Mixed year group classes and friendships after Year 6

[yorkshirepuddings]

My DS currently attends a small village primary school. (Just 3 classes.) It's normal for the children to have friendships with children in other year groups, but I think my DS might have a problem at the end of this year.

He is currently in Year 5 and all his closest friends are in Year 6. (He is one of only two boys in his year.) At the end of this academic year they will obviously move up to secondary school while he will be going into Year 6.

Does anyone have experience of this? Is it too idealistic to hope that his current friendships will continue into secondary school? Realistically they will all grow up in that first term of Year 7 and meet lots of new friends. He will still see them at scouts and we live in a friendly village. Most parents are friends and the children (especially in the summer) roam quite freely from house to house.

So, in summary - will he still be good friends with these boys in a couple of years? Any advice on how to handle the transition happily received!

I think your DS will adapt, no matter whether those specific friendships last or not. :)

My home educated dd found that some of her school-attending friends dropped away after they started secondary school. It seemed that suddenly there was a lot of homework being piled onto them, and also they were taking advantage of the extensive after-school activities based at the secondary school. This meant they had less time to spend with her and they tended to stop doing the community activities such as sports and choirs which they used to do together with her.

It's a slightly different situation to your son's - for him there will obviously be the added hurdle that he is used to seeing his friends at school all the time and they won't be thrown together in that way anymore.

On a positive note, I think my dd's friends have always benefited from the opportunity to spend time with someone who is outside their usual social circle. Maybe this is more of a girl thing, but in a fixed social circle there is constant jockeying for who is in and who is out, gossip circulates, and people acquire a reputation or habit (such as playing the joker or troublemaker or doormat) which they can find hard to escape from. It is a good break to get away completely from the expectations of that fixed set of friends. The girls don't have to keep up the same sort of "front" when they are with her because they aren't thinking about their reputations. So they don't see her much, but when they do see her they seem VERY glad to see her and always express the intention of seeing her more often (which doesn't happen, however). Perhaps dd hasn't been very persistent either: when you've rung someone half a dozen times and she has always been too busy to see you, then you tend to stop bothering and ring someone else instead! So she is tending to turn more toward her home ed friends instead lately.

She hasn't felt particularly rejected by this but has had to shift her focus toward other friends.

My DS had similar experience. He went to a very small village school and has now gone into year 7 with a lot of new friends (or names he mentions of boys I don't know!).

The last year at primary will be OK for your son, but obv he'll miss those boys. But he should find enough fun people to play with (remind him how much the yr 5 boys will enjoy having an older friend as he currently does). Homework does kick in and different school times, but plan for him to play with them/go to the cinema etc at the weekends and holidays.

My DS spent his year 6 still seeing his old friends but just less regularly, sadly I think they are increasingly off his radar now, but new mates have taken their place. He still meets them on the bus to chat etc.

It will be fine and your DS will develop new friends which is just growing up etc. The small village school has its limits and big world beckons. As long as it's gradual and year 6 has fun and challenges of its own it should go well for him - good luck!

Thanks for all the advice and info of your own experiences. I really appreciate it.

I think I'm most worried about his final year. Unfortunately the school has seen a dip in numbers in his year and the year below. There are 2 boys in his year (including him) and 1 boy in the year below. He's used to having limited options with friendships but this does seem a little extreme and I think will just magnify the fact that his friends are not there any more.

Although lljjk I'm sure he will adapt. It's just one of those problems with small schools I suppose.

My DSs went to a similar school though the problem was slightly different in that DS2s best friend who also lives nearby, was in the year below and therefore didn't transfer to secondary with him.
Year six was a bit of a long year but they did stay friends outside school, and in fact the friend went to a different secondary and they are still friends.

Also, for what it's worth, my fears about the transition from tiny primary to secondary were unfounded and both DCs adapted easily.