She’s 9, started Year 5 today
Come out at 6pm due to After School Club.
She is the only upper KS2 (year 5 and 6) in after school club, and one of only 4 KS2s in total, the other 3 are all Year 3s. This was confirmed by ASC that she is not only the oldest by 2 years but that they don’t have any year 5 or 6s at all signed up for this year yet, I asked how many Year 5s and 6s they had last year and year before and was told "very few, usually 1 or 2 at most"
She’s been told she must be a baby because all her friends now get to walk home and sit alone with their siblings for ages (half an hour at most from what I can tell). No-one sat with her at lunch or playtime due to not wanting to be a baby to.
I can’t pull her out of ASC as I don’t finish work until 5.30pm and she’s not ready to be home alone until 6pm – she’s an only and I’m a single parent. She doesn’t see her dad in the week. Many of her classmates either have older siblings so go home with them and a parent home just after they get in or they have younger siblings being picked up anyway. It's an area where a lot of grandparents will help after school as well so DD could end up being the only Year 5/6 in ASC.
I’m not going to go in or talk to the teacher yet, DDs in a new class this year as they mixed the classes up and I know it’ll take her a couple of weeks to break into friendship groups and the school run after school clubs haven’t started yet either so she hasn’t had a chance.
I just feel so bad for her. She hated school in Years 3 and 4 as she struggled so much with it – classes where mixed end of year 2 and she did eventually find a group of friends by October Half Term of Year 3 but she struggled with the actual academics, even though school say she has no issues - then write in her report that shes below expectations in all areas and needs to quickly improve but when I mentioned it to them, they said she wasn’t that bad. She came home crying most of Year 4 saying she hated the work as it was so hard and had a bit of school refusal, she finally seemed to settle into Year 4 at June half term and we had only 6 weeks of relative calm and her being ok. Her friends are in the other 2 Year 5 classes.
I’m worrying, I know I am, but I don’t want to send her in a spiral again. I can’t cope.
Another school isn’t an option, I moved her to this one mid-Year 1 due to issues with repeated toileting accidents that school conveniently forgot to tell me about and the current school is the only other primary within a reasonable distance. Both have large catchments and spaces in all years.
Anything I should be watching out for? Or I can do to help her over come this?