DS1 started Kinder at the end of August. He was looking forward to it, every day we drove past in the summer we'd point to the school and say, look there is your new school, he would do the same after a couple of times, and was generally happy about it.
As background, previously he has been to a childminder from age 1-3, then a private preschool, age 3-5. We've also travelled extensively with him, he is a little shy at first meeting people, but after 10mins gets very comfortable. He is a personable little guy.
Basically he is not happy at school. He asked this morning if it was the weekend yet, and when told no, that he had a sore tummy. I didn't work today so dropped him off near school start time (normally goes to before school club, but he wanted to walk to school, so we went later). He didn't want to go into the before school club, and clung to me, had a little cry about it. I find if I'm matter of fact, he is okay, so I left. The supervisor said once he's in he enjoys himself. They then get him to class. The school rang DH and said he'd been to the sick room complaing of being ill, they checked him out and he obviuosly wasn't, then admitted he was sad, didn't like school and wanted to go home. They asked DH to have a little chat with him about staying at school. When they took him to class, he REFUSED to go in and sat outside the room. They then phoned me, and said, best not to pick him up, we'll sort it out. They said then, that it looks like separation anxiety. Based on his previous, I can't imagine this is true.
And surely after a few weeks, a child should be adapting to a new surrounding, not getting more anxious about it? I suspect he has no connection with his teacher. She sent a note home last week saying he cried when she asked him to write his name on his picture. The week before, it was crying because she told him not to touch the other kids in circle time (he wasn't being aggressive, just touching someones leg, or arm etc...)
I'm not sure how to get to the bottom of what is troubling him. I asked him if he could tell us why he doesn't like school, we could then try to fix it for him so that he could enjoy it and be happy there.
This school has had some form in the past for not dealing with incidents well (based on information from my colleagues and friends who had children in the school, they ended up pulling them out).
There is a parent teacher meeting tonight (general one), and we need to try to find a solution for his unhappiness. What can we suggest? A friend suggested they put him in another class on Monday as an experiment and see how he goes. If it doesn't work, we can rule out, the lack of connection with his teacher, and try something else.
We didn't have any cause for concern at preschool about his behaviour or happiness. He did have a period of not wanting to go as he was being bullied, but the issue was resolved and he overcame that.