Considering moving to a different school, wwyd?

[PandaCup]

Hi, I'd really appreciate some thoughts and advise on this please?

Ds is 6 and in year 2 at a local primary school, class consists of around 15 boys and 6 girls in total. DS went to a pre school at a different school which he loved and he made some close friendships there, however each of those friends went off to different primary schools (all lived in different areas of the near by town).

Ds initially struggled to settle in reception, he actively tried to bolt out of the gates one morning at drop off. Things did massively improve though and he seemed quite happy to go to school after a while and to be getting on with the other children, however things have digressed again.

Ds is quite gentle and mature for his age, all the other boys are rough and tumble and want to play football all the time. Ds prefers to play with the girls but they have started to get annoyed with him 'keep following them around'. His teacher said he's a pleasure to teach and has no concerns academically, however she picked up that he appears anxious, although tries to mask it, and she confirmed that he hasn't really connected with anyone in his class. Ds today described that he feels like he is 'the odd one out'.

He's desperate to have a friend to have a connection with but it's just not happening at his current school.

Would you consider moving to another school?
Options would be a very small school near by where they describe it as like a family where everyone is included, or, a much larger school also close by where there may be more chance of him finding someone with similar interests and personality.

DH is concerned that if we move him the same situation might just happen again. My heart is breaking for Ds.

Wwyd?

I agree, it might well happen again. Does he do any activities out of school where he might find friends, like Cubs/Taekwondo etc?

I wouldn’t consider the smaller school, it may not be any better there, but the larger school may well give him a chance of finding some kindred spirits.

Have you asked school If there are any signs of SEN, just to get that dismissed?

I think I would try the larger school if your DS is in agreement. Yes it might happen again, but he's not very happy now,.so better to try. I would talk to the new school first so they can try to buddy him up with someone at the beginning.

Can you have a look around the other schools? Can he have a trial day?

Schools / teachers tend to feel that they should be able to meet the needs of every child and sometimes the suggestion that you might take your child elsewhere can be taken a little personally so it might be wise to be mindful of that before asking for days off for trial days.

Maybe if you have a look around and see if there is an 'all boys play football' vibe at the other schools. It is tricky.. but in my experience, a well.considered move often works out very well..

Thanks for the replies :-)

He has swimming lessons and gets on well with the other children in his class but they're all quite a bit older than him. He does ju jitsu and there's a boy he's friendly with there (this boy actually goes to the larger school) but he's also a year older than DS and he doesn't go to ju jitsu every week.

I've wondered about ASD because he displays some traits which have had me wondering about it in the past, but they're not always consistent, eg. he can be quite literal. He asked his teacher if she had any jobs he could do and she joked that she'd bring him her washing up, the next day he asked her quite seriously if she'd brought her washing up for him lol!

We were at the park a few weeks ago though and he met a group of older lads that he immediately clicked with and played with for ages :-/

If you move him anywhere, go to the bigger school.
Much more chance of him finding similar kids.