The straw that broke the camel's back

[Smileyduck]

Have you ever changed your child's school because you weren't happy with it? If so, what was the straw that broke the camel's back. Have you lived to regret the decision or was it the best think you ever did for your child.

For context, i have not been happy since reception, now Y2. Low expectations, daily diet of twinkl worksheets. Not believing DC does his homework independently (I always annotate anything I have helped him with) because it's better than what he produces at school. Just don't know whether he will get a better shot at education elsewhere.

We changed DD2. From what you are saying, you have higher expectations of your school and I agree that it sounds poor. It also sounds like the school doesn’t differentiate work and doesn’t assess properly.

Have you checked the government’s stats for the school? How well is it performing? Above average, below average etc? What are the outcomes for pupils? How many higher achievers do they have and how many SEN and FSM? Is this leading to low expectations? Are the staff dynamic and capable of delivering an interesting and challenging curriculum? Is the head a good leader? Do you have confidence in the school or do you think future years will be as dull?

We moved DD2 for some of the above reasons for y4. We gave the junior school 1 year but the known problems just escalated. Poor Head, inability to keep or attract good teachers, lack of assessment, no ambition to be better, not stretching brighter children and then predictably poor Ofsted etc. We couldn’t see it improving so we went elsewhere.

If you can get into a better school for y3 do it. It’s the start of KS2 and a good time to start again. My DD didn’t get any homework so many parents did DIY teaching to fill in the gaps. We are a grammar school county and lack lustre teaching was the talk of pick up time! Plus dislike of parents and lack of communication.

They did improve when they got a new Head, eventually. We decided we couldn’t afford to wait. Also DD had been to a fantastic infant school next door so the junior was a big disappointment. We knew what a great school was!

When the head hides in their office and isn't actively involved around the school.
Poor communication, lack of discipline. Children with SEN needs not being met .

I was too nervous to move older child. When it came to the younger one, I had no hesitations .

If conversations with staff don't improve situations, its time to walk.

We moved ours. No leadership, extra curricular activities died out, nobody there seemed to care at all except the parents. Small school. Then told it would close. It didn’t yet but I wanted some stability and ambition.

Loads of people do this. Don't worry about it OP

We were unhappy with our state primary for a year and then moved. Child not stretched and bored in lessons basically. We asked several times nothing changed... A friend of ours is still there and nothing has changed..
Another school I wasn't happy with the maths provision for a year.. kept asking for more stretching work.. nothing of substance ever came.. we left as did a third of the class in the end..

@Smileyduck
Any decision made?

Yes.

Years ago.

DD was what they called a "three-year infant". By the third term she had done all the worksheets available and was bored. We spoke to the school and they patronisingly explained that school was not just about educational attainment but was also a social experience; and she had a whole three years to learn social skills. The problem with that was, we were new to the area, all the other kids had formed friendship groups, and she spent every break wandering the playground alone. The school did nothing to try to ameliorate this situation.

The killer, though, was the nits. She picked them up every other day. We'd clean her head (and ours) overnight then check her when she got back from school. The school were completely unable to handle the situation. In fact, they suggested she was picking them up at home, even thought the only time she was completely clean for any length of time was during school holidays.

We put her into a small private school, where she thrived.

We are just moving our child who is in reception. Lots of little things have all added up but it started with a new head in September who is essentially useless, and has ruined a school in such a short amount of time. In short we both have lost complete trust in the school and had to move for our child's longer term wellbeing. She starts next week and although she is very nervous we have no doubt at all it is the right move for her.

If you have doubts trust your gut and move them. It won't get any better and you will just lose more educational time at the current school.

I know where my line will be- after happiness and welfare obviously but I assume that is a given for everyone.

It'll be the planning and delivery of the learning. If they are done well and my DD is learning and enjoying school then I will be far less bothered about the marking and assessment side of things. Not criticising the individual teacher but if the school makes it hard for its teachers to deliver interesting and productive lessons, for whatever reason, then it's doing something fundamentally wrong. I teach great lessons a lot of the time, students enjoy my lessons according to surveys, and my results are generally very good. Exceptions to all of these of course. Marking is my weak point but it affects students less than poor planning and delivery because i still mark and assess what I know to be crucial, this might not always please every parent but they generally ease off when they can see that their child is still making good progress. I also don't set very much homework except when I know it's something that will be useful and needs a lot of practice, so when I do set it the students know that I expect them to make as good a go at it as they can.

We changed when DS was in year 1.

The reception teacher at his old school was amazing. Had a really good balance of challenging academically (especially in maths which is DS's thing) and encouraging the social skills that he needed.
The yr1 teacher didn't really listen to her or us but then was off for a few weeks. The deputy took over for long enough to do parents evening with us.

The deputy then said at parents evening that my child could count to 100. (He could do this since before he started). When I asked if that was as high as they went in year 1 she said yes and I felt shut down. I felt if the deputy wasn't even going to acknowledge what he could do in maths, this is what it was going to be like for the rest of the school and it was a primary.

We spoke to the new school and asked if we could speak to a teacher about some concerns we had. The teacher was great and spoke about how she challenges children in maths and our decision was made. 2 weeks later he was in the new school for the summer of year 1)

The downside was he has not created a solid friendship group yet. We are now half way through year 2 and although he has friends, it's not as strong a friendship as the ones from his old school. There is still time though.

Thank you all for your responses. I do feel quite stressed about it all and just don't know what to do for the best. I'm a teacher myself in a much tougher inner city school and the quality of education in this school is head and shoulders above. Moving him here is not an option as I only work very part time and it is too far to get him there when I am not working.

