New friends in secondary school

[sweetie1234]

Any advice please. My daughter has started secondary school, shes 11 and has made lots of new friends. Whilst this is lovely most of them seem to be in older year groups. She wants to start going round these friends houses and hanging out with them in the park but I’m worried. I do not know the children or the parents and they don’t live in the same town. As these girls shes friends with are older, she is also spending time with older boys too!
I feel totally unprepared for this and I haven’t prepared her very well either. I don’t want to discourage her making friends but feel this friendship group is inappropriate. What should I do? Thank you.

How much older? Year 7 to year 8/9 - normal. They may be in clubs or assemblies together. Year 11 less so

Age?

How has she connected with them if they’re in older year groups? That would be key for me, friends from clubs etc probably fine- just started taking to randomly could be more concerning

She mostly connected with year 9 children through chatting at school due to same interests/ fashion styles.

Uum at our large school yr9 would not mix with Yr7s. Very different stages

No, I have an 11 year old girl too and i wouldn’t be happy with this. 11 is still very young. My DD is allowed out with her friends of course but they are all her age and they meet during the day at the playground or eachother’s houses. She has to be home by dinner time unless she’s at someone’s house and I have arranged it with the parents

is it a very small school? When in Yr9 neither of mine would have even spoken to Yr7s ( DD and DS) and nor would any of their mates

Depends on the school. My daughter had a daily form group at hers based on her house so she had people of various ages in it and made friends from different year groups.

She is growing up it is part of it