Can a change of school make a child like school?

[WhyamIalwaysthatmother]

My daughter has been at a small rural primary school from nursery (she is now year 3). There was a high turnover of students and she only had one friend throughout. My daughter is very academically able, and was the only child working at greater depth, and so was regularly given colouring to do as she ran out of work too quickly (she used to bring it all home at the end of the day in her school bag, and I used to go and help on a Thursday with reading and would regularly see the teacher giving her colouring to do as she had finished). She spent a lot of her time there frustrated and bored.

The school had a very high proportion of students on pupil premium as it was in a very deprived area (we are one such family), and so the main focus of the school was getting children into school, not pushing the more able students.

We moved to a new city and we were not offered a school place by the LA. As a result my daughter has been at home with me for 6 weeks. She has opened up to me and said she was terribly bullied at school, and never wants to go back to school again. She is neurodivergent and takes things very hard, and is very black and white about things.

We were finally offered a place on Friday. It is in a small C of E school which is the highest achieving in our local authority. I am thrilled, but I am scared she will have the same problems. They have a very low proportion of children on pupil premium (last year they had one in the whole school) and so I am scared that we will stick out like a sore thumb. We will also be able to walk to school, which means that it will be easier to have other children over after school to foster friendships.

Can a change of school make a difference? I am terrified that she will outright refuse to go.

Slightly different but my daughter never settled at primary school and wasn’t overly happy. We just thought school wasn’t for her and plodded on. She moved to secondary in September and she’s like a different child, absolutely loves it! I wish we had considered moving her during primary as she can be happy at school, hers just wasn’t right.

Thank you so much for telling me this. My eldest really struggled at school (throughout primary and secondary) but flourished at College. She said it was because the bullying finally stopped. I am really scared of repeating history with my second as she is much more “feisty”, and is more likely to become “troublesome” as she gets older if she isn’t happy.

I CAN home educate, but work from home and am really struggling to balance having her at home and meeting deadlines already, and she has only been home for six weeks. But at the same time I feel incredibly selfish if I am making her miserable by sending her in if she could be at home.

We moved our nd child from a school where she was melting down every day and starting to develop real anxiety about going in. She was nervous at first but now loves it and is so happy in school, so it is possible to change their relationship with school.

i would start the new school and see how it goes. The fact that she has opened up to you means you can hopefully have an open and honest conversation about how it is going. Knowing you could home educate if needed is a handy backup plan if it really doesn’t work out but I do think a good school is almost always better than home education so definitely worth a shot - you shouldn’t feel guilty. No shade on home education, I just think it is difficult to meet all your child’s needs academically, socially, emotionally on your own.

Unfortunately with nd it can be a real lottery to find a good school, and often you don’t really know what kind of school it is until you’ve had a few months in - the school we had the greatest difficulty in was ofsted ‘excellent’ and highly regarded in the community. dd was recently assessed for ASD and one of the professionals involved commented that they typically see girls being referred in either reception or latter part of ks2 when social and academic pressures ramp up

@Labraradabrador thank you for such a brilliant answer. As much as I would absolutely love to be, I am not the best home educator. I’m patient and can explain things well, but the tantrums and fallouts over doing work and getting dressed are driving me bananas! She is doing social activities, but isn’t talking to the other kids while she is there, she is only interacting with me, so I’m worried that she is missing out on that too.

Absolutely I believe a change of school can make the difference sometimes

Yes it could make a massive difference. I would really talk positively about the new school with her and how good it's going to be etc.
I don't think she will stand out at all for being on pupil premium, I doubt the other kids will even notice.

Make sure she knows that you're really glad she told you about the bullying and that if anything like that ever happens again then she can tell you and you will help her resolve the issues and make sure it doesn't go on and on like it did before.

Her old school sounds awful tbh so I'm sure the next place can only be an improvement. Their priorities will be very different. It's great that she'll be able to have friends over, she may find socialising/cementing friendships much easier on a 1 to 1 basis. If you can I'd also keep in touch with her friend from her old school. Remind her what a good friend she was to that girl and how a good friendship can be a really nice thing - it's just finding the right people (I'm assuming this girl was a good friend and not siding with the bullies or anything).

Encourage her to give the new kids a chance and get to know them. If they're more academic too she might find she has more in common with them. I would also talk to the school about the issues she has/had, and have a gentle transition where she does a couple of half days or something to start with as transitions are particularly difficult when you're autistic let alone having a history of being bullied.

Stay positive and encouraging and fingers crossed she will have a much happier time at her new school.