Splitting the class for next year - can I object?

[lunchtimeconcert]

Private school, two form entry. Next year the class has been muddled so that half my son’s class are now with half the other class. The decision of which child where seems to be arbitrary. My son will be away from one of his friends but in with another. Unfortunately the worst boys (always in trouble, mess about in class) are also in his group.

Can I request my son is not in this class? It’s that bad that if we cannot move him we will move school. Will the school take any notice?

Hi op, former teacher here. Yabu. It's likely your teacher spent a lot of time agonising over the class split. It may seem 'a bit stupid' to you but I'm sure there are lots of good reasons for the split. Teachers are professionals.

I agree with what @7salmonswimming said, it can't just be the nice, bright boys together.

Teachers have it hard enough as it is these days and don't need parents putting pressure on them over things such as class splits on top of this. The chances are your son's teacher has spent more of his / her unpaid time on things like writing your son's school report, looking at his targets etc etc than you've ever imagined. Teachers often arrive at school before 8am, work through most of their lunch hour, late into the evening and during weekends and holidays (I'm not exaggerating and I think the 80% drop out rate in the first 5 years of teaching backs me up on this). Show some respect and appreciation for your son's teacher and trust his / her professional judgement.

Your attitude sounds horrible to be honest.

Schools have their reasons for changing things around, even just to stop pupils becoming over reliant on another and to mix things up can be a good move.

I’m sure there are naughty children in the other class too, it’s just you don’t see it?

You just have to suck it up. There will be be new potential friends in the new class that you don’t even know about yet. And frankly, your son will be in a much better position to get along with the ‘naughty’ boys when he’s 11-13 (I presume he’s in prep) if he’s spent time with them further down the school.

Also your child may not always either be a shining angel or nice to be around. There may be other boys and parents who are not thrilled to have him (or you) in their class and may be unhappy about him!

In reality, there’s nothing you can do. Threatening to move him over this is moronic; he would be the new boy in school and could end up in an even worse class and you would have even less of an influence as the new parent.

With all due respect, you are the parent and have absolutely no idea of what the needs are of many of those "worse" boys

OP doesn’t need to know what the children’s needs are, her only concern is the impact it has on her child’s education.

FWIW OP this happened in DDs year she was a similar class. She begged to be moved as she enjoyed being educated and these boys prevented that from happening.

We moved her, it was the beat decision for her.

You’re slightly different as you are paying a high price and not receiving the best service. I’d look for other school because others will start doing so and you won’t find a place as easily.

The school has a traffic light system that we can all see at pick up. It shows who the disobedient children are.

So they’re publicly shaming the disobedient children? Sounds like a bad way of doing things to me.

And if the teacher has to tell a parent about a child misbehaving, why not let that child out last, so all the other parents aren’t hanging around within earshot?

If a child’s been disobedient at school, it’s not something that every parent in the class needs to know about!

Class moves always cause issues, we are facing this again this year and I can only imagine what the playground discussions are going to be like.

If you genuinely think that there are valid reasons for your son to be in the other class, then, by all means, do ask, however, it is very difficult for the school to make changes after the classes have been announced.

I do not envy your position and I respect your right to do what is right for your child and I frequently advocate for my children in school.

We have one child who is often put with the more disruptive children and it negatively impacts her schooling. What is best for class dynamics is not always what is best for individuals and I refuse to stand by and let my child suffer for the sake of others.

We have one child who is often put with the more disruptive children and it negatively impacts her schooling. What is best for class dynamics is not always what is best for individuals and I refuse to stand by and let my child suffer for the sake of others

Agreed - felt that needed to stand out

It will not have been arbitrary and it have been clearly considered.

I don’t believe that there will be one class with all the sensible bright boys in one class and all the ‘naughty’ ones in the other. There will be more to it than that.

Go and discuss your concerns with the teacher if you must. Look at other schools if you are not happy.

If what is best for class dynamics is not best for an individual child then that individual child's parents need to consider home-schooling because nothing is ever going to be good enough.

I'm also a teacher and we've split a class this year. As others have said, it often happens and for reasons that are rarely, if ever, to do with keeping all the "naughty" kids together etc.

The traffic light system, which at that age is certainly nothing more or less than a tool to publicly humiliate some and provide smugparent fodder for others sounds foul. As does the listening in on teacher-parent interaction at the end of the day. We ALL grab a parent when needs must, but the more socially aware other parents take a step back and mind their own at that point. The culture at this school sounds appalling to me.

Obviously, you can ask if the decision has been arbitrary, and you can ask for your son to be moved into the other group. But do check the traffic lights of all the children in that class first. Are you sure they're all angels?

Re the traffic light system - I thought that this was a legitimate tool for very young children. I’ve seen it more as sunny, cloudy, rainy and only used sparingly for children who need encouragement. I also suspect that it is in the classroom; you could just not look at it.

I’m not a particular fan of this kind of system, but can see it’s worth if it’s used properly, reset everyday and kept away from parents.

It sounds like you are earwigging and actively looking at the chart.

They did this at the start of DS1's Y4. Their reason was to balance abilities more equally between the two classes. The kids did get asked who they'd prefer to be with, if possible, though in DS's case they ignored it and separated him from his only friend. I complained, they said give it a chance, we did and it was fine. DS made new friends from the other class and saw his old friend at playtime anyway. He was gutted at the time though, it was horrible.

