My child doesn’t have any friends really - just about to start Year 5

[WhyNF]

Age 9, just about to start Y5.

They mixed the classes up and the children were asked to write down 3 names on a piece of paper of who they most wanted in their class for Y5.

It was the talk of the class whatsapp after it’d been done, trying to find out who’d chosen who. My DDs name never came up as chosen but I didn’t think anything of it.

Then the classes where announced and it appeared DD was not with anyone she’d put on her list. I politely asked the teacher the next time I saw her and she confirmed that nobody had listed DD to be in their class.

I am gutted.

I am being positive to DD about it, but I’m desperately worried. How can you get to 9 and not have friends? Or at least people who want you in their class?

She’s lovely, has no behaviour issues according to her teacher, is “smiley” and contributes to group work well. She’s been put with the same teacher for Year 5 along with 3 boys from her class (there’s 3 classes per year, but most of the children from DDs class are in one class with another teacher with maybe 9 or so in the other class). DD insists she has friends but hasn’t been invited to a single birthday party since before covid. I hosted a party for her and let her choose 9 girls and 4 boys from her class to invite, but none have invited her back (I don’t invite to get back obviously but these are children she insists are her friends). Teacher says she’s never alone at lunchtime or playtime (she does playtime duty 2x a week) which is what all previous teachers have said and it doesn't appear from talking to DD that she's spending time alone.

DD is worried about Y5. Anything I can do to reassure her? It’s dominating the holidays as all I’m hearing is “What happens if I don’t talk to anyone though?” and keeps telling me she doesn’t want to go to school now. Even ExH – DDs dad – who usually stays out of matters to do with school says it’s worrying that she’s with no-one she chose and that no-one chose her.

Is this normal? Will she be ok? She used to love school and come out saying she’d played with the people she put on her list and the 13 she chose she often mentions she’s played with or spoken to.

There's two ways to look at this.

One is that she should have been put with one of the kids on her list, even if it wasn't reciprocated.

The other is that although she seems to be fine socially, she hasn't found her particular friends, and so perhaps it is better that she is with mostly children who she hasn't been with before, in the hope that she finds some closer friends. They may even have deliberately put her in the same class as someone in the same boat, in the hope that they team up.

(My DD was only put with one of her list when she started school, and I'm glad. She was only ever on the fringe of the group of girls she played with. The friend she was with was a boy, and they drifted apart in the first term, and she found a new best friend who was very much on her wavelength.)

My DD is same age and very similar. She has about 12 in her friendship group and we have invited friends over for playdates. Only one is regular and she sleeps over as she shares a bedroom with her brothers a d enjoys the change Theres been quite a few 'oh sorry xxx doesnt do playdates' when we ask which is a bit upsetting so i have stopped asking. In fact DD has only ever been invited back once for a proper playdate and a few group gatherings in the park. Dd is an only child so it is quite sad really.

Dds school report enthused about how well liked she was in class so she must be doing something right. They have split the classes up and most of her 12 are in the other class. Fortunately DD does a dance class and afterschool club with children she was not in a class with and now will be so im hoping its all ok. They didnt ask the kids who they wanted to be with.

Im confident DD will find her tribe eventually. In the meantime im available for playdates.

OP fwiw my dd is still level 2. Her friend group are all level 5 or above.

Thanks everyone.

The classes haven't been mixed before. They're usually mixed end of Year 2 for Years 3 and 4 and end of Year 4 for Years 5 and 6, but obviously they were in Year 2 in 2020/21 so they didn't get mixed.

They also don't do cross class work for anything until Year 5, all trips are done as individual classes and on seperate days (due to being 3 classes per year) so DD literally knows no-one from the other classes. I don't even think I could tell you by face whose in her year let alone her new class.

I am trying to be positive about it. But it's hard.

Split has been done as:

5 from class A, 10 from class B, and 14 from Class C into Class 1 (29)
14 from class A, 5 from class B and 8 from class C into class 2 (27)
10 from class A, 12 from class B and 4 from class C into class 3 (26)

DD is from class C going into Class 3.

The headteacher caps numbers herself at 29 when sorting classes so that if they have people join they join class 3 first until thats at 29, then class 2 then 1 etc. Most of her class are in class 1. Class 1/A is always the biggest class at the start of each year. So unless she goes into Class 2 there's nowhere to move her to.

She's also with last years teacher which I think will be good for her.

Just because she's nobody's best friend doesn't mean she doesn't have friends.

