Moving school dilemma!?

[Leilaminna]

My daughter is 7 - she is in private all through school till 18! We are so happy with the school but my daughter is always been one of the best academically. Her school is so warm, nurturing and friendly environment.
But this year she had an offer from more selective and prestigious school. She says that she doesn’t want to move. Her little sister also goes to the same school with her and she says she loves it and she doesn’t want to change. Almost all her friends applied to the neeschool and only 2 of them (including my daughter). Competition was really high and as she had an offer that means she did good in the test.

I don’t want to mention name of her current school but we live in South West England and it is a all girls GDST school and new school that she got place for next year is coed private school.

I feel like she will thrive in more challenging environment but in the other had I feel it is risky to move her because if she can not settle well she can not achieve.

Do you think it is risky to move a happy child to another school?

I think moving school should only be a last resort or something to be done when there is no other option.

I can't imagine moving a happy, successful child.

I wouldn't move at 7.
I would consider moving at 11 which is a 'natural' move time in the UK.

Don’t do it, she’s happy and achieving well. Seems completely unnecessary and could backfire

If she's happy and doing well and you're pleased with the school, leave her where she is. If you have another DC at that school, that's a further reason for keeping the two of them in the same place. I'd be worried, if I were you, that moving her will make her unhappy and then suddenly you've got a problem where one didn't exist before. Someone has to be top of the class and at the moment it's your DD. Congratulations!

You need to ask yourself why it is you want to send her to a more "selective" and "prestigious" school, when she actively doesn't want to leave her current school and is happy/doing well there.

Do you know which children achieve best, socially and academically OP? Confident, happy children who enjoy learning and get positive feedback .

Do you know which children often don’t reach their potential?

Anxious children, who feel pressurised to succeed and feel that the only thing that is seen as important is their academic success.

Please don’t rock your child’s boat and risk her falling overboard.

Never move a happy child if you can avoid it

Thanks all for the responses. You are all right. Actually my daughter aware of that she is top of the class and she loves it. She is so confident and happy. I don’t want to make her unhappy but I was thinking if she doesn’t like her new school she can easily move back to the her current school.

Do not move a happy settled child from a good school to a school where they "might" get better results based on the overall performance of the school. It is not worth the emotional damage it could cause when they are lonely and unsettled in a new school. Plus unless her school is rock bottom awful, an unhappy child at an excellent school will very likely come off worse than a happy child at a less good school. You might find you moved her and her performance dropped significantly. As for moving back, you say this as if you KNOW that she could easily move back, but do you? Once you move her, she will be off-rolled from her current school and the place she creates will be open to anyone. Unless you know that the class or classes in her current year have several spaces, you are banking on no child in her year moving to a house near her school or wanting to swap into her school for any other reason. If her moving makes one place in the year group which is then filled, legally the school will not be allowed to take her back until another child leaves that year group for some reason. This could happen fast, or not for years, or not until after your daughter leaves primary.