How much turnover would you expect to see in KS1?

[DreamingDaisies]

Question for those outside London - we are in a Northern town, I appreciate London can be very transient.

We have three primaries in our town - a one form entry, a 1.5 form entry with mixed classes, a two form entry. All are Ofsted Good, and all were slightly undersubscribed in his birth year due to a low birth rate so essentially we could all got where we wanted.

DS is in year 1 at the one form entry school. Of the 28 children who started Reception, five have already left. One moved to a specialist school for SEN and one moved to Australia. Fair enough.

But three more have left as well, all girls, all to go to other local schools, and I'm wondering how normal this level of turnover is? It feels quite unsettling to me, but I have no benchmarks for what "normal" is and unsure where to find the info. All the vacancies have been filled btw plus the two original vacancies so the class is back at capacity.

How much turnover have others seen and is there a "normal"?

No one has left reception in my kids school.

Your school may have those families second or third choice? Then if a place has become available at a preferred school they’ve taken it?
This isn’t really possible to answer without knowing if this happens every year or this is a one off?
If your child is happy and settled then this wouldn’t be something I’d start worrying about yet.

Why does it matter to you why others might have left? As long as your child is happy that's all that matters. You don't even know that those 3 who have moved to other local schools weren't happy. They were probably just on the waiting list for their new school, and now a place has come up.

I work in an area of very high movement. Lots of social housing so families are moving in and out of the area constantly as they are housed and re-housed. It's quite normal for at least 10 of our Reception starters to have moved on by the end of KS1. Yes it's a bit disruptive having new children turn up every few months, and others moving on. The dynamics are constantly changing. That's not necessarily a bad thing though long term. Things can get a bit stale when a class has had pretty much the same 30 children, baring the odd one or two changes, throughout the whole 7 years of primary school.

All that matters is whether your son is happy. You ask if this is 'normal' but you'll receive very different responses based on people's own personal experiences because in some places it's very normal, in others it would be very unusual. Often it's not a reflection on the school, but simply a reflection of the area it's in. It sounds quite typical of a school in London to me.

Child now y2 in one form entry midlands primary school. 4 have left from original reception starters; 2 joined. No specific trend to departures.

In my town it's fairly normal. There were 16 children started dc1's year in reception and were in the class photo. By the year 6 class photo there were still 16 of them but only 7 remained of the original 16. On the last day of secondary school they took photos of them in their primary school groups and only 4 remained of the original 16. Ds1 is now 18 and works in McDonald's, along with quite a few of his friends from secondary school.

There are 5 primary schools in our town within walking distance of each other. They change hugely in popularity, depending on Ofsted reports, new houses being built nearby, the availability of wrap around care and the proximity to a pre school. Some parents will move their child to whichever school is most popular at the time and then move them again a couple of years later. My dc have mostly been unaffected by the changes. There is only 1 secondary school in our town so they are mostly all reunited with their old friends later on anyway.

I don't think there is a normal.

Over infant school:
Dd1's year had 5 leave/start at the end of reception - all from the same class. Over year 1 and 2 another 3 left/started.
Dd2's year had about 2 leave/start over each year.
Ds had no one leave until year 2, spring term, and the child who got the waiting list place had only been on the list less than a month. But then nearly a dozen left (due to moving area, so nothing to do with the school) in the first two terms in year 3.

I honestly don’t know: DD1 attends a 2.5 form entry primary school. Every sodding year they have mixed up the classes for no reason at all. My DD has been in a different class every year. So I honestly wouldn’t have a clue as in Year 1 she was one of 5 kids who did remain with her Reception year group. There is a new head and they have pee’d many parents off (including me). Parents don’t talk at school if they are thinking of moving their children unless they are being evicted for their rented house.