Year 1 School Transfer - Should We Do It?

[LJNMumOfOne]

The facts:
DD is not in her catchment school. It is an infants so she will have to move after Year 2. There are no guarantees that she will get into the linked junior, which is not our catchment junior school either.

The reason she is not in her catchment school was not our choice, she was placed there by County because the catchment school is hugely over subscribed. There is very little chance that she would get into the catchment junior school when the time comes.

DD absolutely LOVES her current school.

She has been offered a place at another school. It is a combined school so no need to change after Year 2. I have heard good things about it. I have been to visit and it looks fine. DD knows some of the children there from external clubs. It has better academic results than the junior school linked to her current school.

Questions:

• Should we take the place at the new school?
• If we take it, any ideas how to break the news and manage the transition

Thanks!

Where would she go in Y3 if you kept her in her current school? Would it be a school where she was likely to the only new girl?

For me, I think she's better to move earlier rather than later ... friendships are still very fluent at this stage in Y1.

We moved our dd at the end of Year 1, it was so much easier doing it than thinking about it. If I had known it would be so easy, we wouldn't have had so much soul searching and sleepless nights!

DD settled in really well, has kept contact with a few children in her old school, although I can see those windling as time goes on.

Definately sooner rather than later. Our old HT also said this to us when we were thinking of moving her. We did ours at the start of the September, before she bonded with the new teacher, which I think was better for her, as she does form strong bonds. After a school holiday would be a good time too.

Our dd made the decision herself (with a little bit of input from us saying how great it would be! ;) ) and we then kept that spin about the positives and it was fine.

If you sell it to her that she will have to move anyway at the end of Year 2 and accentuate the positives, I bet you she will be fine too, children are so short term in their thinking!

Best of luck.

How sure are you she won't get in?

Our catchment school is an oversubscribed linked infant and junior school and there have not been issues about children getting in to the Juniors. This is partly because the junior school is willing to have slightly larger classes to accommodate any catchment children who choose to apply to the Juniors who weren't at infants. In practise this year that meant 2 classes of 31. There is a lot of playground scaremongering between parents though about the likelihood of getting in.

I would certainly talk to the head of the Junior School and get his/her take on it.

Thanks to all for taking the time to respond.

If she stays at her current school then we would probably try to get her into the linked junior school so she would move up with her friends. The problem is that they only take 30 and there are approx 45 in DDs year at infants. Not all of them will request to go to the juniors but there is a risk she would not get in because we are out-of-catchment. If she doesn't go there then I don't know where she will end up.

Thanks KTk9 for the reassurance that doing it wasn't as bad as thinking about it. It has been on my mind constantly. I just wish I could make the decision! I am going to talk to some parents of children who go to the new school and then it will be decision time!!

Thanks again.