My son is not fitting in at school and it’s all because of one boy!

[Italiamo]

I live in a small village and my son started in the reception year of our village school in September.
At end of October my son and I had a conversation that went like this:
(I’ll call the other boy BoyX so as not to use his name)
My son: BoyX let me play today.
Me: Doesn’t BoyX normally let you play?
My son: No never
Me: well that’s not very nice, why don’t you just play with someone else?
My son: BoyX tells me he’s the boss, he decides who can play and he says nobody is allowed to play with me.
The problem is that BoyX is a big character and appears to in charge (the boss) of the boys in the class and is purposely excluding my son from the group (it is only a small class - so only 7 boys in the class)
I’m ashamed to say that at first I didn’t take this too seriously. I just thought, this is how kids are - you know friends today and then not the next and then friends again! But over the next week my son kept telling me more hasty comments from BoyX so I made an appointment to see his teacher.
To my surprise she said she’d been aware of this issue for over two weeks and they were working with BoyX on his behaviour.
Of course I was upset so we arranged a meeting to discuss what to do. In this meeting they gave us a list of things they were going to do to help - for example putting the boys on a group task to help them to bond and class activities to encourage team work. We then met two weeks later to discuss the results. The teacher talked very positively about the results, but from what my son tells me nothing has really changed. He tells me that he has no one to play with in the playground and so plays on his own and the TA confirmed this. So I’ve been back for another meeting with his teacher and in this meeting she said that nothing new needed to be done because the problem was sorted and suggested my son was making up the comments from BoyX to get attention from my. But I don’t believe this to be true. Yes my son is attention seeking like any other 5 year old but I don’t believe he’s using this to get attention.
So I feel very frustrated with the school I decided to contact my next nearest school and it turns out they have one place free. They have offered this place to me and I now have 10 days to either accept or decline the space. But I’m in a quandary with what to do. My feelings are:
This other school with the free space is a big city school and to get there I’ll have to drive through a high traffic area where as at the moment I walk my son to school. Also the other school is huge, overwhelming so, 75 kids in just the reception year! Plus the catchment area is vast and includes some troubled areas. But on the positive side we do already know some lovely kids that go there so I know my son will have friends from the start.
I’d really love to know all your thoughts and help me out of this quandary. Thank you in advance xx

my pleasure, am skiving off work.

I see other parents from the old school all the time and years later its still going on, one lovely little boy has been slyly ostracised for years but the family are stuck for now. I agree with @hiredandsqueak it gets worse when they’re older.

Meanwhile from what I hear of DC old school, cliquey child who dictates the friendships is confident and happy. School likes this and encourages with sports captain or head of school council awards. His parents won’t constantly be going in to discuss DC issues so they’ll be popular too. Small schools can be amazing but they don’t suit every child.

foxatthewindow: thank you so much for your reply. It’s really interesting to hear about your sons friendship triangle because it shows that these problems can still occur even with children that were once friends.
From where we’re starting with my son and BoyX not being friends from the start, I think it will be a miracle to change this now and so I’m definitely seeing the value of a bigger choice of friends at the city school.
Thanks also for the advice on the governors. I’ll definitely look into it Xx

My DD2 went to a prep school with 45-54 ish in a year group. All girls. Around 15-18 in a class so lots of activities and lots of friends. I would not pay for 7 in a year of the same sex. It’s just too small. I think it’s easy to be persuaded by small classes (which are not financially sustainable in well run primary schools) but the wider picture isn’t always great and there certainly can be parental cliques.

The Governors cannot deal with the day to day operational running of the school so I’m not sure contacting them would achieve anything.

