My daughter will be the only girl in her school year

[Ilovemysoil]

My 4 yr old daughter is starting primary school in September - we are really happy with the school but for one problem. The school year is small, only 8 in the class. My daughter will be the only girl. I'm not sure how I feel about this and my husband isn't either. Whilst she is an outgoing child and has a few boy friends at nursery, I'm more worried about as she gets older as girls and boys naturally develop different interests.

We've spoken to the headteacher and she was reassuring and gave a few options as to how to ensure she doesn't feel left out - but it is nagging at me. Even if there was only one other girl I would feel much better.

My questions is - what would others do? Would you consider another school?

I would run a mile from that tbh having had a daughter in a very heavy boy class that hasn’t worked for her. Even if it is only one class, a class of 8 will be having quite a dramatic hit on finances. Lots of schools are so broke that the impact of a few under pan hits, a class of only 8 isn’t going to be helpful to overall finances.

Could you send her to Rainbows or something, if you want her to meet more girls her own age? Tbf though, I wouldn't be bothered if our our children were in a class of just girls or just boys. It'll only be for a few years, whilst she's little...

This sounds familiar to me, same thing happened to my then 4 year year old ( ten years ago.) She too was the only one and she didn’t enjoy it, not to say that yours won’t. A small class is good but for me 8 pupils is too small, there has to be a certain amount of children to make a good mix and friendship groups. We ended up swapping schools, she didn’t want to be the only girl.

Many village schools in scotland have class sizes of this or even less. Mainly get put in a composite class so class size is bigger and more even split girls/boys.

Don’t forget - the head will be doing her best to persuade you to attend so the school doesn’t shut down. She’s not caring about your daughter’s best interests

My sister was the only girl in a class of six. They're all still friends decades later

There are some about an hour from us (one had only one child, I believe, before it eventually closed down).
I wouldn't worry about genders-the problem with young children sometimes is that they are forced to do certain things due to their gender; some parents at our primary encouraged their child to ignore or disparage children of the opposite gender, and deliberately tried to separate them-that won't happen if there's only 9.
As all my mum's friends happened to have boys when I was born, all my friends when I was little were boys, and there was never a problem. Still friends with some of them now, and I found that children who have only had friends of the same gender seem to have more problems with relationships when they get older. I probably got to experience more types of games, and learned about cars/football etc-while you might hope life is less stereotyped today, I'm not sure about that.

I wouldn’t be happy with this. I have a daughter and female friends are extremely important to her. As is having a shared female experience growing up. They spend so much of their life at school so friendships are important.

@Fitasafiddle1 Really interesting you also found female friendships challenging later on. I posted earlier on about the same thing. Really curious now whether it is a common thing, if you miss out at that young age.

@ilovesushiYour school must have money to burn with 8 in a class! I assume a teaching head. There’s a lot your dd won’t get. Sports to any reasonable level, music or anything that requires larger numbers. It sounds twee and cuddly at 4. A massive disaster at 10. These schools are not viable and should merge. Is one CofE? They don’t close any school but even working in a top set is a problem in a micro school. It could have one dc in it. I’d be very unhappy and boys don’t play with girls much from what I’ve seen. It sounds lonely.

Most small schools are federated with others so they get access to all the stuff you mention. No state primary gets sport to any decent level!

Ours did. I know quite a few where sports are taken seriously and there’s leagues with other schools. Quite a few larger schools have a teacher who is sport trained too. In my area football, netball and cross country running are all coached for competition and some athletics in the summer. Obviously parents pay for sports coaching if dc are very keen but it’s absolutely not true sport isn’t decent at some schools.

In addition loads of micro and small schools are not federated for anything. They should be to reduce costs and avoid separate but repetitive governance, but they are not. They have small school sports day but at DDs larger junior school there were numerous sports clubs and the dc played sport at lunchtime. They had orchestra at lunchtime. String quartet and brass group were practicing at lunch time. Drama for school production was rehearsing at lunchtime. Micro schools simply don’t do this with other schools in the same way. Most micro schools don’t, and cannot, offer the breadth larger schools do or even team teaching or specialisms amongst teachers.

In addition the DD here won’t have same sex friends. That’s also very limiting. The year above isn’t the same.

I ME small schools are nearly always federated and buy in PE coaching from specialist companies and usually a music specialist and they cover staff PPA and run extra curricular clubs
Every school operates differently but at my dc's one half day each week there is a carousel where one half day a week a specialist music teacher comes in and a spurts coach is supplied by an external sports education company who employs PE coaches who do pe lessons for every class and run extra curricular club at lunchtime and these 2 cover staff PPA. They go swimming at council pools for the other pe sessions. They take part in tournaments using the facilities at secondary schools.
Village schools often have the best grounds and ours has its own on site forest!
Small schools do drama and musical productions and every kid gets a speaking part. Last year we put on a shortened version of the pirates of penzance. Every kid gets a chance to be on sports teams. I had to laugh at your example of the large school string quartet. That's 4 kids out of hundreds!

As a primary teacher, I wouldn't like a class of 8. It's so hard to generate varied discussion, mix up groups, develop relationships with others in cooperative activities. Many of the skills children need are developed because they have to cope with being one of many, otherwise it's a bit like being part of a large family. I'd like the marking workload, but planning takes just as long whether you're planning for 8 or 30.

I find it quite odd that any parents think this is a good thing. Surely the priority at primary school should be leaning to mix with other children / navigate relationships/ have fun playing. The learning is secondary to that particularly the early years. All those things are compromised if there are hardly any other kids there.

Also my school was tiny and the teaching was appalling as the teachers were lazy coasters hence being attracted to such a small school - so the small class / better education doesn’t necessarily stack up!

I went to a large primary (at the time) of 400 kids and 1000 pupil high school several of my lessons I was the only girl.

Do I feel I missed out on female friends?…no I much prefer having male friends a shit load less drama.

Do I want my DS to got to a smaller school? most definitely my sons class is only for a maximum of 14 or 24 depending on which school I choose

I think you meant to reply to the Op! Similar name 😊

I’m not so sure about all you’ve written above. My kids infant school (reception - y2) has a really diverse curriculum. Weekly swimming, forest school, cooking, twice weekly music and PE lessons with external music and PE teachers, etc.

Small schools often have alternative ways of funding, ie the infant school my children go to have some government funding but also have to raise £20k per year through parent fundraising, sponsorship, private donations etc. most of this is put straight back into the school, some of it is saved for future emergencies.

ie the infant school my children go to have some government funding but also have to raise £20k per year through parent fundraising, sponsorship, private donations etc

I'm not sure a school that needs to raise £20,000 a year is a viable school! That's an insane amount of additional funding.

And are there eight children in a class?

This happened to a friend of mine. It worked out absolutely fine. She did enrol her daughter in rainbows/brownies so she could meet other girls.

and at around year 3 the class mixed with the year 4 class so there were some other girls around.

She is in a mixed secondary school now and getting on great.

@ilovesushi. Huge apologies!

@Gagamama2It’s impossible for 70 parents (or less) to raise £20,000. It’s actually obscene to ask! That’s half a NQT. Or a term time only classroom assistant. These tiny schools are not viable and get a bit of extra funding but they should federate.

no worries!

There are 11 in reception, 7 in y1, 10 in y2. The y1 and y2s are in same classroom with one teacher and one teaching asst.