Do you have your child in a rural primary school?

[colditz]

I am considering moving my children to a village school with 50 pupils. they are currently in a deprived area school with 300 pupils.

My DS1 has adhd and ASD. he doesn't socialise very well because he is a nervous child sometimes.

I'd love some opinions.

Both my children are at a small rural primary with 51 pupils (3 classes in total). I'm also a governor of the school. I think the small numbers allow better focus on individual children, whether they have special needs or not.

Our particular school has high SEN levels but you wouldn't know it. The school has a lovely atmosphere and all the children look after each other. They don't necessarily play within their year cohort, but form friendships across the school.

I really love the school and think it's been excellent for both children (Yr2 and YrR).

That's really lovely to hear, thank you.

It's not that their current school isn't coping with him, it's that he needs to be with a smaller group. But then, I've heard that children can become MORE isolated, rather than less, at smaller schools.

I think a lot depends on the individual school and the individual children. Yes, there is a smaller pool from which children can choose their friends, but by the same token, they are forced to make more of an effort to make friends with the ones that are there. You don't end up with birthday parties which are all 6 year old girls, for example, you get a good mix of ages and sexes and therefore a greater balance.

I can't really comment on how SENs are handled, because it's not something I have real experience of as either a parent or governor. But it's got to be worth investigating and asking questions.

My DD is at a small village school, I'm not sure of the numbers. It does feel as if there is a small community vibe to it though and all the kids know each other and are encouraged to interact among the age groups. The classes are mixed age too - DD is in the nursery class which is with reception.
Like almost everywhere I'm sure there are kids from more deprived backgrounds, or with special needs, but it's not obvious to me as a parent which they are.
The downside is, that its a bit like a goldfish bowl and people all know each other, but thats part of the upside too!
The teaching is good and as far as I can tell the kids are happy, the intake seems to be growing though as the reputation of the school seems to be on the up.

I suspect the small school has a lot less money to provide SEN type support.

I;ve read the ofstead report, and apparently they have 15% SEN children and they all do well.....

I moved dd (ASD) from a rural primary (80 pupils) to a deprived area community school (360 pupils) For dd it has been a much better experience. Lots of children with SEN, lots of peers for friendship, experience of ASD, high numbers of staff.
Dd had a particularly awful teacher for yr1 (not only my opinion a third of the children in the class were moved from the school as a result of this teacher) and because it was a yr1/2 class she would have been there for two years.
From my experience I would say that there isn't a formula to get a good school for a child with ASD it depends entirely on the school in question IME.

I would think a child like your ds1 would be fine at our school (c. 100 children); the school works extremely hard at having a family atmosphere. It would help that it's easier to get to know all the other kids so the others would get to know him and how to get on with him. I think the fact that there is a lot of socialising across the year groups would help too as there would be scope for older ones to take him under their wing and more acceptance of diversity of behaviour.
If he did get bullied it would be harder to get away from, though.
The teachers might be less likely to have experience with his particular SN but on the plus side, it would be easier for you to build relationships with all the teachers.

Oooh,ohh! Where are you thinking of sending them?

As you know,the ddds school is rural with about 84 pupils.I have asked I if there is anyone in her class who struggles to sit still/concentrate or needs extra help.She said that yes,there were.I asked if anyone was mean to them because of it and she said no.The children are encouraged to look after each other,the older ones making sure that the little ones are ok and they have a very high ratio of staff to children.When dd1 was in reception,they had a teacher and a TA in a class of 10 children.

If I can help,let me know,my sister is a SN TA at Frisby,so she knows all about working with SN in small rural schools.

I will pm you about a meet up too.

Mirage, I've PM'd you.

Thanks for all your input, everyone, it's been really helpful.

Our village school has around 120, and personally I find it quite restrictive. I wish now, with hindsight, that we'd not been swayed by the cutesy rural feel of it.
I would check what exactly the small school can offer in way of SEN and extra-curric. stuff / after school care if needed, and go from there.
Good luck.

Look hard at any areas in school your kid finds hard to deal with. If they try and escape at current school check out exit routes , hidey corners and security at proposed school. some rural schools are MUCH more porous than city/ town schools. If they don't cope well with noisy busy dining hall look at how the new school handle dinner, is it a small space and staggered sittings or do they have to eat in class rooms , would this be a problem for your kid. Do they have a playground that allows different games to take place and quieter activities or it it dominated by football, does your kid like football? how will he cope if he is one of only a few boys that don't play football?

He struggles when the classroom gets crowded. He struggles with the complete football-n-fighting culture of the boys. He struggles with finding people he 'knows' in a big playground that has 300 kids in it. He's not a bolter, but he's becoming more and more reliant on his TA to take him out of the classroom, and it shouldn't be that way round. He should be improving, but I think he's feeling the strain.

dd's school has about 50 children.
there is a nice family atmosphere, they all know each other and the play seems to be quite fluid between the year groups.
it is not at all overwhelming.

if you would like to pm me for more information - please do.

It's not a choice I'd make Colditz, infact I did the opposite ad moved my 2 boys from a village school with a roll of 70 to a town junior school with 300.
Ds2 has SN's he's dyspraxic / dyscalculic and was very isolated at the village school. Yes, he was involved in friendship groups, on the outskirts, but he didn't really have a friend. He was very lonely.
On the academic side a tiny school is unlikely to have the funds and resources for TA's and extra helper unless your son is Statmented and has specific help in place. Moving to the large school, ds2 immediately had extra help and classes for his needs.
And then there is just more choice of people to chose as friends, more choice of extra curricular activities, more resources, more facilities.
Obviously you know what's best for your son, but I'd think very very carefully about this.