I got chatting to one of the boys who will be in DDs class' mums today and she actually thinks it's a good thing. She has an older girl who was in the same year as alot of the older siblings of the Y4 class they were in and she says the parents are very cliquey and exclusive, they don't let anyone in and no-one outside their friendship group is invited to parties but they'll happily accept invites. She stopped inviting those children when it wasn't reciprocated, and they never asked why ever.

We've set up a playdate for last week of the summer holidays, I know it's not a girls friendship but he's a really nice lad, and at least it's someone for DD to be friendly with while she finds her feet in her new class.

That sounds great OP and interesting about the cliquey parents. This may work out very well for your DD! I hope so.

I agree it does sounds like she is sociable and liked, just not anyone's "best" friend. It also sounds like the parents of the children at her school are very overbearing and overinvested (who discusses who wrote down which child on a WhatsApp group!!) - I wonder if there is some friendship manipulation going on there?

Also, the issue with the "list 3 children" thing is that if you are in a wider friendship group of more than 4 people (where you can just list the other 3) you will struggle. I remember one year (it might have been at Year 4/5 as well) where DD's whole friendship group sat down and worked out who was writing down who so they didn't miss anyone out and had maximum chance of most of them being together. I don't think most children that age are that organised, so your daughter could easily be on no one's lists despite being friendly with lots.

IMO Year 5 is also a prime year for girls particularly to reevaluate friendships and make new ones, so I suspect you may see some changes this year anyway.

@LittleBearPad It makes sense, some of the parents in that group are very "My DC cannot play with anyone other than the children in this group". I think DDs trying to break into that group unsucessfully. Which is sad. I could never be like that with DD, as long as she's not being mean I don't care who she plays with.

We had the cliquey parents trying to dictate friendships up until around the Y5 point with DD2. Start of Y5 she found rough (she's diagnosed with autism) as the social demands and complexities ramp up around then - but she's settled down as that year's gone on.

School did end up putting in some gentle interventions to support her finding her niche socially - a few of them stayed out of assembly once or twice a week to do activities and things - which really helped. Might be worth a chat to school to see if something like that would help once the initial class shakeup settles down.

Cliquey parents dictating friendships can be a real issue.

I actually had a mum, smiling through gritted teeth, complain to me that my daughter was taking away her daughter’s best friend. This friendship had come about because the two sets of families were neighbours (this is where the cliquey parents dictating friends comes in!). This was in Year 6! Imagine being shocked that friendships can change between the ages of 2 and 11…

I then noticed some subtle displays of new friendships being put on FB (very out of character for this particular mum over the years) and I got the impression that she was way more angry about it all than her kid was 😬

I think you are preoccupied with her friendships and if you’re not careful you are going to affect her confidence.

I can confidently assure you that in year 4 friendships are not solidified. She is going into year 5 where there is plenty of opportunity for her to find her tribe. Encourage hobbies and play dates and if she’s happy then all is well. Don’t invent problems if she’s not coming to you with them.

But your post assumes that all children will easily tell their parents if they aren’t very happy. Not all will for myriad reasons. Sometimes parenting has to be a bit more activist

I'm pleased to hear you feel better about things after talking to the other mum. Arranging a meet up is is great way of helping both children feel happier about the coming school year.

I honestly wouldn't worry too much about friendships. If you daughter is always coming home happy, talking of children she's played with, and school report she's never on her own it doesn't sound as of she has any major friendship issues. She's well liked but just didn't happen to come in anyone else's 'top 3', which is ok. Three is a really small number of children to choose out of a class of nearly 30. Chances are, lots of children weren't picked at all and the same names cropped up again and again. It's unfair the school didn't put her with any from her own list (why ask of they're not going to honour at least one?) but I'm sure she'll make new friends in no time.

My biggest concern here is grown adults feeling the need to validate their own child's popularity by asking who picked who in a WhatsApp group (personally I hate the idea of WhatsApp groups for encouraging such playground antics). I imagine most of that clique have children who picked each other in their 3 as their parents have conditioned them to see those kids as their friends, rather than being based on who they play with the most in school. This is usually how these things work.

I'm not a fan of such systems. Kids end up picking the popular kids or, as I said, kids of their mum's friends, as they're the first names to come to mind (the same with party invites, it's not always who they themselves would choose if parents are in control of invites). Teachers know who works well with who and who plays with who, just let they crack on and organise the new classes themselves. I can think of several kids in my last class who would not have appeared on anyone's list if we ran such a system, despite mixing well with everyone, as they weren't ones to 'stand out' or have a 'best friend'. Doesn't mean they're not popular kids. Likewise I can guarantee the loudest child in the class would have appeared on over half the lists, but in reality they were often falling out with people and had less secure friendship. But they stood out, kids always picked them to be their partner, their mum was part of the school clique and always arranging play dates for them etc. Most of the class automatically classed this child as a friend, perhaps ahead of children they genuinely played with more. Playground politics can be weird like that.

