Have I picked the wrong school?

[sunnyfields25]

Hi all

DS is 4.4 and has just started his third week of half days in reception, ahead of full days starting next week.

We had two options when choosing schools - the one we've gone for, which is a decent-sized infant and junior school in the town where we live. Then there was a very small primary school in a village a 10-minute drive away. We went for the local infant school thinking it would allow a nice walk to school and back, more children to make friends with and potentially play in the park with after school, more children from nursery attending. The village school is meant to be nice but we thought it might be harder to form friendships outside of school given we're not local, and would have involved car journeys rather than walking every day.

It was such a difficult decision as obviously there were no visits allowed due to covid, so it was based purely on the schools' websites. And now I'm wondering if we've made a mistake.

DS has a few issues - poo withholding leading to frequent accidents, suspected dyspraxia (awaiting paediatrician appointment to investigate this), shy around children and struggling to make friends. This morning was heartbreaking waiting in the playground for the doors to open and seeing him go over to a group of girls to try and play with them, and hearing them tell him they didn't want to play with him.

Now that I've seen the class size and got a better feel for how things work, I'm wondering whether DS would have been better supported and got the attention he needs at the smaller village school with much smaller classes and more of a family feel (according to the website).

I am seriously thinking about applying to move DS, but DH thinks I'm being ridiculous when we're only on week three and haven't even started full days yet. He is probably right but the more I dwell on it the less able I am to think straight.

Has anyone else had an experience like this, and if so, what did you do?

Ahhh OP. That would be heart breaking to hear! But please don’t take it too much to heart (hard, I know!!). As a parent of a 4 year old myself & an ex reception teacher, kids are very gender focused at this age. Girls play with girls. Boys play with boys. Obviously some exceptions but predominantly. My DD started school with a friend of mines little boy. We met up over summer & they played in our houses. At school, not remotely interested in each other..

How small is the village school? If you are talking one form entry, could be a good option. Any smaller & id say not.

One form is big enough to feel like a regular school, have decent facilities & enough money & resources to support kids with SEN. Also an OK friendship pool.

Any smaller & you run into more potential problems. Far less support for SEN because of funding & resourcing. A much smaller friendship pool. Often far less facilities. I did teacher training in a tiny school with no school hall & a tiny playground!

Smaller intake or smaller classes, most primary schools have approx 30 in each class, by putting year groups together - not having at least 25 in a class is difficult to have adequate funding, unless really rural, when they get extra funding to have smaller classes, but then they do merge more than 2 year groups together.

You need to give it time. There really is no reason to think things would be different at the other school. He will make friends and settle in.

Practically is there actually a space at the other school?

Ahhh OP it’s so hard to see your kid be left out.

I would honestly let it settle down a bit. He is so little still.

SEN kids at our village school I’m told by other moms seem to struggle for access to supports that seem readily more available at my other friends larger town based school. Also we’ve the mixed classes year 5 and 6, and last year I thought there was too much hype for getting ready for secondary school which caused my then year 5 a lot of unnecessary anxiety.. we all wish to God they were left together as one group.

I think give it time. We moved when DD was going into yr and she struggled with friendships to start with. I also hated the pre-Covid milling about in the playground waiting to go in and it always seemed the rest of her class were playing together and she was left out. She’s now in yr 4 and has lots of really good friends and is well settled into her class. It just took a while for her to find her feet and find her people.

That being said, always trust your instinct. So perhaps worth visiting the village school as that will give you a clearer idea if it’s the right fit for your DS

‘Going into yr2’ that should say!

Thanks very much for the replies, I feel a bit less panicky now

Ha that's good to know about the unwritten gender rule at this age @Bobholll, I hadn't realised! DS is used to playing with his little cousin who's a girl so couldn't understand why this group of girls wanted nothing to do with him. But now you mention it there's definitely a gender divide in the playground.

I'm not sure whether the village school is single form entry as I can't find that info on their website, but looking at recent admission figures they have an intake of approx 8 children each year. So maybe they merge the year groups to make bigger classes? That is an extremely small group, perhaps too small I suppose. DS's current class size is two form entry with 30 per class.

I think it doesn't help matters that my experience of school was an unhappy one, struggling to make friends and lacking in confidence. I so desperately want DS to be happy and not fall behind.

8 children a year intake?! As a former EYFS teacher (now KS1) I would say that’s too small. But no harm in contacting the school & asking how they manage the small group I guess.

I work in education. If you suspect your DS has SEN, I strongly recommend a larger school. They will have seen more children with various needs, have collectively more experience and your DS will get the opportunity to mix with a much wider cohort. An intake of 8 is tiny and leaves very limited options for friendship groups.

