Moving my 13 year old child to a different school

[Pistachioslice]

My 13 year old daughter is being bullied at school and does not have any friends now. One group of girls are throwing things at in class and put glue in her hair and she finds it humiliating. Another group are not necessarily bullying her but being mean and making it clear they don't want to hang round with her. She states she cannot make any other friends. She lacks confidence and can be very anxious.
I am aware that this bullying is not that bad I got jumped on a few times at school and would fight back but my school was rough and it was the 90s.
She has some counselling to stop manage her anxiety and gave her coping mechanisms to stop worrying but it has not helped in this case, it has got to a point when she has a full on break down, crying hysterically in the morning and will not go to school.
The school has not helped despite countless emails.
AIBU to now apply to move her schools? I am aware bullies are everywhere and I do not want to make the situation worse, I love her so much and just want her to be happy.

Tbh, this bullying sounds bloody awful if it's making your this upset.
Have you spoken to the school?

I would do more than email op - they are easy for the school to ignore. Ask for a meeting with the head of year for starters.
Your poor dd xx

It’s awful.

Does your daughter want to move schools?

I have been into the school and called them, requested a meeting been 3 months still no meeting

Yes of course move her

Definitely move her. You’ve tried to go through the school and they’re clearly not interested and maybe that’s why they have bullies in their school.

I hope you can find her a new school and hopefully some kind new friends x

she wants to move schools but said this before, things got better for a couple of weeks was coming home happy etc so she wanted to stay but things have got worse again, not sure if its down to her anxiety more than the actual bullying. Its an important and difficult call to make moving her schools.

It's a no brainer. Yes, do it. Give her a fresh start.

Definitely do it. I'd also write to the governors about no response from the school and your at the point of moving her.

Yes.

school sound awful if this is not being addressed

Not that bad? It sounds terrible!

My mother moved me at that age for similar reasons. It was the best thing. If she hadn't I'd probably have dropped out prematurely, or worse.

Yes,absolutely move her - it will let her know that she doesn’t have to tolerate abuse, that there are ways out of intolerable situations and that she can count on you to support her - and also write to the governors as recommended above. That’s a rubbish non- response from the school.

100% you need to move her schools, straight away.
Otherwise it could have a devastating impact on her mental health at a very vulnerable age for it.

I did this when my son was horribly bullied in in Yr7. We tried to ride it out - it was post covid plus the first year of secondary. Yr8 was no better so we moved him in the February half term.

Best. Thing. We. Ever. Did.

The SLT and pastoral support was shit. They couldn’t care less. This was a highly sought after school with amazing results in a very naice area,

What I would say is choose her next school carefully: you don’t want to be out of the frying pan and into the fire. We moved ours to a school in a less naice area, with far fewer bells and whistles and average results.

BUT! The pastoral support, behaviour, ethos and atmosphere is so much better. He is loads happier and thriving.

No regrets whatsoever. An adult would probably leave a work place as toxic as this so I can’t see any reason why a child should stay in a school that is not supporting her.

I was bullied and my parents made the choice to move me at 13 years old (end of year 8). It took me a few months to adapt to my new school (which was much smaller and further away from home) but it was 100% the right move for me. My younger sister later attended the same local school I'd found terrible and she loved it. I think you know your child best and whether moving would be in their best interests x

Sounds awful, definitely move her.

She's not happy there and all the coping strategies in the world aren't going to change that at 13 years old. I wouldn't hesitate to change schools.

Exactly as a pp said. We would change jobs if this were work. Don't force her to spend another minute there. Her mental well-being is too important.

We moved in similar circumstances. Best thing we ever did. We have a different child now.

And on the school not arranging a meeting, I had this until I took the morning off work and sat in reception and told them I’d sit there all day and night until they russled up the pupil support person I wanted to talk to. Took them all of 5 minutes to get the person to come down once they realised I wasn’t messing around. And I got back to work in time not to take the morning off afterall.

I feel for you OP. It’s a horrid situation. I was in awe of my child walking through the gates of the new school after their terrible experiences at the previous school - it took such guts - but they’ve got a kind friendship group now and are really thriving and loving life.

Put an in year admission application in. Also check out what your area is like for schools with spaces in her year group so that you're not building up false hope of a particular school only to find they aren't taking as they are at PAN. You'd then be looking at a waiting list situation. It's very important to check this out with your local authority or the school itself if they handle their own admissions, particularly if moving for a particular reason.
Re. the bullying, ring and request a call back from the head of year, be prepared to be persistent, or walk into reception and ask to make an appointment with the head of year.

Find a school with a better ethos, caring, with consequences for bullying, stronger pastoral care.

Also put in a formal complaint to governors following the complaints procedure (found online) so that Ofsted see the school have failed to deal with bullying.

when you send the school an email removing her, state it’s due to bullying. Copy in the LA so they are aware.

Start the process of moving to a new school but at the same time insist on that meeting with the HoY. If you don’t get one within 2 weeks escalate to head teacher and then failing that the governors, failing that Ofsted. There is always an excavation point

As a side note does your DD do anything outside of school like Guides, sports, etc. It's good for any child but especially in these circumstances to have friends and positive peer groups outside the school setting.

I had this exact situation with my DD who is 13 next month. She moved schools but never really settled and is now being home schooled with the hope of getting a place at the old school where she now has a couple of friends.

If I had my time again, I would have opted for a form move to try first - obviously this depends on how big the school is.

No one needs to send an email to school removing a child unless they are deciding to withdraw their child for elective home education. The In Year admission system takes care of all of that. Should the parent wish they can state their reasons but the local authority wouldn't need a record.
Your local authority website will have the form you need, it can be completed online, you'll receive an acknowledgement then you'll receive the result which is either place allocated please contact new school within x amount of days or we're sorry your preference isn't available, there's a place within reasonable distance at a different school and we've placed your daughter on the waiting list for your preference.
Regarding a complaint, look at the school website, look at their complaints procedure, look at their anti bullying policy, if you can't find it, ask the office for a hard copy. Follow this process to the letter, otherwise the different levels can bat it back to the level below (ie you contact the governors first, they'd reply asking you to raise the issue with the head of year) A complaint to Ofsted wouldn't do anything until the schools own process has been followed. Follow up any meeting or conversation with an email confirming what was said and what school agreed to do.
As another poster has said school can move form groups, change classes etc , they can look at a named person to be available to your daughter, all of which should be perfectly normal pastoral care.

With elective home education, if you want to do this then great but if you're doing it because you feel you've been forced it's not an effective way of changing schools as the local authority legitimately discharges their duty to provide your child with a school place.