Year 1 class allocation and complaint, teachers, governors, what are our chances please?

[hollybungalow]

our daughter goes to the village school and is in reception, it’s a great school and we haven’t had many reasons to complain. Until now.

We found out they were mixing the classes the day they chose to do it last week. This isn’t standard practice for them.

Our hold was placed in a class with no close friends and unfortunately a child from another class who has bullied her in an out of school setting. As they are separated currently we didn’t raise with the school as we didn’t know they were going to mix classes.
Our child feels things deeply and there has been a significant change in behaviour. She is convinced she is on her own and without friends because ‘no one chose her’ and it’s heartbreaking for us all.

Other than this i asked the teacher about how they allocated places and she shared who our child had chosen and honestly i was surprised who she had picked, one girl she knows but the other she has never mentioned.
The same day we got her school report and it wasn’t hers, it was for another child in her class with the same first name. Then the choices made sense and to me it’s clear there has been a mix up.

i raised with the head teacher and shared the out of school bullying and the view (backed up by the other parent) that we believed there had been a mix up. He is firm there are no circumstances what so ever (including physical bullying) that would cause him to change a child’s class. His view is that whatever happens ‘we work it out’

I didn’t agree and have raised a complaint with the governors and trustees.
Can anyone give me a view of how likely you think we are to succeed with our complaint and get our child moved class? ( there are 3 in the year and we would take any other than this one).
because of the timing, the only option we have for september is to put her in the class with the bully, keep her off and be fined or move schools. So keen to know how likely we are to succeed or if we chalk it up and get her in another school.

thanks x

This is incorrect.

The school would have to assess whether the data breach was reportable to the ICO within 72 hours of the breach, but it's highly unlikely that such a breach would have met the threshold for assessment as the risk to the data subjects is minimal.

They should have logged it internally and considered measures to ensure that it doesn't happen again, but the ICO would not be interested in a breach at this level.

Agreed if the complaint made its way through the stages you’d do all this but you still wouldn’t tell the HT to move the child to the other class

People aren’t saying bullying builds resilience. Also would appear until the class allocation was done school were unaware there has been issues between this child and OP’s DD. The 2 children are in school together now, if not in the same class, and surely their paths must cross as in same year group.

Most schools don’t have the space or time to be able to have separate breaks, lunchtimes for each class.

Yes it is hard to have that child in the same class but they have to be in a class and I assume other children in the class may have been at the other end of her behaviour at some point if they attended after school club etc

I think the people on the thread who are being drama queens are those making out your 5 year old will be a failure in the workplace because her mum doesn't want her in a class with someone who bullies her.

@hollybungalow were the incidents in the sports club all involving this child or just a badly run sports club?

Noone has said that. They have told stories about how persistent bullying affected their lives.

Let's not call those who doesn't breeze through bullying for drama queen's. Let's acknowledge bullying can have long lasting effects.

Well it’s clearly not an outstanding school if the teachers can’t tell kids apart after a whole year, they’re sending parents reports for other people’s children, and the Headteacher is not open to considering the individual wellbeing of children when looking at classes. No surprise he’s been promoted to CEO.

As a teacher myself I can tell you that I have never in 15 years muddled up two children with the same name. That is shockingly poor practice. I would be far more concerned about that than the class issue, to be honest.

My school is also very flexible when it comes to class allocation. If a child or parent isn’t happy and there is a genuine reason for a move, we’ll move them. Sometimes we say no as we genuinely think they'll be better where they are - some children might want to be with a particular friend, but they do no work when they are, and are far better only seeing them at break and lunch! - but if bullying were the issue, we would never force a child to be in the same class as a bully. The Headteacher’s inflexibility on that is very disappointing, especially as it’s clear they’ve made a mistake in mixing your child up with someone else.

I would move schools. This is a bigger issue than your daughter being in a class with a bully. This is your daughter being in a school that doesn’t care for her or know her properly and I would not be settling for that for the next 5 years.

You must have misunderstood what I wrote. I was supporting the OP

sorry if it wasn’t clear we have done this and we were recommended some books by a teacher friend that we have read with her as well. But we have complained as well, through the appropriate channels rather than left right and centre 🤓

I was writing the complete opposite of what you seem to think

I have teens so have seen this play out at school and among family and friends all the time!

It is never a disaster. Parents get massively wound up and demand meetings and make complaints. The school holds firm. Everything goes fine.

It is frankly bizarre to consider changing schools where ALL the unknowns are unknown. Because you want to avoid a known unknown.

The way the child feels is unusual at this age. They take their cue from the adults around them and I would be being excited for them for a new teacher, new classrooms. And new friends and opportunities.

Other schools mix classes every year. You get new teachers and new children join.

Help your child to be ok with change and to cope with mild disappointments. Help them look for the good things in tricky situations. Appreciate schools are running their first rodeo.

The pushier the parent , the more chance you have. I work in a school and very rarely does a swap happen but when it does, it’s because a parent raises hell.

But you haven’t ever raised the issue of the out of school bullying with them previously before now, is that right? So how have you been able to give them a chance to sort it? and how do you know they won’t deal with it effectively now you have (and I don’t mean move class!)?

If the child is a bully then there’ll be a number of children also wanting to move class. The fact is, some children will always need to be with the bully.

if the school fail to act then you have a great case for the governors, moving schools etc.

But you’re jumping the gun.

You also need to remember that there is a whole year group of children with various needs, issues and preferences. The world can’t just revolve around your DD.

