Social isolation - should I move her?

[Macsquirt25]

DD is in Year 5. Since Feb last year she has been experiencing some exclusion from her friendship groups. Not outright nastiness, but just being left out, being told by her friends that they needed 'private chats'. She was not invited on play dates but was always made aware of them by the other girls. I spent a while telling her to ignore them, and play with others, I spoke to the Head and requested that when they set up the new classes for Sept she be put with others to make new friends.
She was much happpier in Sept, but then the new friends she'd made seemed to be swallowed up with the old ones. They took a vote to have her removed from their group of friends. Pastoral support seems sketchy, the Head wasn't interested in meeting me until he heard I was looking elsewhere. We're meeting him tonight.
She is quite an overbearing character, very intense and bossy, but also incredibly sensitive and wears her heart on her sleeve. Yesterday she received a note from a new friend she'd made who wrote 'stay away from me I don't want you in my life".
She doesn't want to move schools but told me last week she wished she had a knife so she Could stab herself. This is typically dramatic of her, I'm not hiding the knives just yet, but I know it's her way of communicating how unhappy she is. She has gone from being confident and surrounded by friends to grateful for anyone showing her any friendship and terrified of unpsetting her peers. Should I move her? She will meet all these girls again at secondary school (where I teach), but I'm starting to think that going in with a new bunch of friends and hopefully her self esteem back will be enough. Has anyone else experienced this type of bullying? I am going to write to the school governors too I think.
Thanks all
EW

I agree it's hard to work out the chicken and egg scenario. In my ds case his behaviour undoubtedly worsened the scenarios but the bullies triggered each episode.
At the school he left the whole scenario was signposted as being due to ds 'problems ' not due to bullies.
At his new school all scenarios were nipped in the bud so never really got out of hand. On one occasion a child was baiting him - he was told off and ds encouraged to recognise and ignore the behaviour.

I am desperate for help for my 10 year old daughter. She's in year 6 and she's got no friends. It's not that the other kids don't like her or bully her, they just have their own little groups and my daughter lacks the confidence to just go up to them and try getting involved. Well that's the impression I was getting from the school, until an hour ago when my daughter completely broke down again and told me that when she goes to sit with people at lunch they all move away from her, when she tries to talk to someone, this 1 particular girl tells them not to talk to my daughter cos she has nits (which she doesn't) or because her skin condition is catching (again it isn't as it's an allergic reaction to my friends dog) and other generally nasty comments. My daughter has just been crying upstairs in bed because she doesn't want to go to school for her Xmas lunch as she keeps getting this image of her sitting alone to eat it!! I am absolutly heartbroken for her and at a loss as to what I can do to help, other than keep her at home forever and be her best friend for life lol. She appears to be showing signs of depression from it all, at 10 years old!! She's going to start high school in September and I'm really scared that this lack of friends/confidence issue Will lead to bullying and I'm terrified for her and seriously at my wits end!! I feel so powerless to help her please can someone advise me on how to help.

Also my daughter has a heart of gold, she's so helpful at home with my 2 young boys, she helps tidy up, cook dinner, do washing anything she can do to help she will do it. She's such a lovely girl and I cannot understand why these other children are being like this with her. It's couldn't be happening to a nicer child :'(

Hi rpkchelsea I read this and had to reply because I feel for you and your daughter so much and have been there with a similar situation.
High school will improve things for her I’m sure as there will be a big pool of children for her to mix with. But for now - the behaviour you talk of is totally unacceptable and I would email or go in tomorrow to the school and have a chat with the teacher or failing that the Headteacher. Time and date any incidents.
Also I would sign up for some clubs seat from school so she meets other kids.
How awful for her. I hope she has a better day tomorrow :)

Typo - not seats .. I meant ‘away’ :)

So sorry to hear this rpkchelsea. Did you manage to speak to school?

There's a good app for teaching social skills called Everyday Speech. It uses videos with children acting out social situations - showing how things go wrong and how they can go right. It costs about €10 a month but well worth it as the videos are well made and I think you can cancel the payments whenever you want. I think you can trial it for the first month for free.

There's a good app for teaching social skills called Everyday Speech

Yes ask the school to recommended it to the other children's parents