Morning,
My daughter is 6 and Y1. She's attended nursery since age 1 and was with the same children throughout.
We live in a rural area so we were always some distance from the nursery and other people. Just how it works round here. When it came to sending her to school, we had the choice of either our catchment school or the village school where most of the nursery lot would go. Both had positives and negatives. We chose the village school and she went along with her nursery friends and spent Reception with them.
Several children were withdrawn from the school because of various very valid and significant concerns. Our daughter included. The head teacher was shipped out but it came too late for those who'd already been moved to a different school.
My daughter was moved to another village school where she had no previous knowledge of the children. The parents at this school have been very closed in terms of supporting growth in friendship. She's a very sociable little girl and had made a very good friend, but this upset the girl who was already friends with that child, so parents went into school and my daughter was discouraged from playing with her new friend. So she found herself playing with another girl who, by all accounts, she's become very close to. We saw them out at a local pub recently and they played together on the park afterwards. I got chatting to the parents, and suggested a play date to which mum said "oh no thank you." I'd mentioned how our children seemed to have hit it off and she gave no response. She spent some time talking about how she thinks her child doesn't really seem to have any friends at school.... while her child had spent most of their meal sitting at our table because they're good friends. Comments she's made over time make me realise she just doesn't want them to be friends for some odd reason.
My daughter is sociable, very bright, she's into performing arts so she's a bit of a character, and generally speaking very good at making friends wherever we go. But she's found herself feeling isolated at the school she started in September. I've had many chats with school and they say she always seems to play with someone if she wants to, but sometimes chooses to play alone. My child says people don't want to play so she does things by herself. For context, she simply is not a child who would choose to play alone if she was welcome to play with others. She loves company. She's a happy little soul and prefers being with others.
The new school is academically fantastic, which the previous school wasn't. It doesn't matter as much at this age, but it will in time. Since moving to the new school she's absolutely flown. They get so many experiences, clubs etc that also didn't happen at the previous school. Previous school has undergone a lot of improvements under new leadership, but I would say is still a way behind the new school.
Daughter still attends parties of some children from old school. She still has those friendships and they are as close as ever. She comes away sad that she won't see them for months because they're not at school together anymore. For months now I've had this nagging feeling that she should just be back at her old school. Academics are less important than friendships in my view, but she's bright so I also don't want her left behind on that front.
Just to be clear, the teaching and learning wasn't the only concern when we and others withdrew our children. Behaviour and bullying was an issue too. But things have improved a lot. The new school has very high expectations for behaviour, to the extent that last week she was kept in at break time because she'd walk too slowly back to the class after PE. She gets anxious that she will be having to go to the head teacher's office and we've definitely noticed a bit more anxiety since she changed school, I'm sure not helped by the fact it's in context of fickle friendships.
To add, the old school feeds the secondary school she will go to. The current school doesn't, but of those in her current class, at least half will actually go to private school, so she'll be one of only about 8 going to state secondary and they will go to different ones. Whereas at the old school, they'll mostly go to the secondary she will go to.
So I'm tearing my hair out. I could send her back, knowing that the old school will probably never offer the same standards as the current school, but does offer the great friendships that are important to her. I could keep her where she is and treat it as learning to build new relationships outside of comfortable friendships. Sending her back means definitely accepting that she won't have the same opportunities and experiences as she has where she is now. We could have kept her where she was in the first place, I don't like change in general, but things were terrible there and the ones who stayed were the ones living very near the school. Two or three that left have also returned.
WWYD?
Thanks in advance.