DD is in year 3 (for context she’s 9, they start school here later) in an international school in the European country we live in. She’s being taught in English. Our home languages are the native language (my native language) and English (her dad’s language). She was born in the Uk and we moved here four years ago. She’s fluent in both languages.
She hasn’t really ever been very happy at school. Initially I attributed this to staring school during covid, but as the years have gone and she’s still generally not that happy I’m beginning to really worry. She’s just very up and down. Last year she often refused to go to school in the mornings (she always went in the end) and the school was being helpful, they had a lovely teacher. This year they have a very strict teacher that none of the kids like and who has been completely unhelpful to her, dismissive of any issues we raised and had damaged her self confidence. she doesn’t have many friends, very few play dates and quite lonely.
If it was up to me, I’d just move her to a local a local school so she could start learning in the local language and get more local friends. This would help her further education opportunities in this country too, and we are likely to stay here. The issue is that she herself doesn’t want t change school. She says she likes her school overall just not this years teacher, and she says she thinks she has friends and she’s happy in her class. So this is what she says. But she is rarely invited for playdates, is often grumpy and down and has low self confidence. So to me, it seems that her school environment is affecting her negatively. She didn’t have any issues in pre-school. I’m unhappy with the school’s approach to many things, it’s very cold and competitive and not collaborative to parents imo. However, I keep wondering if I’m making the wrong conclusions - if she doesn’t want to change schools (and I asked her many times, last time when a spot opened up at a good private school nearby where she’s on the waitlist, but she refused to even visit the school), then maybe she is ok there and I’m just being too worried? But surely a nine year old shouldn’t be down a lot of the time and should have friends? I also feel like maybe she just doesn’t want to move because she’s scared of change and she has no reference frame that school can be any different. But then again, if a kid is truly unhappy at school, wouldn’t they be open to change schools themselves?