Have you got documentation about what the "bullying" was and how it was delt with? Your child is unlikely to be the only child unhappy with their class allocation, and there is no way to tell if your reasoning is a parent who is a bit upset that their kid didn't get to be with who she wanted, and has used the term "bullying" to try to justify a move. Honestly whatever the school do, there will be a parent who believes THEIR reason why their child needs to move classes is above all other reasoning. Unless there's a clear reason, that they can share with other children/parents, why your child's move IS way more important than any other child's moves, it's, quite rightly, not a can of worms to be opened.

Clearly did misunderstand your post if that was your intention. However I do not believe in using drama queen for anyone who has a opposing view. State your point dont name call for either side.

It was in direct response to people calling OP dramatic, so perhaps tell off those people too.

I would focus on the data breach and the mix up. However, I would be realistic about the chances of a class move. It's highly unlikely that you are the only parent currently complaining about the class allocations. There are, let's face it, some children who no-one wants in their child's class and who teachers would happily fire into the sun if they were allowed to. But in a year group of 50, 24 kids have to be in that kid's class, and if there are two such kids, then it's one each and everyone is unhappy. There may also be some such kids in the other class who your DD has avoided being with next year, but you don't know you should be happy about that as she wasn't with them last year (given you were happy last year it's possible that she got the "good" class and the other one had more "problematic interpersonal dynamics").

I would look at this in the context of the HT probably having 10 complaints out of 50 kids and if they say yes to one move they say yes to them all. That could massively unbalance the classes. Say, all 10 have an issue with this girl (because bullies tend to have more than one victim). They say yes to all parents so they're now got one class of 15 including the bully and one class of 35.

Storm in a teacup. Within a few days your daughter will have made new friends.

Class allocations change every year. Are you really going to argue about it every year?

I won't engage with you further as my post was not hard to understand

In your complaint I would emphasis that they have obviously mixed your child up with someone else, surely that's incompetence. Point out that you got the wrong school report and that your daughter's list has also got mixed up with the other child's.
But even without the bullying the school are acting very badly by not acknowledging they made a mistake and trying to correct it. The fact they are not willing to admit that they were wrong would make me want to move schools. It sounds as though they are treating the school more like a business than a school made up of individual children . So I would be tempted to try and move schools to one that is not in an academy trust if you can.

That isn't the point. The point is the school.mixed up her child with another child even to the extent of giving her the wrong report. And then they won't even try and correct their mistake. Tej school is inflexible and unwilling to adult they made a mistake

The way we organise classes in my current school is like this:

1. Look at the teachers we have for that year group and take into account experience, strengths and behaviour management.
2. Separate out behavioural problems and toxic friendships first.
3. Organise SEND children according to how they can best be supported.
4. Look at academic ability and share that out equally so classes are roughly the same mix.
5. Make sure there are roughly the same ratio of girls to boys.
6. Double check that there are no disastrous combos and then shift around a bit.
7. Try to make sure everyone has at least one friend or potential friend (we don't ask children about this).

Parents only consider friendships and bullying. The problem with this is that bullies tend to be problematic for everyone and so no one wants to be with them and younger children don't always agree on who they are friends with. They also shift around their friendships a lot at this age.

Governors don't get involved in this kind of thing. You would have done better to try and charm the headteacher but now you have made a complaint they are unlikely to be charmed. .

I would try to organise a play date over the summer with someone from the new class if you are worried, or just see how it goes.

Your complaint will not go anywhere unfortunately. Did you ask your child who she picked? Sorry if I have missed this but can only see you saying clearly an admin error was made.
The best thing you can do is not make a big deal of this friendship groups change anyway my ds was placed in a different group from his friends in year 2 and continued in that class for 4 years.
I find it odd you didn't mention the bullying out of school - I would have been concerned about breaks, lunch, joint class activities and would have ensured the school were aware so they could keep an eye out.

Ultimately, I think you have lost confidence in the school for several reasons and when that happens, it’s very difficult to overcome. You want to make things right for your child and in this instance, you can’t change a decision.

Many of us will have experienced the feelings we have when a school makes changes and friendship groups are altered. There are two things you can do. One is to frame it in a positive way, that it’s a chance to make new friends. The other is to complain, which you have done and ask for reconsideration. Since the school is unwilling to change, you either accept or move your child. Given the level of concern you have expressed, moving school, though a big upheaval, may be what you need to do.

I think the data breach should certainly be investigated, but it may just be that the admin person muddled them. Not good, but not as bad as not knowing your child for a year.

This isn’t about the bullying. Forget that entirely. That will get you no where.

This is about a serious data breach in them repeatedly confusing your daughter with another child.

I cannot believe they sent you another child’s report!

I would want to go through every exchange with the school to ensure they were talking about your child and not another. I’d put in a subject access request too to make sure any official communications, marks, testing etc were for your child. Not the other.

Explain to head and governors that they have lost your confidence that they even know your child and her needs.

Surely this data breach needs reporting too?!

I would then say to the governors that because the school couldn’t tell the two children apart they effectively were the only pupils to not get a voice in who they were placed in a class with. They were excluded from an important part of the process. Which sounds discriminatory or at the very least extremely unfair.

if you want your daughter in the other class to the girl with the same name even better.

Don’t let this drop. Be at the school morning and evening talking to the head.

This isn’t about resilience or the school picking groups of children that will work well together. This is the school demonstrating that two girls who presumably don’t cause too much trouble and are easy going without additional needs have been ignored so much this year they can’t even tell them apart!

I would also seriously be considering a different school.

Schools are notorious for undeserving quiet and compliant girls at this age, don’t let her get ignored because she doesn’t cause trouble.

You are doing the right thing. Keep fighting.

but don’t let this be framed as a mum wanting her kid in a different class - it’s much more than that. They don’t know who your child is!