Would you move your child to a new infant school when they are due to go to junior school next Summer?

[Anice]

Would you move your child to a new infant school when they are due to go to junior school next Summer?
I can't decide. On the one hand there is the upheaval and on the other I believe the new school would offer a good education and a well-disciplined environment whereas the current school offers neither.

I wish I had done this last summer but I kept DS at the current school despite some doubts. Now its becoming clear that he will not progress this year and I am worried that he will start to mimic the behaviour of some the other children in his class who have some self-discipline issues. The teacher is nice, but young and pretty much ineffective. The current school gets poor sats results. At the other school the teachers are very experienced and the school gets really good sats results.

I would, but only because I have just moved a child part-way through juniors and have seen such huge progress.

I guess it depends whether he'd still go to the same junior school? In which case moving him might boost him academically but not have long-term impact on his social group?

If it's to a whole new juniors too you need to be certain that the other school will offer him a significantly better environment really or the benefits might be short-lived.

I personally don't set any store by SATs results though - IME a lot depends on the intake and whether they have pareents who do loads of extra work with them. My DC went to an OFSTED Oustanding junior school with fantastic SATs nd the school failed my extremely bright DS by not pushing him, so he became lazy, and didn't support my dyslexic DD as she would still have been capable of 4s/5s in SATs therefore they didn't see the point in boosting her confidence.

IMHO it's about how individual children's needs are met; can they recognise each child's strengths and weaknesses and support their development, or is the focus on SATs results as a year group with individuality lost along the way?

The new infant school does try to push children on to achieve their individual potential, I think. Anecdotally there is a fair bit of evidence to support that.

The current school is actually a primary and it doesn't push bright children on. I obviously know this school rather better and I can see that it has an unusually high proportion of children whose parents are not concerned about education, some of whom cannot read or write themselves (so they couldn't support learning to read at home even if they wanted to).

DS is at or near the top of his class for all subjects, but in the real world I am not sure how good he is, because comparisons with children who haven't learned to read yet are unfair.

The way i see it is the teacher has a boisterous, noisy class with a good number of children who are well below the national average.

Yesterday i learned that she has deleted all DS's work that he did online at home for maths because he finished everything that she was planning to teach for the year. He did the whole lot in 10 days back in October, and really had mastered it. The teacher said that allowing him access to the full year's work was a "mistake" and that he would be given it to re-do a little bit at a time over the next year. She will not give him any of the work that would normally be done in year 3 because in her words "what would he do in year 3 then?". Err.. harder year 3 work or year 4 work?

Hmmm based on what you have said I would move him tomorrow! But your child, your choice....it's not just about academic work so consider all the other aspects - social opportunities, extra-curriculur stuff, music lessons etc as well.

IME my DS switched off as he finished the y6 syllabus at the end of y5 and was taught nothing new whilst he waited for everyone else to catch up. he became lazy and unmotivated and when he was teased for getting full marks in a test he then deliberately got things wrong for a while. We ended up sending him to a super-academic secondary as I was concerned about him continuing like this; now he's in an environment where it's cool to work and get good marks he is thriving, but I do wish we'd taken him out sooner as it did a lot of damage.

That's what I am concerned about - not the prospect that he will coast for a while - but that he will lose his enthusiasm for learning and worse channel his energy into disrupting the class.

At school he is quiet and polite (his Y1 teacher said to him "you can be too perfect"), but at home he is a real live wire.

If he puts all his energy into social things in the class room, then I don't know how I will rein him back in (but you can be sure that the school would have something to say about him then!).

The other complication is I have another child further up the school. Its not a perfect environment for him either but he does have one of the best teachers in the school this year (probably in compensation for having the worst one last year). So, my solution has got to include a plan for my older child too.

Is there space for your other child at the other school too? If not I guess you could wait it out a bit longer and see how DS gets on....if you can cope with them being at different schools I would probably move your younger child now but only you can make that decision!!

The new infant school is a feeder school for a good junior school. There is a free place at the junior school in my older child's year (I just checked).
DS1 is actually very happy at the current school at the moment. He has a good group of nice friends and he's doing ok (he's also top of the class but again I don't know if it means much at this school). However, I have my doubts about the Y5 teacher. My children have never been in her class but a lot of other parents seem to dislike her and use words like "disinterested" and "inconsistent" to describe how she is, especially towards the end of each term.

I know ... it is up to me and DH to decide. I am pointing at moving both of them now but I need to think carefully and not make a rash decision based on how upset i feel at DS's work being deleted because he'd got ahead of the class.

good luck with the decision. In the end it's about finding the best solution for each child.

FWIW my DD moved at end of Y4 and was sad to leave behind her huge group of lovely friends; however she has kept in touch with most of them quite easily and has made some lovely new friends too. She is so much happier in herself as she feels a lot more valued at her new school and her confidence has returned.

You currently have a place at primary school but the rules are different for infant / junior schools, you have to apply for a place at the junior school from the infant school.

You need to check very carefully that the date for such applications has not passed. If it has passed you will be struggling to get them into the junior school as, assuming that it will be full, you will have to go to appeal.

