Has anyone regretted moving schools?

[Juliecloud]

I'm not very happy with our current primary school. DD1 (8) has some additional needs and is awaiting assessment from CAHMS. The school is very good at telling me what they are going to do and it all sounds great, but it never actually gets done. DD1 goes through phases of being very unhappy in school and being fine there. She only plays with one other child. The other child is the dominant one in the friendship and can be mean to DD1.

DD2 (6) is at the school and is happy there. There are a lot of good things about the school, like the range of after school clubs, great music lessons, etc.

I have found another school that I think is lovely. It's much smaller so DD1 would get more help. It has a lot more outdoor space and the staff seem great. But if I mention moving schools to the kids, they get so upset and say they want to stay where they are. They don't know anyone at the new school.

I don't know what to do. I worry about moving them and them being really unhappy in the new school. However everyone I speak to that has moved their kids has said it was the right decision and their kids are much happier.

It's so hard ☹️

I think it is natural and normal to not want to leave 'what you know'. It is scary for most people to start somewhere they don't know anyone or know anything about (even still as adults - starting a new job or joining a new club). You have to make the decision as the adult though. If you think the other school would be better for your dc (or one of your dc?) then that is your decision to make as the adult.

For us it was absolutely the right decision to move and I wish we'd done it 18 months before.

Children like what they know. Change isn't easy. But if the school isn't the right one for the child, and it really doesn't sound right for your daughter, then the problems will grow.

It isn't possible to keep your son at the first school and move your daughter to the second? Not ideal I know and might very well be possible, but just floating the idea.

In the end there are no guarentees but it does sound like your daughter is in the wrong place for her.

Moved 18 months ago due to bullying. Was agonised for the same reason as pp. Yes it was awful but they had had massive sen support and a sen room and sessions.

A few months in new school got an horrendous Ofsted report. Really bad and put it at risk of closure (free school) I wondered what the hell I had done.

Fast forward 18 months and dc is happy, settled, for the first time ever has a solid group of friends, amazing support and is happy. Their Ofsted is still crap but their GCSE results where very good.

An awful lot of people who take their kids out of a school for a particular problem have exactly the same problem at the new school.

But some don't and swear it was the best thing they ever did.

Sorry that's not helpful but it does just vary hugely.

Are you sure you would get both dc in to the new school? And would you get transport, or need to take them yourself? You don't want to risk ending up with 2 different school runs that just can't work together.

Smaller doesn't necessarily mean more help. All (state) schools are stretched for staff and sometimes bigger ones manage better because there is more flexibility. My local school is fairly small but special needs kids sometimes don't get the support hours they are meant to because the school is so short staffed that the teaching assistant gets diverted from their assigned child to other jobs. It happens everywhere, so while the grass may look greener on the other side it's not something you can know for sure until you've gone across. Can you find any parents of kids at the new school to see what their experience is?

I moved one of mine in year 2 but kept my older child there as he was perfectly happy and due to leave in a few months anyway. It was a bit of a pain logistically for a while but on balance it was the right thing to do, it's not that the new school is 'better', it was just much better for ds2. I still have moments where I miss the old school, mostly at plays/harvest service/sports day etc as old school was much better at that type of stuff, but it was the right thing to do at the time as he was so unhappy.