The school have messed up here too by allowing the 3 classes to be so segregated up until the end of Year 4. 5 years is such a long time to have nothing to do with peers the same age who could potentially be friends if allowed to mix. Schools where classes do a lot of natural mixing (on the playground, for foundation subjects like PE, art, music etc, setting for more academic subjects where necessary, school trips etc) generally enjoy more seamless transitions when they mix classes as the kids all know each other well and all see themselves as part of the same group rather than a them and us situation which can occur when kids in the same year group are kept apart for everything (unfortunately couldn't be helped for a couple of years during Covid, with silly restrictions in place, but no excuse the past couple of years not to be mixing again).

@BoleynMemories13 Nothing to do with Covid, school have never mixed across year groups/set across year groups until Year 5.

It's to do with school size apparently. They should of course have been mixed up at end of Year 2 so it felt less like this but of course couldn't be, so they've had 5 years in 1 class and now will have 2 years in another.

I'm sure it'll be fine, it just suck for DD to be the only girl out of her original class in her new one. I'm sure she'll settle and be fine though.

Yes I only mentioned Covid to say I understand why schools in general couldn't freely mix on the playground/during lessons in 2020/2021due to government restrictions (rather than speaking specifically about how your child's school handled it). That was the only time I think non-mixing could be explained and was acceptable. To have kept them segregated for this long is madness.

Don't let them fob you off with it being because they're 3 form entry for why they do it this way. All schools do things differently, regardless of size. There will be 3 form entry schools out there who mix every year, and some who never mix at all. It annoys me when schools claim they do something because of this, that or the other. Basically the only reason any school does anything any way is because that's how their Headteacher wants to do it. For example, with you daughter's school they could have still mixed them for Year 2, despite the children missing a large portion of Year 1, if they'd really wanted to. Or if they'd decided to keep them together again because of Covid, they could have switched them around for Year 3 instead, if they'd wanted to. They could have switched them every year, if they'd wanted to.

I agree with this. My DD started YR during Covid and school continued to mix classes regardless. We've been stuck with a dreadful girl mum clique for 2 years after a brilliant YR. it's amazing how much a class dynamic can change things. Fingers crossed your daughter will thrive this year.

This is great advice.

Thought I'd update again after the playdate.

It went quite well tbh, and DD came out happy.

The mum is neighbours with one of the TAs who works at school and she's unofficially said that the clique was affecting friendships so they've split that group up across 2 classes and theres been a bit of a falling out between the Head of Key Stage 2 and some of the parents of that group (all off record but I can well believe it as they were kicking off on Whatsapp). She thinks DD was chosen to be on her own as such because she's everyones friend and will happily talk to anyone plus she's a bit behind in some areas so being with the same teacher will help strengthen her up for Year 6 and beyond. TA also said classes are not set as a done deal, so things might change throughout the year and they may be mixed again at the end of Year 6. Which makes sense.

She then reassured both DC that they'd be fine and Mrs Jones* was excited they were in her class again.

I feel a lot better about it and DD is much happier tonight.

Not teachers real name

Hello,
Looking for tips, advice. DD is in year 3 and finds playtimes really stressful. She says when she asks children if she can join their game they say no. She doesnt have a best friend and is an only child. I have spoken to her teacher and have also requested for ELSA so she can get some help and support. I was also hoping to equip her with some ideas for playtime, things she could do by herself - single player games etc and was hoping to get some ideas here. Any suggestions please of things she can do to occupy herself as plan B. She has come up with some ideas like collecting leaves, thinking of jokes, jumping rope etc.
Thank you

@Porticor24 start your own thread, people will just come on here replying to the old OP.

I think you would benefit from inviting children over 1:1 to spend time developing a friendship in her home environment as a playdate.

Oops sorry, didn’t realise I had done that. I will start my own thread.

It sounds like she is friendly with decent social skills, so a new class and a shake up might work well for her.

What I would say is that playdates are very important for cementing friendships. The fact of visiting each other's homes and spending time together outside school moves a friendship from casual to official. So if you want to be proactive and you know which girls will be in her class next year, ask if she would like a playdate this term, and if that goes well get together over the summer.

Oops, zombie!

Thank you :) TheYearOfSmallThings.