I’m going round in circles and would really value some outside heads on this.
My son is 8 and about to go from Year 3 into Year 4. He’s academically bright and has AuDHD. He doesn’t have an EHCP and doesn’t need SEND support to access learning — but he does struggle socially. He’s been with broadly the same peer group since nursery, and over the years a pattern has set in where he’s often on the outside of it.
Some of it is genuinely done to him. He’s been physically hurt by a group of children, and on this occasion they tried to get another child to falsely say he’d pushed her. This term he’s been told he’s “embarrassing” to be seen with. A recurring one: he’ll be playing a game, other children interrupt or take it over, and then say they don’t want to play his game — so he ends up having to leave. Or he has to move tables at the dinner hall cause a group want to sit in that space. These things reach us at least once a term, and they often end with him getting hurt, or with him lashing out and hurting one of the boys who hurt him first. (For what it’s worth, he’s never once retaliated physically against a girl who’s provoked him — it’s only ever been boys who’ve hurt him first.)
But I’m trying to be honest, because it isn’t all one-way. He can be stubborn and rigid, and being quick-minded doesn’t help him socially — he often sees the answer before the others and can jump in without giving them space, and I think that grates. So I genuinely don’t know how much is the group having decided who he is years ago, and how much is him.
The school itself has been good — they’re aware of the incidents and have dealt with most of them. He privately has a fortnightly specialist who helps him with his emotions and social situations, which I really value. He’s also resilient, and we work hard on friendships outside school (clubs, and an old friendship with another family’s child).
Here’s my dilemma. His younger sibling is at the same school, has an EHCP and Band 4 funding, and is genuinely thriving with support I wouldn’t want to disrupt. So a move only affects my older boy — but it splits them across two schools, and it’s a big change and, in his own words, feels the other kids “don’t like him either” when I suggest the other class in the same school.
There isn’t an obvious alternative either — the school where his oldest friend is has one form only and already has a boy that doesn’t like him in it ( one of his class already moved)
So: have any of you moved one child and kept another where they are? Did a fresh start actually help a socially-struggling child going into Year 4, or did the same difficulties just follow them? This is the first time he asked us to move, and he really thinks deeply on the fact others don’t like him.
Thank you for reading — it’s longer than I meant.