Last year we moved house - not far from our old house but to a more rural area. There is a small village school by our new house so we moved our son to this school. He started year 4 there in September 2023 and has now been there for 6 months. It's a lovely school, but very small and so out of the small number of kids there he's struggled to find a friend he really bonds with.
As we haven't moved very far away from our old house we still see a lot of the old friends from the old school. At Christmas my son asked me if he could move back to his old school, so I called the old school to ask but at the time there were no spaces. Then this week the old school phoned to say a space had come up - did we want it? They have given me one week to make a decision and then it will be offered to someone else on the waiting list.
I haven't told my son yet - I thought Id mention it at the weekend as he's so chatty I didn't want him going into the new school and saying anything before a decision had been made!
If we did go back to the old school it would mean a 10min dive from our new house, whereas the new school is only a short walk.
Overall I do like the new school and I appreciate the extra teaching help he's able to have with a smaller class. But I do also think that school friendships are important, especially at this age (he's 9 years) and so when my sons tells he doesn't have a friend to play with a break time and sometimes eats his lunch on his own I feel sad for him.
I feel it's a big decision and don't know what to do! What would you advice be?