Should I change Dd's school?- kids terrible behaviour in class

[Me23]

I hope you can give me advice, last year in january we moved area and had to move dd year 4 now to a new school. Her last school was brilliant lovely kids, kind caring and well behaved.

The new school is disappointing- not much engagement from parents, no PTA to speak off, but worst of all terrible behaviour of children both in and out of the class room. Dd reports that classes are disrupted everyday from children misbehaving this happened last term also, however I though it may be unique to her class so when I heard they school was mixing up the two forms for year 4 I was hopeful the new mix of kids would mean better behaviour. However dd reports it is still the same. She says all the teachers time is taken up with te badly behaved kids an she can't concentrate on her work as they are always being naughty and shouting.

The rest of the class are suffering and often don't get to do things because of the behaviour of the others. Today she said they missed most of p.e and play as the kids were messing around.

A new head teacher has been recently appointed this term with proven success of turning a struggling primary around.

However today I received a phone call from a school we put dd on the waiting list of informing me a place had become available and was I still interested, I have made an appointment for myself and dd to view the school tomorrow.

My dilemma is- the current school is 10 min walk and manageable for OH to drop dd and ds to schh and nursery 15 mins apart in fhe mornings when I'm at work (4 days a week) however the new school would mean we would have to employ someone to drop dd to and pick up when I'm working as would be impossible for OH to get to work on time (school is 10 minute bus ride)

How would I know this school is any different?

What should I look out for?

Suggestions on this situation please? Am considering making appt with head teacher but what should I say?

Also forgot to add both schools have a similar ofsted and pupil demographic (high proportion of esol, high pupil premium.

Is it a solution to change schools it will make Thigs harder for us and obviously dd would be moved school yet again! This will be her 4th primary and we have moved twice once in reception so we first school she ony attended for 4 months.

I wouldn't do anything she didn't want to do btw!

I have no idea what ESOL is!! I know EAL but not ESOL!

I'd talk to the head tomorrow and explain. Ask her how she promotes positive behaviour in her school and how she deals with children who misbehave etc.

I think you get a good 'feel' for how things are when you are looking round :)

Sorry I meant English as additional language was thinking of esol classes!

Any further opinions? I spoke to dd again this morning asking her if she wanted to move schools as the distance and picking up would mean we would have to find a cm to take her.

She ended up crying about how disruptive the children are in her class and how she would really miss her friends if she moved but she hates how things are.

I'm so confused and torn. Even if I speak to the ht at her current school it doesn't mean things will get better does it.

I don't know what to do for the best, would really appreciate some advice.

parental gossip, no? You need to find parents with kids at the other school and see what they are like, what the reputation is. Do you not have a network of local-ish people to ask around? Try netmums or MN local, come to it.

Question is, can it actually be any worse?

I moved my ds (who was aged 8, in y 4) last year - it was absolutely the right decision for us, but I knew a lot about the new school (lots of mates there etc).

I would say:

1. Can you go and look round first - before dd goes? Gives you a chance to focus on the school rather than dd's reactions, ask awkward questions; make your own mind up. We didn't tell ds about the school place until we were pretty sure of our own decision - although we did absolutely let him feel he had a place in the decision making (not sure what we'd have done if he'd said he didn't want to go)
2. Are there any parents you know at the school? Friends of friends? Or could you find out contacts for the PTA at the new school & ring them (OK< they're likely to be esp involved parents, but a parental view might be helpful)
3. I'm sure you are, but go round in school time to get a sense of disruption levels - get a sense of the general noise, ask LOTS of questions about discipline policies
4. Check out before school club (might be easier for your drop off situation)
5. Ask about their settling in policy for mid year joiners - we were lucky that ds ended up in a class with a load of his old mates, who we'd stayed in touch with, so he settled in almost st away.

I wouldn't talk too much to your dd about it, btw - it's a hard decision for you - imagine how hard it is for her!

With ds, we told him that WE thought this school would be better for him because of x,y,z - but that we wanted him to look round and feel happy too.
We also said that it wouldn't necessarily be easy straight away, so we would give it a half term, and then talk about it - and that the option of going back to his first school would be one we could talk about then. Luckily that bluff wasn't called

Thankyou all for the advice.

preciousbane dd says everyday the same group of students are messing about and being naughty in class, being noisy not doing their work and not listening to the teacher. She says it means she can't concentrate properly and the whole class ends up losing out on things because of it.

We saw the "new" school today and tbh I was not impressed the head teacher seemed disinterested and did not discuss discipline or behaviour policies even though I explicitly asked and explained it was a main factor in movig school. She would only offer "well, all schools have their problems, we have our ups and downs"!

She didnt give us any time, didn't seem to have any pride in the school, there is no PTA, the admin assistant showed us round.

So I am not confident it would be any different there, the facilities and outside space, and extra curricular activities were not as good as current school. We will not be taking the place.

For now I will be meeting with her teacher and ht and explaining my concerns, and see if anything can be done. In he meantime she is still on the waiting lists of other (closer) schools so will see if anything comes of that.