Meanwhile from what I hear of DC old school, cliquey child who dictates the friendships is confident and happy. School likes this and encourages with sports captain or head of school council awards
His parents won’t constantly be going in to discuss DC issues so they’ll be popular too.
In my experience those children and parents get a rude awakening in secondary when it turns out that in a 6-8 form entry school with 80-100 teachers people don't think their child is as remarkable as they've been led to believe in primary school and in a bigger setting staff are much less likely to euphemistically explain X's unpleasant behaviour as being "confident... Outgoing... A natural leader".
The parents end up surprised when their child doesn't have a monopoly on every opportunity and can be quite vocal about it, much to the amusement of secondary staff.
It's always telling when a parent calls about X's bullying behaviour (sometimes saying this has been an issue for years in primary), that matches what we have heard from students, staff have identified that X can be unpleasant to their peers, but X's parents will insist their child couldn't be bullying / should have every opportunity over others because "their primary teacher said they're such a confident leader". 🙄

It sounds as though the village school is not used to dealing with this sort of bullying (which is what it is). They should be making more effort to manage behaviour at break and lunchtimes to ensure that children are not left out like this - eg older children acting as buddies. You may well find the larger school has much better strategies for dealing with bullying. The only other thing I would suggest is doing a covert observation of the playground at break/lunchtime if you can arrange it. Once you see how it is for your son you can make your decision.

This happened to my dd when she was 7. I told the teacher and it was sorted that day, never happened again.
How hard can it be to tell a 5 year old not to exclude other children . The teacher sounds useless.

ah the governors. read all the school policies thoroughly.

Likely you’ll first have to give teacher fair chance to sort it before taking it to the HT, who also needs reasonable time to sort it (and that can take a long time they’re busy people), during which time you’ll possibly be told your DC just needs to learn more ‘resilience’, you may be asked to keep detailed records of what DC says and when over a term or two, be asked to monitor other things that could affect their mood (eg food), if all the grumbling is happening at home brace yourself to be told its a problem at home. If they’re a good school you will find out well before you get to this point because it will be dealt with. After all that you’re into the complaints policies which need to be rigidly applied for good reason. You probably have to complain to the HT and wait for action within a timescale before involving the governors. If its an issue with policy the governors can help but individual friendship issues or clashes of DC personality they can’t do a thing about anyway.

As several friends have discovered you could spend the next couple of years following this route, meanwhile creating bad feeling from the HT and staff which simply isn’t worth it, it will reflect on how they treat your family. You need to decide if the amount of stress it could put you under is worth it. Is the school worth it? Some parents are institutionalised even fanatical about their school choices, but its still only a school.

Like I said, we moved schools and I don’t regret it for an instant so clearly didn’t have a great experience at the old one, but if its not a good fit there’s not much you can do IME.

@LolaSmiles indeed. funnily enough, that is exactly what has happened

Move him.There are a few Boy x’s at my DS school but with a 3 form entry there’s always someone to play with

Hi BubblesBuddy, I really sorry but I’ve clearly mislead you with my message. Because there are 9 girls in the class and 7 boys. Reading back of my original message I realised that I forgot to write the number of girls which was silly of me. However even though we try to encourage a mixed group of friends with boys and girls our son clearly prefers to play with boys. X

seltaeb: thank you for your message. It’s nice to have somebody else recognise this as a form of bullying because I think it is, but because it’s more subtle than hitting or calling names it appears the teachers are happy to overlook it. X

@Italiamo - I think maybe I didn't explain completely. Both children were known to my DS, but were new to each other. One child took a liking to the other, and my DS became a very confused spare wheel. A lot of the playground games were typically unkind, usually involving 2 against 1 (my child being the 1), and we had some clothing ripped, and all boys had a few bumps and scrapes. The class teacher was a bit useless really because I kept getting the same answers ("oh but he just follows them around" and "oh but they just play so roughly together" - this despite the school's play policy saying rough play would not be tolerated).

I agree with everything @notmoresheep says about timescale, and my experience is also that teachers will try and find any reason other than school to blame - including demand that I take him to the GP for supposed behavioural issues that have magically vanished since changing classes (teachers and children).

I mentioned the governors because we got to the point where the child was showing signs of being bullied as per the school's own bullying policy, and yet the teachers and the headteacher were refusing to engage with me. It was all very very stressful and time consuming, and in the middle of all of that I had a very unhappy and confused little boy. The school weren't following their own policies, but merely threatening to consult the governors resulted in a meeting with the teacher/head/SENCO being set up very quickly, and a plan was developed. One thing that did help was that my child was given some emotional literacy sessions, and as a summer born boy I think that was very helpful in helping him to form more positive friendships.