DS2 had the rain cloud/grey cloud/sunshine/rainbow system and they all loved it. It improved DS's concentration remarkably as he wanted to say 'I was on the rainbow today!' as he came out of school.

Am confused OP - if the class has been split but some of the naughties are in your son's half, what's the difference between that and the class having stayed the same for the following year - in the latter case, he still would have had these boys in his class.
Unless you know the parallel class dynamic, half of whom are now making up the rest of son's new group, you cannot surmise it will be worse/some kind of sink set - the other class probably has naughties from the second class in it.
Forms are not usually changed for friendship reasons (except in extreme bullying or unless all friendship preferences for secondary were ignored): This is primary and your son has a friend to sit next to/move up with.
All that said, you are paying for private/prep so if you are unhappy with the system, you can vote with your feet or speak with them. The success of that will be down to whether or not they need your fees or will easily fill the spot I guess.

Quite frankly that's none of your business and traffic light system or not it's not there for you to scrutinise.

They point it out to us! That is exactly what it is there for! Opposite the door in full view where we pick up.

what's the difference between that and the class having stayed the same for the following year - in the latter case, he still would have had these boys in his class.

If my son was in the other class he would be away from the core group of troublemakers.

I spoke to the parent of my son’s friend this morning. She too isn’t happy so we are both going to approach the school.

Good behaviour is always rewarded though isn’t it? In virtually every school. Gold stars. Pupil of the week, etc. I don’t agree with poor behaviour being advertised but, for heavens sake, in a small prep school everyone will know! DC will know who is in trouble all the time, who gets told off, who plays roughly etc. My DC knew, I knew when I was a child and parents knew. We were state educated with bigger classes.

I suspect these DC are staying together because the teacher is considered capable of dealing with them! I would worry the other teacher wasn’t good on behaviour management or able to keep the DC engaged and in task. If this new class teacher is capable, the naughty children might be less naughty. My greater concern would be that a prep school education isn’t for them so they’ll probably be asked to leave eventually.

OP. Be glad your DC has a friend in the class. There is still PE and other activities where they will see each other and you should keep up friendships out of school. It’s not the end of the world!

If your DCs move then more parents will complain who are moved into the class. The school is unlikely to budge! The issue is how they deal with the DC who won’t settle. You cannot ask for them to be removed so what do you expect to get out of complaining, except feeling you have put your point of view across.

Traffic light system is a way of shaming children and is of no use when dealing with persistent troublesome behaviour . Same culprits day in day out. Children start to believe in their own'naughtiness'.
Truly awful that it's right by the door for all to see.

Last July I was really worried because my not particularly confident, summer born DS was split up from all of his friends. School made it clear that the classes were not going to be discussed, so don't even bother coming to speak to us about it.

My boy is having a wonderful year. He has improved academically, has lots of new friends and is enjoying school. It turns out that school knew what they were doing.

Like most classes, my son's class has a few pupils who struggle sometimes, I think due to SEN, but it is not my business so I do not know this for sure. When I have had the opportunity to speak to these children and see them interact I have seen that they are very kind and lovely. Finding it a bit tricky to sit on the carpet during phonics does not make a child a monster.

I think it’s awful that they’re putting their traffic light system in full view of parents at school pick up, and pointing it out to them.

I think that type of system can work well within a classroom for some children if used properly, but I think that deliberately publicly shaming small children who’ve been naughty is just cruel.
And I also doubt whether publicly labelling them as naughty children is a helpful way of encouraging those children to behave better in the long run.

Plus the teacher stands at the door and informs each parent of the day’s events. We can all hear!

Well you will only hear if you hang around to listen.

Chill out, OP, the split hasn't happened yet.

If you're really unhappy next year - and you sound as if you'll be on high alert expecting trouble then you could move your ds, but - as others said - you might be getting out of the frying pan into the fryer.

Most schools split classes frequently. I've not always been thrilled by some upshots for my dc, but it's always worked out fine in the end.

Well you will only hear if you hang around to listen.

We’re in a queue at the door, hard not to hear really.

Complained today. They are getting back to us.

It sounds pretty harsh that the traffic light system is actually pointed out to the parents! My DS2 took up semi permanent residency on the Thinking Cloud that they had in our village primary school. It wasn't pointed out but anyone who went into the classroom, had a meeting etc could see the peg with his name on the bloody cloud yet again. Eventually we moved counties and therefore schools, and it turned out that he wasn't actually the child from hell but had been bored rigid because as he's summer born they'd put him in the lower groups for everything. Since changing schools his behaviour (and his learning) have improved massively.

Re splitting children in class mix-ups, the same school separated my DS1 from all of his friends after YR. DS1 is quite severely autistic and had tried so hard to make friends with 3 particular boys and got quite well with a further five boys. All eight of them were put in the other class. We pleaded and argued with the school and they refused to budge. It had the most horrific effect on DS1, causing him to basically shut down and stop trying to be friends with anyone until he joined a special school aged 11.

This is an extreme example though.....see what your school says, OP, but usually class mixes are nowhere near as disastrous as this was!

We’re in a queue at the door, hard not to hear really.

Well first you will only hear about the children before yours, unless you hang about.

It must take ages to pick up your children if every parent is getting detailed information about their child’s behaviour.