The trouble is that I think he has a specific learning difficulty - dyslexia/dysgraphia. He has been assessed by an ed psych (privately) but he's too young to diagnose yet (still 6) however he is very bright - 88th centile for verbal and non verbal reasoning and whilst his phonics is poor, his reading is good - the ed psych assessed also as 15 months ahead of chronological age. His main issue is his handwriting and spelling which is terrible (and to be fair he does get extra handwriting practise). At home, I see a very bright and capable child, particularly in maths which he just gets (I'm saying this as a primary teacher who knows what this looks like - not as a doting parent), but at school, they see a plodder because of his recording difficulties and reluctance to show off what he can do verbally. They focus on what he can't do - and even with the evidence in front of them (the ed psych report and the homework and other bits and pieces I have shown and told them) they have very low expectations of him.
So I don't know whether moving schools will change very much because he will present the same way there too - although he will hopefully get a more interesting curricuum!

A new pro-academy head teacher arrived. Vile woman, utterly vile, hateful to the staff, parents and children. Every single thing that she got wrong was blamed on the Council.

I saw online she's now a big shot executive in an academy chain, creaming off a massive salary for bullying people.

@SpinningTheSeedsOfLove

A new pro-academy head teacher arrived. Vile woman, utterly vile, hateful to the staff, parents and children. Every single thing that she got wrong was blamed on the Council.

I saw online she's now a big shot executive in an academy chain, creaming off a massive salary for bullying people.

Very usually, sadly. 🤯

Yes changed at Christmas
Combination of not being happy with school, and also not having any particularly strong friendships, often being on her own.

Was nervous about moving for those reasons rather than being forced to move.

School results were bad on paper (the stats on the ofsted website) but also just was concerned about progress and lack of responsiveness to teacher to some concerns I had.
Once you get that seed of doubt it’s really horrible.

Am so glad we changed, the curriculum is obviously not that different but the attitude of staff has been very different and the extent to which I feel involved and included and updated about what she’s doing.
Friendship wise she has been welcomed in and it was a great fresh start for her and she has some stronger friendships now than she did at the old place.

The hardest thing I found was leaving the old school as I’ve had older kids who have gone all the way through so know a lot of the staff and I think they were offended even though I tried to frame it as neutrally as I could.

Also explaining to other parents from the old school I know, the reasons for leaving without making it sound like I thought the school wasn’t great which was the truth. As I didn’t want to cause anyone else to have doubts if they were happy and it’s not always logistically possible for everyone to move.

@User0610134049
So you knew a lot of the staff but didn’t think they were any good? You don’t have to give reasons for leaving. Leaving often gathers a head of steam!

I ‘knew’ some of them as in I’ve had kids at the school for some years because there are 7 years from the eldest to the youngest.
But there has also been a lot of turnover and the staff my youngest has had weren’t ones I knew before.

I feel bad for leaving, to be honest. There are of course staff there that work very hard and I don’t know exactly what the issue is as to why things haven’t improved. When there was a bad ofsted people left then or if it was their eldest child coming into reception, decided to go elsewhere. We stuck with it because of havi older ones there, and hoped the new head would turn things around but somehow that hasn’t happened and so that coupled with the friendship issue meant I had to do what I thought was right for dd.

It wasn’t an easy decision but she has thrived at the new school.

@User0610134049
Ofsted inspections are pretty accurate in my view. They drill down into progress and most schools have poor ofsteds due to poor assessment of children, poor lesson planning and not making sure all children make good progress in all subjects. It’s not easy to put this right because it usually means some teachers are under performing and SLT have done nothing about changing how the school operates. It can be other things of course but often delivery of the curriculum is how primary schools end up with a poor ofsted. Often the teachers don’t know what’s wrong.

When we moved DD it was the right decision. I didn’t feel the school would improve quickly snd were in denial about their shortcomings.

[quote TizerorFizz]@User0610134049
Ofsted inspections are pretty accurate in my view. They drill down into progress and most schools have poor ofsteds due to poor assessment of children, poor lesson planning and not making sure all children make good progress in all subjects. It’s not easy to put this right because it usually means some teachers are under performing and SLT have done nothing about changing how the school operates. It can be other things of course but often delivery of the curriculum is how primary schools end up with a poor ofsted. Often the teachers don’t know what’s wrong.

When we moved DD it was the right decision. I didn’t feel the school would improve quickly snd were in denial about their shortcomings.[/quote]
They dont look at progress at all.
Not part of the 2019 EIF.

If takes into account data and that includes progress. Hence if looks at progress scores. Any school that fits to above average to well below average would expect that to be looked at.

Your poor son. Move him to a place where they'll have some aspirations for him.

We waited until the start of year 4, despite being unhappy for 2 years with DS's primary. I so wish we had moved him earlier.

For me the straw was going into class to watch a presentation the kids had worked on in groups.

We moved our son 2 weeks later to a tiny independent and have never looked back.

@SpinningTheSeedsOfLove

A new pro-academy head teacher arrived. Vile woman, utterly vile, hateful to the staff, parents and children. Every single thing that she got wrong was blamed on the Council.

I saw online she's now a big shot executive in an academy chain, creaming off a massive salary for bullying people.

Hmmm this is interesting. We had a new head at childrens previous school and had a bad feeling about them right from the start. She had been bragging to the parents about converting the previous school they worked at into an academy.

@robin20009
The governors of a school might well be eying up joining an academy chain. That’s why they went for someone with experience of that and a desire to see it through. It’s a normal course of action for school governors who want a change. Parents won’t get asked. It will always be sold as better than the LA. Whether it is will be open to debate.

The school was private so they wouldn't be considering academy status. Came across a career move for her to network with certain people at the school though.

Oh. Well that’s entirely different. Most private school heads (if under 40/45) look to the next career move. Some don’t but ambitious ones want the next step up. They get their name out there! See and he seen!