I do think on balance that in your position I would be leaning towards the new school. The sad reality is that this other child may just dominate your child's entire primary (and possibly secondary) school experience. Sometimes a bigger school just gives everyone a little more breathing space. I am dreading next year when the classes may be mixed up again and these boys may end up together once more...

notmoresheep: funnily enough we have already been told our child needs more resilience! We’ve had a few meetings with the school now and I can definitely feel a change in their attitude towards me. I always try to be reasonable and of course very polite but I think overall they just think I’m a pain! So you’re probably right, it’s just not worth it x

foxatthewindow: It sound like your little one had gone through a lot so I’m pleased that the change of class has helped with the problem.
I think you’re right when you said that BoyX could “ just dominate your child's entire primary (and possibly secondary) school experience” I really wouldn’t want that so I’m definitely leaning towards the move. X

Go for the bigger school. The social opportunities matter most when they are older so move now.

My children are in a one-form entry and I can't wait to escape from village school hell in a couple of years. Seven boys in the year sounds awful to me.

I did assume it was 7 boys and I thought the number of boys available to play with was 6. So small. I was just recounting my experiences of an all girls school.

To clarify my views on the GB. You do have to go through the teacher and Head first. The operation of the anti bullying policy is down to the head. The Governors should monitor the policy but they cannot do anything on a day to day basis and can only investigate a complaint when the various stages have been completed. So it’s very long winded. The school isn’t taking it seriously so appear to have entrenched views on how DC interact with each other. Good luck with your decision making process. It’s hard isn’t it?

How hard can it be to tell a 5 year old not to exclude other children in our experience, the school found this impossible. Still does by all
accounts.

resilience is just a buzzword, a good school uses it well and teaches it but it can be used in so many contexts that an incompetent or lazy SLT can put it to good use confusing and swerving concerned parents and ignoring bullying especially when its subtle and sly. My 5 yo DC was picked up and thrown across a room by a bigger boy at the small village school, we were told he needed to learn resilience about that, too. That could happen in any school, the size is irrelevant here but at the time I did wonder how things would go if I threw HT across a room and told her she just needed to learn resilience.

Almost all schools in our area are mixed catchments and 90 per year. It's less like a pressure cooker and kids find friends across different classes.

Our village school has 60 children. My son has 12 in his year and 25 in his class. Some years only have 5 children which is socially limiting. Individual children become very powerful as there is little 'competition'. Despite the teacher saying our son is exceptionally kind to all the children he hasn't been invited to a single birthday party this year which is sad. His sister is older and goes to a private school with smaller classes and everyone invites the whole class so she has been to 4 parties this year.
If he has done a whole term and is still not happy I would move him.

Parents are cliquey though, unfortunately. They often control the invites. It’s not about having a kind child. It is about having a popular child and that’s not the same thing.

Larger schools still have cliques but your DC tend to cut through that with their own friendships. When your DC has a birthday in July or August and still haven’t been to any parties, you know it’s time to move on!

My boy is in a school with a biggie intake. This kind of dynamic arose for him when he wanted to play with a particular clique which included boys in another class and one boy froze him out. We encouraged him to pick another group to play with which he struggled with initially then did and he eventually thrived on it. Three years later he and that original boy are seated together in the same class and are good friends. The classes have been mixed up a little each year and friendship groups have been fluid. In your child's situation, I would go for the bigger school and be done with it as you could have a few years of grief here.

Really not a fan of these tiny “idyllic” village schools. Friendship pool too shallow. My poor sister only had 2 other girls in her year one was troubled and emotionally bullied her for years my lovely sister had zero other friendship options so was totally stuck. No accident my two went to a large city primary 2 or 3 form entry. If a kid is difficult you can find other friends

Last year DS had a party at the village hall and we invited all the class. We will be doing the same this summer and then moving on...