Is this now normal 8/9 year old girl behaviour?

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Those with girls in year 4 (so age 8/9) - is it normal for the girls to be absolutely horrible to each other? I am getting so exasperated by the daily accounts of sly comments, very blatant attempts to cause upset feelings and undermine others confidence by starting rumours, dirty looks, plus also when did 8/9 year olds start talking about buying skincare at Sephora, applying lip gloss in the classroom, wearing crop tops on mufti day and sneering at those in the class who don’t 😳
is this normal? Or is it just the school I’ve clearly stupidly sent DD to?
Advice welcome! Thanks!

It's so hard to follow threads when people comment referring to English school years, instead of the actual ages of children, as per the OP!

Not everyone knows the ages of children for each English school year! And not every country in the UK uses the English school year format!

But in answer to the OP, I sadly noticed some of this behaviour from my 9 year old girl, and she's not even at school, she picked it up from a mean girl she knows from a club she attends. Fortunately that girl has left recently, so my daughter is now no longer being mean to her sibling, but she's still make-up and Sephora obsessed - sigh.

The op literally states the age of year 4 kids as 8/9, therefore it doesn't take a genius to work out year 5 is one year older, year 6 is two years older.

I’m in Scotland, so that is our p5: girls around 8/9/10.:: and yes, this was when the bitchiness started. It actually was a lot calmer and less bitchy in P7

This is girls. Not all sometimes just a few i within a group.
Boys on the other hand are generally much more interested in what they are doing rather than who with.

Skin care yes at 8 and crop tops indoors only !!!

but not horrible or bitchyness

equally loves baby’s /dolls and has a special one and wanted a highchair /cot/buggy etc for her for Xmas. So that’s her main pressie

Oh give over, did you not see the sheer amount of commenters bang on about their "year insert number" children? Do you really think people outside of England should have to then count up every single time to work out their children's actual age range, when it would be so much easier for them just to simply state "my 10yr old", or "my 6 yr old", etc.?! I wasn't even referring to OP, as she actually stated the age in her post, I was referring to the many people replying who only put the English school year down. This is the problem on so many UK based sites, the majority just assume everyone is English/in England.

We didn’t see any at age 8/9 but my boys all commented during year 5 and particularly year 6 about how bad the girls were. Constant drama and falling out, sounded like really horrible stuff and made me very pleased I didn’t have girls. It then seemed to improve for a few years before kicking in again. My friends daughter is now at 6th form, coming up 18 and it’s all starting again. I’m horrified at the things they say and do to each other. Where’s the girl power gone and women supporting each other.

My DD is 12 and not at all. In my experience it's the kids with phones/social media who get sucked into this especially the Sephora nonsense. Do a lot of these kids have phones?

You want Women supporting each other and then post...

"Made me very pleased I didn't have girls"

If we want girls to support each other maybe older generations should lead by example and support them by not resorting to the girls are bitchy stereotype because your boys said so.

I wonder if you're in a town/city.... Our village primary doesn't have those issues. The odd girl in yr 6 might have some kid friendly skincare they brag about and they all have lib balm in their bag (so does dd or her lips chap) but not gloss. The year 3s and 4s are quite sweet and naive in our school, plus most parents here dont allow crop tops for that age (i wont buy them for dd). Girls can be a bit more keen to have a "best friend" and they do a bit of arguing/falling out/making up/in groups and out groups but it feels quite experimental, we havent had anything truly nasty or anything i would call bullying, certainly no sneering and no mobile phones here (again maybe a couple in year 6 but not before). My DS moved to a school in town for year 5 (long and irrelevant story) he's come home with 6-7 and that kind of thing, which they don't seem to be into in the small village school, it seems just a bit more grown up and worldly.

Yes I work in a small, rural primary school and we have had cohorts of girls like this. Not all.
6/7 is going around and now been banned as disrupting maths. 🙄

Doesn't seem to be true of DD's Year 5 village primary class. She sometimes complains that other parents let their kids do/have certain things she wants (a LOL doll; we then bought her one; travelling in the car without a booster- we said no). But it's an exceptionally nice and non-cliquey class.

My sil is experiencing this with her daughter in that year. Teacher has had to have parents in to chat to them about it as it’s got so bad and she said this type of behaviour is common with the older girls but they are young for it. My daughter is in the year below and I’ve noticed she’s saying that some of the girls aren’t being nice but mostly it’s been ok. A lot of them play Roblox after school and at school the fights seem to be about dances they’ve made up.

My eldest DD’s class was like that end of Y5/Y6 it was awful and emotionally scarred her. Youngest DD is in Y4 but currently one of the boys so I’m hoping we might escape it more. TBH this class seems to have more of an issue with the boys than the girls but in other DD class it was definitely a girl issue the boys still get on now.

That is definitely not normal.

Dd's friends are more into the 90's skater grunge aesthetic, are impeccably polite when they come round and none of them bother with makeup/skincare except spf.

It all totally depends on the group of kids. I've taught year 5 for over 10 years. There's always a 'cool crew' who shape the ethos of the class. Sometimes the cool crew are all about being kind, inclusive, trying their best etc. and are very naive as in, believe in santa, toothfairy (this mostly happens when the class is predominantly made up of eldest children).
Sometimes it goes the other way; children who are cool because they know more about adult things and use this to flex their social muscles. Others are then uncool if they don't have a clue about these things. Examples: momo, squid game, expensive American bloomingdale lunch bags, Instagram etc.
It's not about the school, it's about the dominant characters in the class and the values they have.

Are kids getting their brows done at 9? 😳

Mum of 8 year old girl in Y4. Not sure about make up but definitely seem nastier to each other than when I was a kid, boys as well - we just had to have words with the teacher as a boy in her class called her a pig and threw mud at her yday!!!

My DD had a difficult Y4 with some unkind classmates (boys and girls). It didn’t get any better in Y5 and we moved her to a different school for Y6. Game changing - her new classmates were lovely. My other DD (now in Y8) absorbs the skincare/Sephora chat, but is able to take it all lightly. I don’t think the chat you describe is normal for Y4 girls - it’s far more for older girls

Yeah, my DD experienced this. I think the school is sent her to was part of the problem also.

This is such a useful insight

I'm sorry this is so sad and horrible, it goes to show how direct marketing and media aimed at making us all feel self conscious about our looks is filtering to younger and younger ages. It's not exclusive to women of course. It's a sign of the times, a kind of hyper Capitalism affecting large sections of society so in this way, I feel it is commonplace, therefore normal now, and it just might be worse when kids have free and easy access to TikTok and the TV is on a lot at home. I saw a reel of a 27 year old on a talk show recently - she'd had a facelift. Twenty-seven. If kids start to think skin care obsession and beauty aesthetics are normal, then thats what they'll become. They're just absorbing the hype of advertising and women in the public eye.

My theory: Sadly they're learning early that drama gets the attention and they become addicted to the attention as without it in social media terms you "don't exist"?

Luckily I have a boy but was speaking to a girl mum on the walk home today and there is always some drama. The girls are awful. I don’t remember girls being like that when I was at school. Same years group as you OP, I’m not sure how the parents cope with the weekly falling out, name calling, splitting of groups and manipulating

My dd is year 11 now, but the skincare thing wasn’t a thing at all when she was at primary school. Makeup, crop tops etc didn’t really hit till secondary school. There were always mean girls, all the way through, but dd just gave them a wide berth. Drama seemed to peak in year 6, but it tended to be just amongst the mean girl crowd so was easily avoided by those who had no time for it.