What would make you pull your child out of school?

[pancakeboobies]

My dd is coming to the end of Y1. She has made OK progress. She left Reception knowing most sounds and could read CVC words. She is now almost there with reading and is somewhere between a band 6/7 (orange/ turquoise ORT).
She is very happy at school and has lots of friends. She gets the chance to show off badges/ certificates she gets from out of school classes etc and seems to be rewarded for her good behaviour regularly.
However, I now know of a few parents who have recently removed their slightly older children (Y2) from the school as they are concerned with the standards/ progress their children are making at the school.
The school didn't do well in their 2010 ofsted mostly for lack of progress for the more able.
My dd is bright but probably not up there at the moment with the top kids and is probably about number 10 in the class of 30 iyswim.
My dd has been talking quite a bit about a few disruptive boys and has said she thinks her learning is being slowed down by this. I partly think this is due to a student teacher being in the class for quite a bit of the last term.
I am thinking of moving my dd although she is adamant she wants to stay. There is an outstanding school opening a second brand new school a similar distance away from her current school and we would probably get a place when it opens in Sep 2013 when she starts Y3. It will have brand new facilities etc. Am seriously tempted but wonder if the upheaval, etc will be worth it for the potential gains. Though we obviously don't know how well she would settle there or how great this school will end up being.
Would really appreciate others thoughts. Would you only pull out if it were really dreadful or am I just having a wobble over nothing?

I can see where you are coming from, you just want the best for your dc. What I can say is an outstanding school can only go one way, also if it is a new school with new staff there may be issues there too. There is a lot to say for well established working relationships. I moved one of my dcs many years ago at the same age, as he was not happy in the school and the ethos didn't suit at all. I don't think it need be a huge upheaval if you manage it well, but you will need to give her your full support for some considerable time. The school will be aware that parents are losing confidence and they will undoubtably take efforts to improve.
I also think there are disruptive children in most classes today, but agree trainee teachers don't always know how to manage this and end up spending valuable teaching time "fire fighting". If she wants to stay you need to have a pretty sound case for moving her and be able to justify yourself to her, especially as young dcs don't understand the future or good/bad education. They just want to play with their friends and have stability.
That said, you have to do what you think is best, unfortunately nobody can decide for you. Good luck.

Some points to consider:

• new schools take a while to settle down however outstanding the team setting them up

- Y1 (IMO) is the peak for disruptive behaviour in primary school, I suspect this will be better next year

• If Ofsted have identified "stretching the most able" as a point to improve you can bet that the school will be focusing on this (and you could go and specifically ask how the school are addressing this ...)
• where are the children leaving the school going to? Is it private or other state schools?

I think it depends a lot on what you want out of a school. I have a very close friend who's like me in many ways, but we want completely different things from a school. She is very academically minded and wants her children to learn timetables by rote etc- I am happy for my children to learn at their own pace, and find that I think that the social aspect of school is more important to me. If I think my DS should be doing more, I do it at home.

Really? You would say Y1 was the worst for disruptive behaviour? Not been my experience. I'd reckon Y5 was generally worse.

I would only remove my child from a school if there was unadressed bullying or she was failing to learn.
I am not 100% happy with her current school, but she only has four weeks left so I am shrugging.

I removed DS when the bullying was making him cry before we even set off for school (having taken it to the governors and got nowhere). In academic terms it was a good school which clearly differentiated for abilities.

He is now happy at a good school but which Ofsted reports does not do well by its most able pupils. However because of his earlier experiences I place a greater value on the pastoral care.

I don't think your reception age dc really said she thought that disruptive behaviour was slowing her learning did she?

It sounds like you are seeing other parents moving their DCs and you think you should be doing the same thing so you are looking for a reason to move. Even though your dd is perfectly happy and progressing.

Just because a school doesn't suit child 1 it doesn't mean that it won't suit child 2.

Can the parents really know that it's the school who's "at fault" and that it's not a natural plateau, lack of help at home or a specific teacher that is slowing down progress?

I have 3 kids and none of them have linear progress. None of them have made progress predicted by grades the previous year.

I too am intrigued by disruptive behaviour peaking in y1. I think the first term can be hard as there is a big change in learning style but as a parent helper I think that y5/6 can be more "lively" and that y2/3/4 are better behaved.

Our school was built in 2008 and talking to people who were there at the start it took a whole (over a year) to get things right and this is with a very strong head.

Pancakeboobies. I have found that by supporting dcs learning at home that most of the time this was enough to fill any gaps left from school teaching. I bought cgp books for English and Maths, learned about levels and sub levels and can now assess my dcs quite effectively. I am a qualified teacher but believe me this has not made the slightest bit of difference to supporting dcs through primary and secondary to uni.

As rip has said - unaddressed/inadequate bullying action. Or totally failing him as an individual, ie not being encouraged to prosper at his potential rate, just constantly feeling like he was being compared to others.

I imagine there are very few parents who go through the whole school system loving every teacher and every decision made. But you can't please all the people all the time. A Head's job must be very, very difficult.

I think your dd's school sounds like they are doing a good job - every class has at least a couple of disruptive dc in it and that will carry on through to high school so unless they are making your dd's life a misery and affecting everyone's learning I think it's just one of those things that will always be part of school life.

I thiink bullying would be the only reason, apart from abuse obviously. I agree that every class has some disruptive children, in my experience, 2 or 3. Also, I am trying not to generalise, but my DS1 has 17 boys and 13 girls and their class is a lot more disrupted than DS2 who has 17 girls and 14 boys.

Thanks everyone. Tantrums - no she didn't say it, but has been talking about the naughty boys in her class (is a group of 2/3 I think) and when I asked if she thought it was stopping her teacher teaching so much she said yes and then when I asked if she thought it was stopping her learn so much she agreed.
Due to the area we are in it only goes up to Year 4 which is one reason I wasn't so concerned about sending her to the school as for me, walking to school was very important.
In our town there are mostly OFSTED rated outstanding and good schools. Ours is rated as satisfactory so a lot of parents don't even consider sending their child to the school. It wasn't my first choice, but it has good pastoral care and is a vibrant and happy school as well as being our nearest so was happy to send her there. I just regularly get the wobbles about it especially when I have spoken to parents whose children go to one of the better rated schools ( I know OFSTED is't the be all and end all!) There is also a lot of comparison going on between the parents when the children are at different schools.
It is because my DS will be starting school at the same time as this brand new school opens that I wonder about sending him there, but I can't do drop offs at 2 schools which is why the only other option is to move dd. But she is so happy and I think that if it takes a year or so for a school to settle down then it would not be a good move as she would only be there for 2 years anyway.
I will just continue to support her at home and fill in any obvious gaps in her learning. Will get some things for her to do over the summer holidays to ensure she hits Year 2 flying (hopefully).
Thanks for all your opinions - is good to have a sounding board, is hard to have the discussion in rl as I don't want people with children at the same school to also start doubting their choice and people with children at other schools tend to get all smug about their choice!!!

blueberry DD1's class had 12 girls, 18 boys. Dd2's class had 17 girls, 13 boys.

Dd2's class was far more "interesting" and disruptive.