my child has no friends yr 5 would you move schools?

[Mossop17]

My 10 yr old has not had a stable group of friends since yr 2. She is constantly falling out with the current group. 3 of them including her. Friend 1 and 2.

Her class is only 24 kids, 7 of which are boys. She doesnt want to play with the boys as they are too rough, shes tried playing with other groups of girls from her class but none want her to join in, there seems to be lots of little groups of 2.

Shes feeling really down and lonely and this has been going on for some time.

She is so fed up of it she wants to go to a different secondary to the rest of the class, most of them will go to school A and she wants school B. I think its very brave of her to make that sort of move but she is so fed up of being stuck in the middle.

Outside of school she goes to a theatre group, ballet and was swimming too and had no issues forming friendships there.

School B has a primary attached to it, would it be a good idea to move her after summer to make new friends there before moving up to secondary?

Or any suggestions on how i can help her? ive spoken to the parents involved of friend 1 and 2 but dont think it will change things.

WWYD?

Unless the secondary is very small, she can easily 'lose' the girls from her primary. I don't think you/she should choose a secondary based on others unless there has been ongoing bullying issues.

So personally I wouldn't move a primary to make friends for secondary.

However moving her so she has a happier y6 is another matter.
Have you spoken with her current primary at all?

thank you Teen, ivbe spoken with the parents of the 2 main problems friend 1 and 2. Im going to speak to school tomorrow hopefully. I think for now we will ride it out and loose the trouble makers by secondary.

Thanks for reading and leaving a comment

The friends she has from outside of school, what school do they go to?

they attend other primaries and secondaries on the other side of town to us, the majority of her other friends are either a yr or 2 younger or a yr or 2 older, none that i know of are the same age as her.

It is tricky and often I am in favour of moving, but yr 6 goes quickly with a focus on SATs and moving schools. Friendships may realign again for example after residential and secondary offer day (she may find herself with new friends who are going to school B in her class). Also if she then doesn't make friends in the other school it might make the transition to secondary even harder. Lots of friendships jiggle around in yr 5/6 so she may gain from other disagreements between other girls. Had she been going into yr5 I might be more inclined to take the plunge. Also having 17 girls in a class is more than many classes of 30 will have. If you move her she may move to a smaller pool of girls. It is tricky though, worth a few more playdates maybe with other pairs of friends and keeping talking to the teacher.

I could have written your post except in Dds class of 35 there are only 12 girls. DD is adamant she doesn't want to move schools, outside of class she is friendly with other children on our close who are in other years at her school, but they don't play together in school.
The high school she will likely attend has a 7 form intake so I'm hoping she will drop her 2 frenemies and move on to nicer girls (or boys!), this year has been particularly hard on her for some reason.
The last couple of years she's made a friend and then they've moved to other schools or left the area and she's struggling to mix with the remaining girls.

madamginger - its so sad isnt it watching them and hoping it will sort itself out. Frenemies i like that term! lol .

Hoping this next yr goes quickly for her and thats sad too that im wishing away her primary days.

Shouldwestay - thats some good points there about class sizes and boys v girls, she will stay put i think and ride it out

DD had 2 girls move into her class at t he start of Year 6. They very quickly were able to make new friends. I think it helps that this is a time that DC are reevaluating friendships and making new ones anyway. One thing to note is that DD's school mixes the children up every year (and has 4 classes per year) so the concept of fixed friendship groups has never really existed - so this might be something worth looking out for in any new school.

To me it sounds like you have encountered the down side of the small school - if you don't gel with the small pool of others it can be a miserable experience.

I could have written your post when my DD was in Y5. DD had a few friends but was obviously excluded from other friendships and had been for years. We didn't move for Y6 and hung on in there. Suddenly the friendships changed. She kept the few friends she had and was invited to loads of parties and round to tea by others. The school had 66 in the year group with a 50/50 split.

The cynical person in me could see another reason for this. My DD scored higher than nearly everyone else in the 11 plus so the wannabes suddenly noticed her. We had already decided she would not go to the grammar school but would go to a boarding school. She became of interest due to that. My DD just did not want to stay around these fickle children. None of her friends passed the 11 plus so were going to a different school anyway. I would say that Y6 was very different to Y5 but we were heartily sick of these children and their parents.

Children do move in Y6 but secondary school admission is usually catchment, not what junior school you go to. Is this a private secondary? If not, make sure you qualify for a place on where you live.

redskyatnight - yes we have definately found the pit falls of a small school, the one we orginally wanted was full but would have meant she would be one of 60 in that yr now one of 24

Bojo no its not a private school, and the 2 secondaries in mind i believe we would be ok for, 1 is definately catchment and the other is a feeder school from the primary and also fairly sure we would be in catchment

It is good you have choices. We decided there was no point in going to yet another school with the same crowd! They had all been together since YR. My DD was a friendly normal child but it is amazing how much other children have their friendships decided for them by parents. If your face doesn't fit you seem to get excluded. Happily a new start does help. I would think about what negatives there might be regarding continuity of teaching but happiness means a lot. My DD never looked back. Not to these children anyway! Has so many friends now it is a real effort to keep in touch with everyone - but she does.

I wouldn't discount moving her if she's up for it.

There was a boy in my dd's class who moved in Y6 to go to a Primary which would feed into his chosen secondary (his siblings had all gone to this secondary too). Dd used to get in with him, but I think he felt like the rent weren't too many boys in school he clicked with. Dd is still in contact with him via social media and incidentally goes to secondary school with some people who were in his new Y6 primary - he got on very well by all accounts.

My dd chose a secondary that none of her primary friends went to. There was no real problem but she just fancied starting fresh. It was hard for the first 6 months and there's been a LOT of falling out of friends from old primary groups. Luckily dd hasn't had that problem. She's fine now and really enjoying herself with new friends.

Your dd sounds great. She does a lot more outside of school than mine. This is a good sign. I would chat to the Primary school teacher, but I wouldn't rule out a move.

*there weren't too many bits.

Bits? Boys! Argh!! Bloody phone.

Op i wish my parents had even considered this for me. I ended up changing the form and faked my dads signature to go to a different school. I was so much happier away from the kids in my primary school