Having a wobble about moving up/changing Junior Schools

[Pammym]

My DD is moving from infants to yr 3 juniors in September. I have chosen not to send her to the juniors which is linked with her infants school for a few reasons i. Ofsted ii. Less traditional teaching iiii. Classes seemed a bit disorganised and messy. Other school has outstanding Ofsted, seemed calmer/more organised, head v. hot on discipline and has more traditional teaching methods.

BUT, have just found out that all her current infant friends (a group of about 6) are going to be in the same class together at juniors and I am having a major wobble about opting out. DD hasn't had change over day at her new school yet but I do know that she is going to be in the same class as her 2 best current out of school friends and knows at least 2 other children quite well.

Please reassure me that friendship groups are not the be all and end all when deciding on schools at this age!!! Should also state that the new school is in same Town so DD will still have out of school contact with current friends.

Friendship groups are not the be all and end all at this age :)

Seriously, my DS also moved to an unattached juniors for Y3 - though different set up to yours as his new class consisted of 10 from his old school (including his 2 best friends), 15 children from a single other school and 3 from other schools. Coming towards the end of Y3 I can absolutely say that every child has made new friends and in (probably) the vast majority of cases, the children all have different best friends to the start of the year (ironically DS's new best friend is a child who was at his last school but don't think they'd ever even spoken till they moved into Y3!)

Thanks redsky - that is good to read :-) I just hate change of any kind so this is a big thing for me - hopefully DD will just take it in her stride.