How long do you leave your child unhappy before moving schools?

[Worriedprimarymum]

Hi all, grateful for advice please - have name-changed.

Dc in lower ks2. School has generally been fine until this year, although a few friendship issues last year.

This school year has been awful from the outset.

Two dc started to bully my dc in the first half term - excluding behaviour, nasty comments, some quite sneaky behaviour done so no-one else would notice.

Separate children also slapped my dc and pushed them off a chair.
School had several words with all these children and the worst of it has stopped with the odd low-level incident still occurring. Dc has a couple of kids that like them but no best friend and tends to be quite lonely as the other kids pair off.

My dc is also struggling in lessons. Dc has no SN. Dc has consistently exceeded or met expected levels throughout school until now, though their handwriting and spelling is terrible, which school has never really helped with.

Dc claims bad behaviour and noise in the classroom is too distracting and often does much less work than they are capable of. On two occasions now, they have left a lesson not having completed any work at all. The teacher did not check or query this at all on one occasion and dc left the classroom with no arrangements made to do the work.

School say behaviour/noise levels are normal and requested dc wears ear defenders to improve concentration, which has helped to an extent but not ideal for dc to have to wear as they stand out.

I wanted a class move for dc but school have refused, saying dc needs to build resilience. I agree to an extent but the question is how long do you leave your child in a miserable situation where they are now starting to miss out on their education? I don’t want to leave it too long to decide to move school and fail dc but I don’t want to act in haste either.

Dc cried themself to sleep over school last night and almost refused school this morning.

Dc has a younger sibling who would also need to move if we moved school - sibling currently getting on well at school.

Grateful for any advice please.

Have you got a school in mind to move him too? I’d enquire about space and go take a look around and see if you think itl be a better fit. It might help you with the decision making. It’s tough because there’s no guarantee they'll make friends elsewhere either. But making new friends and having new experiences builds resilience too.

Aww bless them!poor baby :( being miserable at school absolutely sucks especially at that age when their so young and should be enjoying life. If it was me personally I would have moved DC after the first incident and nothing was done.Don't listen to the school about building resilience aboslute bollocks. Children at that age should be in loving and nurturing school environments. Not traumatised by the thought of going to school. These are kids formative years and meant to be the happiest times of their lives, spending them miserable can lead to a whole host of issues later on. I would personally take them out asap. And I moved my DC out of school for far far less. Are you able to afford private school? I had a friend who was getting along horrible in her school her parents moved her to a small indie school and it absolutely changed 180, she loved school, was flourishing, even managed to get an art scholarship for a prestigious performing arts school.

Good experiences build resilience, not bad experiences.

If there's another school that has space, I'd move them. Can one child do breakfast/after school clubs so you they can stay at different schools?

Thank you all, those are useful responses. We have another school in mind - think I need to ask if they have any spaces, don’t I. I hadn’t thought of breakfast club etc allowing smaller dc to stay at current school, that is a good shout.

At times the use of the word resilience seems to signal that child has to deal with constant low grade bullying. Crazy since if you take this primary school attitude to the workplace, there would be an employment tribunal with HR and lawyers reviewing it all.

I think you have been incredibly patient so far. There’s more than just one thing wrong isn’t there? I’d look at other schools and enquire about spaces too. I agree about the ‘what if it was a work place’ scenario. DD1 was being bullied (luckily only by one child so not as bad as what’s happening to your DC) and I referenced this in my letter to the school.

Also have you considered dyslexia/DCD (dyspraxia)? I wonder if it would be worth looking into it given the handwriting/spelling/concentration issues and getting them evaluated if descriptions ring any bells. They are obviously bright and I wonder if there’s something aside from the bullying that is holding them back from fulfilling their potential.

Crying themselves to sleep would be enough for me to keep them off and then move them - especially as the school hasn’t been helpful. The school isn’t doing enough which is a bad sign. They should be providing more supervision at lunch time and more structured activities so that everyone can get involved and no one should feel left out.

My son missed the whole of year 5 because his school (admittedly a sen specialist school) failed him so badly. He had been happy there up to that point but they suddenly became far too unkind and pushy and weren’t helpful with a bullying situation. It was really affecting his mental health so I got him medically signed off by our Gp with anxiety whilst I sought to secure a new placement. He started somewhere new in September and he’s been so happy. If he’d stayed where he was his confidence would have been completely destroyed. We spent the year at home doing all sorts of things, no formal work though as he felt utterly traumatised by anything he perceived as school related.

I also missed a year of school for similar reasons aged 12 and went into a new school the following year and that was absolutely the best thing for me. I ended up with very good A levels etc. Missing the time was necessary and didn’t do me any harm at all.

I know this isn’t the answer but I’ll mention it anyway - if your dd doesn’t like traditional ear defenders google loop earplugs - the experience ones. My Ds wears them nearly non stop, he has autism. You can’t really see that he’s wearing them as they’re hidden inside the ear. You can buy them from amazon etc.

We and a friend both took our children out of our crappy local school and we have so much guilt over not doing it sooner. We ignored so many red flags.

In your situation I would be calling around other schools to find out what the options are. Then ask the best new school with a place for a trial taster day.

The head’s comment that your child should build resilience is very disappointing and lazy. ‘Resilience’ is a buzzword in education at the moment and is often used to avoid the adults doing a proper job. Teacher has lost the first aid kit? Tell the child to build resilience. Etc.

Ok these are really reassuring responses, thank you all, good to know I’m not being too quick off the mark. I know, I wouldn’t expect an adult to tolerate all of this in a work situation.
I will look into dyslexia as well - it’s not something I know very much about but maybe there are signs, I don’t know - eg dc is intelligent, absolutely loves stories and story time but not keen on spending much time reading themself? Will explore, anyhow.

Just move. I know loads of DC that moved schools at different ages. All are totally fine

My daughter had very similar in Year 6. Problems started in January 2022, she didn't make me aware until April 2022, I spent 4 weeks trying to sort the problems out, as soon as I realised nothing would change I took her out of school.

She was starting secondary in September 2022 so I home schooled for the final term of primary. I changed her secondary to a different one to where her primary bullies went.

She's a completely different child now, loads of new friends, confidence has grown.

I would definitely move schools.

We have recently done similar- I could have written your post. Just do it and don’t look back! PM me if you’d like any tips/strategies for inevitable wobbles…

This.
I wish my Mum had taken me out of school, as I was bullied and psychologically screwed. Messed me up. I am late 30’s now and have only just begun to realise my worth. I still have nightmares about school, I get very anxious even thinking about it and the educational side made no difference to me. I constantly ran away from school because I was so unhappy….I found my own way and wish I had never been forced to go to school. I now earn a very decent wage doing my own thing, self-taught.
Please - any parent who has a child that is miserable from attending school… DON’T make them do it! It’s so damaging! It is NOT ‘character building’. - and no. i’m not woke!