Moving from state primary to private/prep primary - anyone done this?

[Mijkl]

We are just starting to look seriously into moving our child from state to private primary school. The private schools all seem to want 1) a reference from the current school and 2) for him to attend a taster day on a normal school day, which would necessitate missing a day at his current school. This is fine with us, but I am wondering how his current school will react to it. After all, he might not even get in and then he will have to continue at this school. What are your experiences - have state schools been supportive of a decision to apply for private, or not?

We’ve just done this with DS2 (year 4). We were open with his previous school what was happening. No problem at all. Wouldn’t have occurred to me not to be!

He’s now been at new school a few weeks and has settled in brilliantly, his teacher says he has integrated really well into the class. He’s very easy-going and extroverted which obviously helped, plus his older brother has just started at the senior school.

He loves his taster/assessment day, and also the subsequent familiarisation day all new children attended, and couldn’t wait to start this term.

I’ve moved children from two different primaries into the private system at 8+.
The first primary was in central London, the head was v clear when you started in Reception that she only wanted children whose parents were committed to staying in the school until y6, because they had quite a few parents removing especially boys. She was actually ok with us as we were also moving to the country but quite directly pissed off with other parents who moved their children.
The second primary is a village school - they were fine when we moved DC2 and we still have one there.

”She was....quite directly pissed off with other parents who moved their children.”

How unprofessional of her. And completely pointless, as clearly parents aren’t going to change their decision based on an HT they’re not going to see again getting pissed off!