Primary school choice

[Brunothesnake]

Hi,

We didn’t get our first choice (next village) primary school but got another similar choice. There are going to be 14 children and 5 of these are boys (including my DS). The boys are all very physical / boisterous boys and mine is not quiet (very chatty!) but gentle and doesn’t really enjoy that kind of play. He has been hurt more than once by one of the boys in particular. He knows and likes some of the girls going there.

He loves learning and can read a little bit but not keen on writing. Likes to be busy/ doing lots of activities etc. As a wild card because we didn’t get our first choice I looked around a private prep school (up to 11). I was really impressed with it. Loads of extra curricular stuff and seemed very focussed on individual learning. However it’s a 20 min drive away into the nearest city and not really ‘in our area’ so friendships would all be quite far away. I’m not sure what we’d do about secondary school.

I’m now wondering whether we should go for the private prep. It seems to suit his personality better and I can’t imagine him being best friends with the boys who are due to be in his class in the village school anyway. Children do change in time though. It’s obviously a lot more expensive. How do you decide on these things?

I have DDs in Year 5 and Reception, and both have been friends with both girls and boys throughout primary. If your DS is already friends with some of the girls, there's no reason why that should stop at school.

If it's a small school, I imagine break times and any after school activities would be mixed year groups, so he'd get the chance to mix with others too.

I don't know the other boy, but there's a possibility his behaviour will change as he grows up, or that the school will manage it better. I wouldn't pay for 7+ years of education to avoid a boisterous 4 year old.

@Sunnyfreezesushi

How depressing - segregated parties from y1! Does he get invited to the boys parties? Beavers is definitely something to consider when he’s a bit older. I think he’d enjoy it.

I think this really depends school by school @Brunothesnake. In DD2’s Primary, up until Year 2 we had the bloody awful virtually all class parties taking up 2 or 3 weekends a month (bloody awful in the sense they cost an absolute bomb to host and took up much of our time). DD2 had play dates throughout Primary with both sexes, mainly girls but also two boys she was friends with. She would frequently get invited to mainly boys parties as she would join in with them football sometimes. As other PPs have also said, our experiences are that there is a lot of mixing.

Finally as I think I’ve over posted on this thread, the awful 4 year old honestly might completely change. DD2 (and other children) had big problems with a girl who smacked and pinched in Reception. By Year 2 that had all stopped and they were relatively good friends. At Primary age, this years nightmare is disconcertingly quite often next years BFF.

Good luck with your decision. Like the previous PP, I wouldn’t set myself up for many years of fees and sacrifice local friendships for the sake of one little horror but best wishes in whatever you decide.

My dc all had friends who were boys and friends who were girls right through school. No segregation at their schools.

It's tricky. I have two DSs (Y3 and YR) both of whom hate rough play and football and like playing imaginative games. My experience of DS1 is that friendships were relatively fluid and mixed sex in reception, but after that it rapidly became very gender segregated. DS1 was quite unusual in having girls at his 6th birthday party.

Also, by Y1 many of the boys had discovered football and we've found not being a football fan very socially difficult. He's in a single form entry school with 19 boys in his class and only four of them (including DS1) don't play football. All the others play football every single lunch and break. There's quite a few boys that he gets on fine with if we bump into them at the park etc but they never play together at school, and play dates with them tailed off as all they wanted to do was play football/swap football cards/play FIFA and DS1 wasn't interested. He's fine, because he has his small group of friends, but I think I'd have worried in your position with such a small friendship pool.

Having said that, children change a lot at that age, especially when starting school. Given that it's likely to be much easier to start in state and move private than vice versa, you probably don't have anything to lose by starting him at the local school and seeing how it goes.

This is funny as it wouldn’t even occur to me to worry about the boy / girl split. My boy sounds very similar to yours - not boisterous, quite gentle but v chatty still - not quiet / shy. He’a in preschool now but an Oct born so one of the oldest. Almost all his friends are girls, and tbh they always have been ever since he got to an age where they could make friends. Who does he tend to be friends with at the moment? Boys or girls? Actually if he’s that way inclined I’d say it might be good to have so many girls as there are more likely to be a bigger pool or more similar kids he’ll get on with. That’s how I would’ve thought about it for my son! That said - I don’t know much about kids friendships once they get to later primary years.

@Isit2021yetplease

He usually gravitates towards girls but does get on with the less vicious boys 🤣 he’s the kind of kid who would play with anybody and isn’t phased by bad behaviour as long as if doesn’t affect him directly but recently he’s been hit twice at nursery - once by the ‘hitter’ and he’s been less keen since then. He’s definitely not in the firm
Friendships / best friends stage yet. Nursery seems a bit like lord of the flies. I have confidence in school sorting the behaviour but less confidence in the lack of personality mix. Most parents have said the mixing between sexes tends to stop by the end of infants but several on this thread have said otherwise which is a positive!

@FurryGiraffe I’m totally unprepared for raising boys! Football seems to be the key to all social interactions, it’s so limiting. 19 boys is a much better pool than a handful. I can’t decide if I’m being crazy imagining them as a group and my DS on the outside. Who knows what he will be like in a few years but I just can’t him changing into a football mad play fighter. Even one other more similar to him would make me feel more confident.

Both of mine played exclusively with girls at nursery, and DS1's best friend out of school is a girl. He still gets on very well with the girls in his class, but they're not friends in the play together or play date sense. It's such a shame. I'm really pleased to see from the responses on here that not all classes/schools end up so segregated.

Football does seem to take over for a lot of boys. It's very frustrating when you have one who isn't interested.

We had a similar school place at reception for our DD - class of 15 - 3 girls. She was absolutely fine up until year 4 - there was no real segregation - her 2 best friends were twin boys - parties etc and everything was fine. Year 4 it shifted and it was far more football, fort nite etc and she was left behind as the 1 outside the close pair of the other 2 girls. We moved her at that point but pre that she had an amazing time. I'd give it a go - prep will always be waiting if and when you need it.

@Nubbin

Thanks for your post- sounds similar but the other way round! I think I’ll see how the waiting list goes for choice one and if no luck give choice 2 a go. As you say we can always move to an independent school but I suppose once you’re in the system it’s hard to move out!

I think I’ve just put pressure on myself to get it right from the beginning whereas in reality we might have to reassess and see how things go. I’m lucky to have only positive memories of primary school and just want the same for my DS.

@Nubbin

Did you move to another state school or to private? Most of the schools round here are very small village schools.