Does anyone have any advice about what to ask the ht?

I think looking round on a normal school day is better than anything the Head says. They will not admit to having teachers who tolerate bad behaviour. The school,you say, is also know to be struggling which indicates that Ofsted have criticised it. What did they say? Ask th see the Action Plan which has been drawn up by the school to address the issues identified. Schools can be notoriously slow to remove or even help struggling teachers. It is clearly mismanagement of the class if the difficult children are taking up so much time . I would ask about behaviour policy, how teachers tackle poor behaviour and what your child should expect from school. It is not your business to knowif these children are special needs children, but, of course, they may be. How is the school spending its pupil premium? This could be targeted towards these children. It also sounds like more TA time is needed. It also sounds like poor leadership if this is allowed to happen. Sorry the other schools o better. Can you go further afield to get better? I feel for you.

Thank you blackmogul I will be asking those questions. To be fair the ofsted report in 2012 judged the school as "good". However the new head teacher has come from a school that was in special measures and is now "good."

I know there are certainly children with behaviour issues some of whom are not formally statmented. Dd was hit in the face by one such boy last year who was lashing out and she got caught in the crossfire.

Her teacher this year is a Nqt, last year their teacher appeared strict but she couldn't get them to behave either, and now the two forms have mixed up it is actually different kids now misbehaving as the previous ones arent in her class now which shows how many badly behaved kids their must be at this school.

We can't look further afield unfortunately, due to nursery drop off/ commuting to work and the fact that the secondary schools we are looking at prioritise children who attend primary school in this borough. If we could we would go back to her old school in a heartbeat.

Have you looked at the other schools you are on the waiting list for - might be worth doing now so that if/when a place comes up you have a better idea as to whether it is likely to be better. I'm guessing that you will need to look at some point for your ds. What is the age gap - it is possible that when he is offered a place she will get sibling priority. I guess the other thing that you can consider is trying to become a school governor and change things from the inside.

I wouldn't write off NQTs. I observed closely one last year, who had a class which had had a rather shouty teacher before, and had its fair share of tricky children and children with limited English (so sometimes get anxious as they do not know what is going on). He was fabulous with them, and had brilliant control over the class - all without shouting.

That was in a school which naice parents might avoid, but I think is pretty fabulous having been in there a lot.

Ds will be starting reception in 2015, dd will be in year 6 then. Good idea about looking around now though I will arrange that.

As for becoming a governer, I don't even know if the school has any governers at present. If there are I haven't beenade aware of them. As I said before there is no PTA at present the school does not har any event like a fete or other fund raisers which surprised me as d came from a school full of actively involved parents and a very enthusiastic PTA!

I wish I could be a sahm or work minimal hours so I can devote more time to the school tbh. I'm a full time midwife working crazy tiring shifts! Though i will be hopefully dropping my hours to 30 soon. Though with working 12 hour shifts I wouldn't be able to commit to set days as shifts are all over the place.

I'm not a Governor myself but it would be a good way to influence the school - you can influence appointment of headteachers, policy on disruptive behaviour etc. Your oh could volunteer instead. Or you might be able to arrange shifts around the meetings. Being available in the day could be useful as you can go and visit the school in action.

Hopefully you will be able to find a solution before 2015, but if not she might get a sibling priority in her final year. Would be a long two years.

We had a kind of similar situation last year. We moved areas to be closer to my family. We went to look around the school, I had family member who sent their children there, looked at the Ofsted and it all seemed lovely.
In reality when she started there it was a very different story. I was shocked at the behaviour of the pupils in the playground in the morning (and having taught at a challenging primary school for 11 years this was a worry to me) and then there was the stories of behaviour within the classroom. My daughter was not being challenged with her work because so much time was being spent on these other issues.
Now we were lucky as we had kept our house in the other area and were able to move back and get her back into her previous school (there were many other reasons we wanted to move back as well). My son was also due to start school this year and I was determined he was not going to that school! Best decision we ever made. Obviously I know that ours was an unusual situation and not possible for most but if your dd is so upset by this kind of behaviour and saying that she wants to move then I would definitely consider moving her.
As mentioned before, definitely ask about the behaviour policy, what happens if a child is disruptive in lessons?
A good tip I always found is to try and look around at times like break/ lunchtimes aswell as this can be a good indicator of general behaviour.
NQT's can be great, full of enthusiasm. My dd's first teacher was an NQT and she was wonderful.
I really do feel for you, it's a hard choice but the best advice I have is to go with your gut.

It doesn't sound worth moving for much of the same to me. Moving children is disruptive to their education so there has to be a good reason to do it. I'd stay put but talk to teacher and, if necessary, to discuss how the bad behaviour of others if affective your DD.

At the risk of stating the obvious is there nowhere else? Have you looked at all possibilities. If the answer is no make an appointment with the head teacher. Ask them what they are going to do about it, tell then how unhappy dd is. I doubt sending her to a similar school with a head who has given up is going to help.