Your DS has plenty of time to find his feet. Leave it at least a term before you do anything drastic.

8 pupils a year could well be a reception- year 2 class and a yr3-6 class.

Lot smaller pool for friendships.

Give it a month. Things will be massively different

He'll be fine. Also things change after the Christmas holidays once they've had a long break and their first day back in the new year feels more familiar so they feel more confident and excited to each other.

These DC will be telling each other 10 times a day they do or don't want to do and play this with each other.

And yes a bigger School is always so much better.

Have you visited the village school? Why not go and have a look and see what you think as as far as I know everywhere is doing tours now.

I think seeing it will really help you judge whether it would be right for your DS. As others have said, round here a PAN of 8 means 2 classes across the whole of primary school with year groups put together. The school I know that means a more play based approach to years 1 and 2 than in most bigger schools which would be a big pro for me. However, while the kids definitely play across a wider age range it's still a small pool of potential friends particularly as there may well not be an even gender split.

@sunnyfields25

Thanks very much for the replies, I feel a bit less panicky now

Ha that's good to know about the unwritten gender rule at this age @Bobholll, I hadn't realised! DS is used to playing with his little cousin who's a girl so couldn't understand why this group of girls wanted nothing to do with him. But now you mention it there's definitely a gender divide in the playground.

I'm not sure whether the village school is single form entry as I can't find that info on their website, but looking at recent admission figures they have an intake of approx 8 children each year. So maybe they merge the year groups to make bigger classes? That is an extremely small group, perhaps too small I suppose. DS's current class size is two form entry with 30 per class.

I think it doesn't help matters that my experience of school was an unhappy one, struggling to make friends and lacking in confidence. I so desperately want DS to be happy and not fall behind.

Look at the village schools website It usually gives names for classes etc so you can soon see how many classes per ur group. Not using school loo is quite common....see if you can get him into a poo routine ...sounds crazy but we did this for my daughter back in the day ..so she'd go in the morning before school !! Give it a bit longer....but if you really think you want to change you need to see if other school ever has a space ..if they are that small they might not....also small isn't always better ...

I have done both, walked to the primary school and then later moved house for a secondary catchment but kept the children in the original primary but had to drive to it.

Walking makes it easier for children to chat with their friends if you all walk in the same direction. It is more difficult when you live a distance away for play dates as the parent has to trek to your house, I used to drive them back home to make it easier.

Small class sizes means less friends to choose from. My own primary was relatively small, I believe we only had 17 in a class, 6 girls and 11 boys. That meant you were limited to those girls being your friends. I agree that young children tend to play girls with girls and boys with boys mainly.

Larger schools tend to be better with SEN provision and there are more children with SEN rather than the smaller school where a child might be the only one with SEN.

You need to give it more time, he isn't even doing full days yet. Yes it is heartbreaking when you see their little faces crumple when rejected by potential playmates but he needs time to adjust, find his feet, find friends. Schools do a lot in reception to help build friendships.

I’m a governor at a small school ( mixed year group classes) and I would echo what others have said about resourcing at small schools. There are many benefits to small schools but the resources are spread so thinly I would go for a larger school.

Have a look at the smaller school and find out if they have space. In the meantime, make an appointment with your child,'s teacher even if on zoom and talk to them about your child's issues. As for regular meetings and speak to the SEN coordinator as soon as is reasonable so they get the best support if needed.

Village schools in my experience are lovely but really badly funded - our local one has a SEN teacher only one day a week which isn’t nearly enough for all the children who need support.

Thanks all for the replies. It's so interesting to read the comments about SEN provision being better in larger schools because I'd always just assumed that a smaller school equals a more nurturing environment. But actually that makes sense about a larger school having more experience and better funding. I must stress though the SEN concerns are just based on our suspicions at the moment, but hoping to get clarification after a paediatrician appointment in a couple of weeks.

Thanks for the tip on getting into a 'poo routine' We've been kind of trying to achieve that but frustratingly DS's natural 'poo window' seems to be right over lunchtime. Some days that's manageable at the moment with him doing half days, but I can't help but think we're going to have daily accidents from next week onwards when full days start. That's what used to happen on nursery days. I can't think of a way of shifting the window to a morning or evening though.

I checked on the smaller school's website and unless I've misunderstood, it looks like they have FS2 as a standalone class, but then lump together years 1-3 and 4-6. On looking that up I also noticed the headteacher, who has been there many years, is retiring soon. So that's maybe a mark against it, because the new headteacher will be an unknown.

Thanks for the advice about checking if they even have a place too, that's something we'd need to do if we start thinking seriously about moving DS. But based on the replies I've had I am now leaning towards giving it more time and seeing how DS is doing at Christmas time.