 but 22 were still the original children.
Our next one is in his final year of primary and in his class he’s lost one class member and gained 2.
Maybe it’s the area you live within?

I can't comment on secondary, but on primary which my son left last year I think we lost 5 gained 4 in 7 years. I think your son's class might be unusual!

From talking to colleagues who live in london this is more common there.

I live just outside the city in the commuter belt. There's only been 2 kids leave my DS school class & 2 join. The other 28 are unchanged throughout. I think one left DDs class.

My dc’s state schools see very little moving around, certainly in primary. Secondary, I wouldn’t know as much as it’s a massive school (1600 students) and frankly, I wouldn’t know who left or came.

I went to private school though and I’d say, yes, in my independent secondary school there was a lot of coming and going. Some of it was wanting a different school and when you’re paying for it, you can insist on what you want. Some of it was not being able to afford it any longer. Some of it was being expelled or being sent off to a stricter school or to rehab. It was an all girls school, so there were definitely a handful who left due to pregnancy. One left, gave birth, left her baby with her mum and came back to board for another 2 years. I remember it being very scandalous. There was definitely a lot more coming and going than I see in dc’s schools now.

I don’t think it’s so much of a thing outside London. There has only been one child leave my child’s class since they started, they’re now year 2. I believe another will be leaving at the end of this year to go to private school which starts from year 3. And I think that’s pretty normal for her school.

Doesn't seem to be that much movement here. My youngest had 3 infant schools but that was because we moved and didn't get the school we wanted initially. If she had settled in the school given we would have stayed but she hated it with a passion so when space eventually came up we changed and we got our happy girl back. So Yr R in school A, Yr 1 in school b and c.
Otherwise not expecting anymore school changes beyond infants to junior to secondary

All anyone wants is for their child to be happy at school, and things are way off of what they were 20/30 years ago with regards to how much crap people are prepared to put up with.... Also the volume of crap you're expected to put up with.

Resilience isn't about sitting back and putting up with things hoping they will go away. It's about showing your child that it's OK to stand up for yourself and speak out if somethings not right, and of course to move on if needed. The issues may seem small to you, but to others who have moved their child there could have been greater depth to their choices such as children with additional needs or dietary requirements behind the school meals issue that were not being met. If you're paying privately, I'd anticipate that families want schools to meet a certain level of expectation and wouldn't be prepared to take the BS.

I found this a bit with our kids in private primary. There was a core class, but there were new kids every term and they had often been to two or three schools before. And many of them moved on within a couple of years.

My observation was that the kids were atypical in some way, SEN
or behavioural difficulties, and the parents were chasing a silver bullet rather than knuckling down, dealing with the issues, and accepting their kids weren’t necessarily going to be Oxbridge material. I have some sympathy. It must be hard to watch your children flounder. We all want our children to be shining stars. And when you’re in the middle of it, it’s probably hard to tell whether an issue is your kid or the school. But from the outside, it was pretty clear with most of them that it was the kid (well, sometimes the parents were clearly at least part of the problem).

DD9 in Y4 hasn't experienced any of this. One classmate left at the end of Y2, and one new friend took her place. That's it.

My experience of London commuter belt was that it was more transient than elsewhere. We were used to comings and goings and when I moved, there were few other changes in my new school's composition and I felt like "the new girl" for years.

My DCs' classes were quite stable. DS2's did experience more changes post-covid, mainly due to house moves, one home education that didn't return. DS1 was closer to secondary age when things settled so less worthwhile to change a school place. Other year groups have had more comings and goings. They had a livlier combination of pupils, and once there are comings and goings, that creates spaces for other people to come and go. SENs will have been a layer within that but I didn't know the families enough to know specific reasons for moves.

We moved twice, work reasons (one move was 4800 miles!) you have to have schools

We weren’t in London either but in affluent areas of cities , state schools

I don’t think the issues you’ve mentioned or the frequency are normal. My eldest DD is in a lovely state school in year 3. I think there will be a couple more leavers at the end of the year (1 to private, 1 relocation) which means about 8 of the original 30 children will have moved on (inner London and lots of overseas and wealthy parents who move out of London or go private). I only know 1 (from another year) who moved to a local school and that was due to ill health and the other school being a better fit.

