3yo behavioural change - nursery?

[Catred4]

My son has been in nursery since he just turned 1 and has loved it - he much preferred being in nursery than being at home until he moved rooms in September. Since then, he’s had a whole new group of friends, not really bonded with the nursery staff, and his behaviour has fallen off a cliff edge.

His new group of friends are a boisterous group of boys. They play fight all day. One of them in particular is pretty violent, in fact his parents even let him bring toy nunchucks in to nursery!

But this violent behaviour has rubbed off on my son. He’s being absolutely dreadful at home. He screams in my face, slaps, punches, kicks, spits, refuses to do what we ask and is generally miserable and defiant almost all the time.

I know some of this behaviour is normal but I genuinely don’t think the extent that he’s behaving like this is normal. It’s 90% of the time. It’s EXHAUSTING.

I’ve tried to implement all of the techniques. I’ve read books like “how to talk to little kids”, I’ve persevered with gentle parenting, I’ve also tried harsher punishments, reward charts, nothing works. He’s completely impossible to deal with at the moment.

I really think the change in behaviour is down to his room at nursery. I actually feel like he’s showing some signs of depression and anxiety too.

I’ve spoken to the nursery staff and they’ve had to try and separate the boys multiple times to tame the behaviour but I think even the staff are struggling.

I think I need to look at moving him at least to another room but keen to hear any other experiences of this and any advice! I want my sweet boy back :(

I find "no, gentle hands please" and showing him gentle hands with lots of praise when he does it, really helpful. I get DH and older DC to help demonstrate when he's not doing it and praise them as well so he knows it's a positive thing aside from just mentioned after he's been violent.

Other ways we combat it is distraction or I don't have any concern about saying "ouch, that hurts!" and refusing to play until he's stopped, removing myself or him from a situation if need be. It depends on what's going on, the behaviour is worse when he's tired and trying to teach any lessons then is pointless. I got pummeled repeatedly this evening at bedtime, it was overtired boundary pushing so I held his hands and demonstrated gentle hands whilst I made up a song to sing instead.

There's no harm in asking for a permanent move to be away from this child but it might just be a phase. I found my eldest went through a phase of undesirable behaviour once a year at least.

It sounds as though he's not liking the new room and the staff are struggling to cope with the behaviour of this group. Is moving him to a different Nursery or a CM an option?