Help! Been offered a year 5 school place at my preferred school , but dd doesn't want to go 😨

[freakazoidroid]

Please help!
We moved to the area at the end of year 3. The school we really wanted our dd to go to did not have a place.
She started a different school and we very concerned as she didn't seem happy and wasn't really making any close friends. She was crying and in tears lots and lots. She moved into year 4 and has made some new friends but they were in year 5 ( mixed year classes)
My concern is she does not like any of the girls much in her year and when her friends leave this time next year she will be miserable again 😰
I also am not particularly keen on how the school is run etc .
Basically, I am scared of changing her school and it all being wrong again for her .

Have you viewed the preferred school?

If it was me I'd move her. Friends are all very well however when they are due to leave soon and you have waited this long for a place it's a big sacrifice to turn it down for people who won't even be there soon enough.

What is it that you don't like about the current school?

Thanks for replying
It seems a bit chaotic - I didn't even meet the head when she first started.
She was coming home with reading books - she doesn't do that now
She does get homework - but they aren't fussed if she does it .
A lot is computer activity
I also don't like the fact that they mix year groups
There doesn't seem to be much of a school community feeling amongst parents

Yes we have viewed the school when we first moved down . It is much more like her old school- her new school is a little bit alternative

I would say by yr 4 they are usually choosing their own books aren't they? Has she said why she doesn't get them?

When you say alot of computer activity are you concerened there's little in the way of lesson plans it's just shoving kids on computers? That I wouldnt be too happy with.

Mixed classes are quite common now I think it can work well.

But ultimately you have to be happy with the school and feel your dd is doing as well as she can be.of you don't feel taht is happening well this woukd be a good reason to move her.

If you turn the plave down it's quite possible that it would then go to her friend and she would not be there anyway then. You don't know who's on the list after you.

Both my kids are at a school where they didn't know anyone. They do soon make friends.

In fact Dd1s best friend at school joined in yr1 or 2 and within a week it was as if she had always been there

I don't mean this to sound harsh, but you need to make the decision. BY all means talk to your daughter, but she is a primary age child, and you are an adult. If you are happy that moving her is, on balance, the best thing for her, then do it. If not, leave her where she is.

Is there a linked secondary school for either that you would prefer? I would look at that rather than where she spends the next 2 years.
If she is going to go to a different secondary than any of the kids she gets a relationship with now she may as well move to secure friendships for this time IMO

Y5 is notoriously a time when girls in particular reevaluate their friendships and friendship groups do change about.
So I'd take friends out of the equation as areas on to move or not. Other than mixed year groups, your dislikes seem a bit tenuous. Does the other school have definite positives? I don't think no reading books in year 4 is particularly unusual and neither is not much homework as at that age. And computing across the curriculum is very standard these days! Also bear in mind that the primary school curriculum changed 2 years ago, at the point you viewed the school. You should definitely go and look again!

I would take your DD to visit the potential new school asap. She probably doesn't really remember it, and the fear of the unknown will be playing a part for her.

But if you are convinced that it is the better school, then you are the parent and you get to make the decision about where she should go. The fact that she isn't amazingly happy and settled in her current school would be the decider for me: if she was, it would be a much harder decision.