Is Y4 a particularly bad year for girls falling out?

[Witchesbrew]

Because I don't think I can take much more of it.

Year 4 was dreadful for us. They then went to Middle school and Year 5 was OK. Started up again summer of Year 6 and reached its height first part of year 7. But it's all different to most schools due to changing school at a different time.

Feel sorry for me..... I teach year 3/4!
Some are already little madams by year 3, for others that's when it starts. Drives me nuts every year!!!
It's the little catty comments designed to hurt one person that press my red button or, as one year 4 did, "Lets vote on who we don't like". Agggghhhhhh!!!! I am pretty hard on it to be honest, and they know if I find out it has been going on then parents will be involved. I have had to be rather blunt occasionally with parent who think their little darling couldn't possibly be one of "those sort of girls", errr yes she is.... they all (most) are at some point. Oh and I speak as the mother of a Y5 myself!

I disagree with the posters saying Y4 and 5 are particularly bad years for girls.

Ds is in Y4 and seems to come home every day with sad tales of falling out with his best friend, who seems to like to get ds on side and then jointly irritate and attempt to bully other boys in their class and then sulks when ds refuses to.

this upsets ds as he hasn't a manipulative bone in his body and hates arguments.

The 'bullying' seems to consist of playing spying games on the target at playtime and writing notes to each other about who is their arch enemy.

Yes. Yrs 3, 4 and 5 are all pretty bad but I'd say on average Year 4 can be the worst. It's horrible while it lasts but they do tend to grow out of it. I hear all sorts of stories and spend my time saying versions of the same thing over and over again in school.

Children are usually keen to tell you what everyone else has done to them but they don't always consider their own part in a situation and my usual questions are along the lines of 'are you being as nice as you possibly can be to them?'; 'why do you think they are doing that?'; 'have you tried telling them not to do/say that and explained that it hurts your feelings?'; 'how do you think you could try to sort this out between you?'; 'are you treating others the way you would like to be treated?'.

I think it's important that they start to learn how to deal with their problems and relationships themselves but if things are really bad, it might need intervention from teacher to try to help sort things out. They may not instantly be able to solve everything but they may be able to help manage the situation within school and try to prevent it getting worse.