There was one very weak teacher (now gone) and the children squabble and make/break friends but this is an issue for a day or two at most. Bullying not tolerated but low level can occur and the children just ignore them or tell the teacher. Not perfect but perfectly happy.
School comms is appalling but as the children get older they are able to tell you what goes on, so it gets less annoying. Trips are disappointing but we do so much outside of school I can live with it. Think if I was paying and too busy to extra curricular it could be a deal breaker.

Sounds like the schools you stuck it out in weren’t that great. It’s not normal for lots to leave to another local school and I don’t think it’s the norm to call multiple challenges resilience building (especially when you pay and have other choices). School shouldn’t be an ordeal it should be a happy time. If many move it must be for a good reason.
I want my children to have an education, make friends and be happy at school. They can learn resilience in Scouts!

For us it’s job moves, relocations (international job moves) and money (VAT on fees has brought a lot
of change, the extra £1k a term or more has really hit people).

If a person is unlucky enough to rent in this dive of a country, they will be moving their children around on the whims of a landlord 🤷‍♀️

Good here, innit?

Definitely not something that we experienced. DD went to a lovely little prep school, then onto the adjoining highly competitive grammar. She finished sixth form with the vast majority of kids that she started her primary years with! Any movement was few and far between - typically due to parents moving elsewhere in the world for work reasons.

In my experience (mainly through work) this happens because families are moving house frequently, possibly due to unstable rented accommodation, also down to family relationships breaking down. I think the number of children taken out of school due to difficulty with coping has increased post pandemic.

DS left school in 2017 but his primary school class was pretty stable. Don’t know about his secondary outside of his immediate friendship group.

My experience (above) all state schools, mainly WC sub/urban areas. No experience of private , didn’t pick that up in first reading of the OP.

Hi OP I think you’re right that this is the case in London private primary schools.
My kids go to a good state primary and there is hardly any movement - people love the school and feel so lucky to be near it. Her cohort are incredibly bonded as a result.
But there are lots of independents around, and I recently looked around five of them (for a specific reason due to anxiety about DD1’s SEND provision - before quickly deciding to keep her where she was!)
Maybe this sounds hypocritical as I obviously was considering a move myself, but honestly, I was absolutely agonising and feeling heartbroken about the idea of moving her - so I was stunned when I started speaking to private parents, so many of whom seemed to think moving was no big thing, and who moaned to me about what seemed to me to be really minor issues with the private schools their kids are in, and many of whom had moved their kids around or planned to do so because so and so school was supposedly better for x or y.
They didn’t seem to consider the massive advantage of keeping a happy settled kid where they are etc etc! It was almost as if they thought a child’s school was the sort of thing where you could shop around for the best experience and ‘upgrade’ if you got a bit annoyed with one of the teachers or whatever.
I found it really odd, obviously at our current school issues come up but most parents are up for getting things resolved and would see moving schools as a real nuclear option
I don’t know whether this is a modern phenomenon or just a different mindset that people have if they are paying what are admittedly increasingly massive fees for their kids’ education. But whatever the rights and wrongs of it I am absolutely convinced that that mindset you describe is not at all conducive to forming the sort of supportive community around a school - which is what I realised we are so lucky to have where we are - and for that, and a number of other reasons, we were quite turned off the idea of private schools.

We moved DS because we weren't comfortable with teachers allowing him to be hit multiple times each week, and because the child had additional needs they wouldn't log it nor deal with it. Multiple children have moved from that school and another nearby. Is the suggestion that we should leave our child to be battered so that your kid doesn't need to make a new friend?

The other local schools have less change as they only get movement from people moving in and out of the area. There is actually quite a lot of that, mix of escalating rental costs and immigration to the country. It isn't harmful to the other children, I can understand teachers finding it stressful but not sure why parents would.

I had to move schools 3 times because of my dad’s job. It’s was absolutely devastating and has had a long term negative impact on my life. I swore I would never do it to my children and haven’t.

The school population at my children’s primary school was incredibly transient. This is mainly due to the fact that we live in a very poor area with high immigration. People move into the area then are often moved and rehoused somewhere else a year or two later. People also often move back to their country or onto other palaces. It’s sad as the class is 50% different by year 6.