Why not ask for a trial day or 2 at the school, talk to the school see what they think, see how accomodating they are likely to be.

I have been over the moon with our children's recent move from a 120 +size rural town school to a 50 c of e village school.

My dd(yr 2) was struggling in her class of 26 with 2 other statemented children. Although she fit in ... I felt her needs were being overlooked. She left reception reading 4 words. She used to run away in the morning when the children were being sent in and I was left to go try and catch her and get her into school by myself ... left in the playground alone and then having to carry her in.

Now she is in a village school and doing really well. Her teacher is the SEN coordinator and she has 30 min a day with a trained TA in literacy with FFT. The school actually were excited to have my daughter because the teacher and TA were able to go on the FFT course and then discovered at least 4 other children who needed FFT intervention at the school. Also, the teacher takes her hand and brings her into the school if she looks like she may make a bolt for it.

Although, there are problems with kids not always being friends (I moved my two elder children to the same school so my 9 yr old falls in and out of friendship with her best friend :) LOL! Almost on a daily basis. There is definitely more of a caring environment among the children ... like a family that sometimes fall out but, when things are tough stick together and help one another out.

This 9 yr old who at her old school had no friends to play with and was bullied and never wanted to go to school ... has friends AND doesn't want to EVER miss a day of school ... she hates it if she gets vomiting or the big D - no school for 48 hrs!!

I would NEVER go back to a town school and wish my eldest wasn't moving on this year!!

HOWEVER!! Beware of the negative and what has been said above. It REALLY depends on the Head and the teachers ... find out as much as you can from parents who send their children there ... if there seems to be a lot of spaces ... be wary. Also, trial visit sounds good if they'll allow it ... if not maybe you can observe 1/2 day?

Oh ... just to add ... my dd is NOT statemented and at her old town school there were 12 kids in yr.1/2 that were recognised as needing the 30 min a day extra help ... Instead of doing them all together and starting at the beginning of the year they had to organise it in groups of 4 for each term ... so some of them had to wait until THIS term for the 30 min - that means they are only getting 10 weeks of the 30 min!! My dd has 30 min extra help all year. Not all village school do this ... as said above by Ingles2 ... BUT not all bigger schools can cope with the high need ... it depends on the area. Our village school has a lot of excellent and highly trained TA's ... Some don't but the same goes for town/city schools as well.

I did the same as Ingles and dd has just blossomed in her current school. Among the downside of the small primary were that the TAs had been there for years and ASD wasn't their experience but the school didn't recruit because it would have meant redundancy for long term staff. Resources were far poorer five or six laptops for a class to share compared with an ICT suite for example. There was a lack of opportunities not only for building friendships but also for after school activities.Dd doesn't stand out in her new school because there are many with SEN whereas she was one of two in her old school and that wasn't good for her self esteem.
I worried that because of it being a big school her needs may be missed or that every teacher or support staff wouldn't be aware of her needs but in actual fact everybody seems to be aware from the dinnerladies who serve her food so that nothing touches to the afterschool activities leaders who ensure that she is able to access every one that she wants to try. I didn't inform every person who has contact with dd so there is obviously a very good system of communication in place.
When looking for a school initially I felt that a small school would be best because of the family atmosphere but in my experience a larger school has brought more experience, greater resources and better opportunities.

I would echo MMQC - the small schools I know (and there are many in the area I live) allow more for individuals of all types - small numbers mean they are all different !

They tend to make friends across the year groups and look out for each other a bit more.

I think though the bottom line is to visit the school and see how you feel about it. If you feel comfortable with it then it is likely to suit your DS.

Socially struggling children usually find small groups easier to cope with (one of mine hates big noisy groups but is fine in smaller groups).

Oh God now I'm utterly torn

I went to a tiny rural school of a similar size until 1996. It was lovely so warm and caring, we had 3 classes. Teachers knew us inside out, went on school trips in back of teachers car (can't believe that used to happen!!), went on school trips to teachers farm etc it was really such a caring environment. Must admit did make the transition to secondary harder but that's probably because we all went to different schools but when i compare it to DD's excellent yet much larger school i know which i would prefer. Rural school in a heartbeat.

my dd's go to a small rural school, about 90 pupils and 4 classes. its lovely as they are mixed year groups and she has lots of friends in different years and in year 1 she knows the name of every single pupil in the school as do all the teachers and the head.
i know that dd's school is also excellent with children with SEN and every class had a teacher and full time teaching assisstant as well as other floating asisstants that withh take small groups for individual work.

ok they may not have all the resources that laregr schools ahve but there is no way i would change. i think taht the friendly family atmosphere is worth more than having an It suit or fantastic school trips.

It depends so much on the child and the school.

DS has made the move from a small rural primary of c 100 to a town primary 4x the size and LOVES it. He was very isolated due to a lack of peer group in his old school - he is very bright, and simply because there were less children in his village school it was statistically less likely that any would be in the same ability bracket. In his big school, he does now have a peer group in his year of 60 (well, of one other, but that's fab) and the school has done stuff like get all the G&T from across the school together for stretching activities so he has a 'vertical' peer group too so he feels much more integrated. He is never going to be the type of child who is a round peg in a round hole, he has needed a big school with lots of different shaped holes available to find one that fits.

It also depends so much on the rural school - ours was in a very 'closed' village (we were incomers, everyone else had been born and bred there) and again that caused friendship issues. DS has sooooo many friends now!