AIBU to choose school based on son's friendship?

[sackemagique]

Obvs that would be unreasonable. Mitigating factor here is that he has a speech delay and I've seen him get ignored in so many social situations. I don't want his confidence to be knocked and his best friend is a good, kind kid - a good influence. Both school choices are the same distance. The school we currently have has another friend he's obsessed with starting, but that friend often doesn't treat him with kindness due to communication differences

YABU it's unfair for you to assign a caring role to an unwilling child.

This is true op. Plus there is zero guarantee that they will still be pals a week into term.

Go with the best friend unless the school is rubbish. Friendships matter.

His current best friend may want to expand to new friendships, and assuming you are talking about 4/5 year olds, that would be perfectly normal.

choose the school that you think provided the right environment for your child and leave friendships out of it.

Who said she’s doing that?? What a stupid thing to say she’s said the nice kid is her child’s friend not carer. Does this mean any kid who is friends with him is a carer? That’s such a rude thing to say.

Personally, I would write a list of priorities with my number 1 priorities being the quality of the SEND support, how much the SENDCO understands my DC’s condition and how well I think I could work with them.

IMHO the friend issue is worth putting on the list of priorities but you have to consider that friendships tend to change quickly when in a new school.

Is there even a space at other school? Are we talking Reception? Maybe other child’s parent would prefer you did not place such expectations and responsibilities on their child? Is your dc accessing support and SALT? Which school can put any adjustments and support in place?

Absolutely this. I was looking through photographs from DS’s pre-school and early primary years recently. The friendships didn’t really settle down at all for a few years. It would be mad to make a decision based on the friendships of two five year olds who might both prefer other people one week in! Choose the school that best fits your child, regardless of who else is or isn’t attending.

Friendships in school aged children
can change like the wind 💨
do not make decisions based on current friendships - risky

I did the opposite I chose a school to get my son away from a friendship group I just felt weren't a good influence and six months later he finally broke away. If he had a lovely friend I would of let that influence me but his friends were very very nasty with him and had already started at 11 driving about on e scooters and hanging about in areas that I felt were unsafe for kids their age (a lot of drugs around in the streets) I obv didn't let my son go but they gamed together all the time so took him a bit longer to break away even with the diff schools

I’m a bit confused tbh. Is this Reception? If so, have you got a place already secured at a different school to the friend but want to switch? Switching may be harder than you’d expect, the other school could be oversubscribed. He can still maintain this friendship outside of school.

If you have 2 equal schools, then small things swing it. Sounds reasonable to me to choose the one with the good friend that might make the start a bit easier. However are you talking about September? If you are looking to change schools now, and there are multiple classes, your DC might end up in a different class. Also are the schools actually equal in other ways, or is your current one better in some ways which led to you listing it higher when you applied?

I probably would, all other things being equal. Obviously it wouldn’t be the first thing I’d consider when choosing a school. But it’s important.

I do think you need to consider that there is a good chance that they won’t be in the same class, especially if it’s a big school, and that friendships do change and they might not always be friends … but it might make a world of difference to your kid to have a friend there on the first day.

There is a space at the school, both schools are excellent or I wouldn't consider it. The school with the friend is small - single form entry. The school we have currently has 3 classes in each year group but is split into infant/junior - which is another swing as then when his little sister starts i don't have to go to two different locations bc he would have moved to junior by then.

Our lives are pretty unstable atm having just left a toxic relationship. It's had a huge impact on my son's confidence so combined with the speech delay, I just don't feel I can afford to knock his confidence if he can't make friends. We go on a lot of play dates so I do know the limitations he faces.

Also, yes. It is reception. And the reason we're not settled with the decision this late in the day is due to having left a bad (let's put it mildly as that's another subject) relationship. I wish I had been able to make these choices earlier but thats unfortunately just not how things have worked out. Interesting to gauge responses - I suppose the question on the surface does not take into account the reality bubbling underneath.