If however the date has not passed then you need to confirm there is an available place in the infant school and get it. Then you can complete the application form for the junior school which presumably will give a level of priority to the feeder infant school pupils. At the same time you can request the available place for your elder child at the junior school.

Make sure you cover off the situation with your infant child first because that is the more difficult situation.

PS I would definitely attempt to move both children based on your posts

This is a tricky one but just wanted to throw in my two pennorth. We moved our DDs at the end of year 7 and year 3 respectively from a small private girls school to the feeder prep of a well known public school as said public school had just gone co-ed and our DS was at the prep school (year 5) at all set to go to the college when the time came. DS1 had been top of her class in most subjects and was considered a particularly able mathematician. However, new prep school took CE at end of year 8 and were way ahead of where girls school had been. (CE tends to be around year 10 of national curriculum whereas girls school followed normal NC and therefore DD1 had been doing standard year 7 work) The result was that DD1 took a big hit to her confidence. We got her some extra help from the maths teacher at her old school because she appeared to be struggling and were told that she was "more than capable" of tackling the work just that there were some things she hadn't covered yet. Nevertheless, she was suddenly near the bottom of set 1 and struggling which was a totally new experience. She immediately fell into "I am thick so where's the point?" and eventually did rather disappointingly at GCSE. However, DD2 thrived and did much better than expected at CE and is now in year 11 and set for some pretty good results in her GCSE if the the modules she has already done are anything to go by and her teachers are to be believed. Not sure about infant/juniors vs primary (you seem to make a distiction) what age is your DS?

Ds2 is year 2, age 6 going on 7
Ds1 is year 4, age 8.

Maybe I have my terminology wrong. When i say infant school I mean they take children for three years only - reception, year 1 and year 2. (so age 4 - 7)

Junior schools follow from infant schools and take children from age 7 - 10 or 11 covering years 3 - 6.

Primary schools are an infant and a junior school combined and take children from reception through to year 6.

Its my understanding of the English system, but I could have the terminology wrong.

I saw the head of the infant school yesterday and she confirmed that she has a place and would like to take DS2 but she did say I have to apply through the county.

Your terminology is correct (I'm surprised that even someone who has just used the private system doesn't know the state system terms).

I would move them and follow the plan admission states (do check on when you have to apply to juniors). Even if you have to appeal it is easier to get kids into junior than infants (because of the class size rule).

Good luck.

Sorry mummytime but I honestly didn't know what "infant" and "junior" meant. AND although I have "just used the private system" I do teach music privately and have had a good many children from the local primary schools and to my knowledge there isn't a separate infants and/or juniors hearabouts, only primary schools. But then, I live "oop north" and maybe our state system is not so sophisticated as in the "sarf"

Thelibster, its more different areas, in our area we have both Primary schools (4-11) and separate infant (4-7) and junior (7-11) schools. The key thing for state school parents is: infant schools legally are only supposed to have 30 children max in a class. Therefore even if you appeal if yor child will put the class over 30 pupils you are unlikely to get in. For junior school age there is more flexibility.

But then I live in a place where there is also a lot of movement between State and Private, especially as the Private schools are mainly ultra selective and have eye watering fees.

thelibster just to confuse you more, we have firsts, middle and secondary.

I would move, we are moving DD but she is only in reception and has only been in for a term, in my mind you do what is best for your child.

Oh I'm very easily confused. My DC eventually all moved to a specialist Music school in the south as boarders. (Long story) They have a junior (4-11) school and a senior (11-18) school. The senior school is further subdivided into lower (11-14) and upper (14-18) school. The first year, when only my DS was there, I got up at 6am one morning to drive the 5 hours down for a lunchtime concert to "surprise" him. When I got there he looked at me, shook his head wonderingly and said patiently, "Mum it's a junior school concert, I'm in the lower school!"

I moved my dd2 half way through reception. I don't regret that move as such as I knew for a fact things would be bad in yr1 and 2. Dd2 got a place at an 'outstanding' and apparently really nice infant schoool. It was only after moving dd2 that I discovered why a place had come up at such an over-subscribed school. There was a really weak NQT on year's contract doing the reception class and an 'acting head'. So for reception anyway dd2 probably moved somewhere worse because in the first school she didn't really learn anything but there was good control and a nice atmosphere and in her current school it was a bit 'dog eat dog' with no disciline.
I really did ask very careful questions etc on my visit to the new school but its hard to find out some things that are very obvious once you are there. In the end I just helped dd2 alot at home with the consequence that much of her class are behind because of the dire reception year and my dd still isn't learning much as she is now ahead of them all due to my intervention. She's now in Yr1 and thank God has a competent teacher. What I would say is that if the move is not for long, you need to be sure beyond all reasonable doubt that the actual experience of your child in that particular class will be better!

funnily enough, its an NQT that I am trying to escape by moving my son.

But i do not think i will be able to make the move because at the the moment DH is dead against it. He is doing what he always does when he doesn't want something to happen - asking questions to create obstacles and saying that we should "definitely consider" the option I am proposing".

Its not that his opinion of the current school is different from mine, its just that he doesn't want to make any rash decisions, and frankly, the children's school is not as big a part of his consciousness because he goes there infrequently and he doesn't do the homework help. Grrrr!