Reception child - sad and no friends

[StarUtopia]

So DS started reception in September. He's a bubbly little boy, tall for his age though so towers over the others. Knew quite a lot of the little girls from his nursery and they played with him in nursery but don't want to know now.

The boys in the class seem to be in two groups. The nice little boys and the trouble makers. The nice little boys don't want to DS to play with them in case the trouble makers come over too. DS doesn't want to play with trouble makers but they're the only ones offering so target him, give him nice attention, then push him away.

So basically DS has managed to get himself, at the grand old age of 4 , into no mans land.

Three boys in particular are targeting DS daily. Minor things, but most evening in the bath he has little bruises all over him from where they've poked, prodded, kicked him etc. DH told him to stand up for himself - finally he did yesterday and he was the one that got into trouble from the teacher. One of the little boys who's caused most of the problems for him came out with Star of the Day!

I'm at my wit's end watching my lovely little boy upset because no one wants to play with him.

For reference, he's never had a problem out of school. Quite the contrary he's quite popular. Lots of friends with siblings of his sister (slightly older kids)

What can I suggest that he does? I have already spoken to the teachers and said he needs help. They've started to engineer situations, but they seem to walk off straight away after placing him in a group - which son then says, the minute the teacher walks off, the kids tell him to go away

He's in tears most nights.

My DS used to look as though he was 6 when actually he was only 3. He was getting bullied until I started volunteering there, listening to children reading .

I think it's hard, but in rec/ks1, friendship is very fragile and not really established.
A lot of children change, the ones seems to be the trouble makers in reception can be a model student in yr3.
I think you just need to keep an eye that he isn't excluded, plenty of play dates, lot's of encouragements to play with variety of children.
By ks2, the friendship will become more secure.

Oh gosh my little one is going through the same situation and is soo anxious to go to school. I’ve had a meeting with the teacher suggested that maybe I can move her to the other class (3 form entry ) but she said I should attend the family parenting group meetings!! I’ll persevere and then put her on waiting list for another class for year 1:(

I think it would be a good idea to make an appointment with the Headmaster/mistress and raise your concerns to him or her. Don't let it drop until they deal with this appropriately. It's for the Head to decide how they feel fit to deal with this and go forward. If you feel like your not getting anywhere and nothing has changed for the better I would consider a school move as a last resort. I would be so cross right now with the way things have been handled and the teacher's attitude, what works for one child doesnt necessarily mean it would work for all the children. The best of luck in sorting this out. Xx

Even in a fabulous school you can get a really crappy cohort - poor DD2 is in the middle of one of these although in our case it's quite strongly mum-led social exclusion. I've been a squeaky wheel at school about it since Reception and it's starting to break down now in year 2 somewhat - but school were very on the ball in terms of having DD in social groups and trying to gently scaffold friendships (sabotaged by the parents who didn't want their kids with DD2 as they only want their kids to be friends with their friends' kids - which is the constant battle we face).

If school hadn't have been prepared to try to support DD2 - then I would have moved her, and we did have a fair few meetings with the Head last year when things got bloody ridiculous. I still rate the school very highly - just poor DD2 got born into a crappy year group where loads of stuff seems to be combining to make it all crap.