Families are leaving our primary school. What can we do?

[Gruffalowings]

Does anybody have any experience of significant numbers of families leaving a primary school? And is there anything we remaining parents can do about it?

It seems that 10% of our year group left at the end of this term (to neighbouring schools), and I think there are others to follow.

It is two-form entry. Gets very good results - the best in the area. Is long-established in the community.

I am feeling a bit shocked about the movement. Is there anything those of us remaining can do to support the school community?

This is a bit strange. Everyone has the right to move to wherever they see fit. I don’t think there has to be loyalty to stick with your original decision. Children grow up and different environments suit different children.

I'm a bit like you wrt "sticking to our choices" (and also avoiding upheaval for the kids) but as you say people won't be making these decisions lightly. So at a guess I would say people are either positioning themselves for secondary or there is a certain cohort/demographic/profile not as well served by the school as you feel your kids are. Or just bad luck - we had one this year go "home" (Germany), one twin family relocate out of London, and one religious family with kids across four different years leave. In all cases nothing to do with the school afaik, and yet that's seven kids out.

The problem is that gossip can be a good thing.
In my son’s year there were two “very bright boys” who were awful bullies. Most of the parents knew because of gossip but the teachers expressed surprise when they found out a year later.
Similarily I have known the “good girls” in a year group subtly bullying other children.

Whatever is causing families to leave is almost certainly something the school needs to deal with. Not something more coffee mornings can help.

And in my DCs primary your children would have probably been in the group we called “the chosen” who had a very different experience from the rest. (My DCs were not chosen, and I sometimes think I should have moved them.)

I agree that one family or even child within a family can have a totally different experience of a 'good' school. I think this is especially true at primary level where often the whole experience is dictated by one teacher. Glad it worked out in the end for your son. In primary if a staff member doesn't like your child for whatever reason it's dreadful for the child.

I'm always careful of people over praising a school based on their own experience. I have more than one child (all pretty good moderate achievers without significant challenges) and year to year experiences have been quite different and some at secondary have had several absent teachers or teaching in significant years taught by non specialists. If you get lucky with staff and classes you don't see these things.

If you don’t ask then you won’t know, it’s not gossiping to talk factually about a situation that is happening. You are speculating on here because you won’t directly find out. I think sticking something out because of misplaced loyalty is more damaging than a few critical WhatsApps on the group chat tbh.

I don’t understand some of your views or anger about others’ decisions.

Nor your suggestion that you know what others in the school community are doing (e.g. ‘we’ are welcoming, don’t focus on negative things).

12 out of 60 children have left my 7 years old school over 3 years. That's high right?

There will be loads of conversations between parents about why people are leaving and what they are not happy about. They won’t be having those conversations with you because you want to shut down ‘gossip’ and seem rather judgemental about it. It doesn’t mean they aren’t happening.

Maybe. Maybe not.

What are the demographics of the area? Is there a major employer, e.g. a large hospital, where (particularly medical staff) spend time on rotation, then may move out of the area again?

Did lots of pupils in the year group only get that school as their lowest CAF preference/ were placed there by the LA because all their preferences were oversubscribed that year, and your school was the one with places available? Especially if the school is further / more difficult to get there than their higher preferences, they may have remained on waiting lists and places elsewhere have become available over time, so theyve moved their DC.

Has there been a major change of organisation (e.g. new head teacher / school joining a new MAT with a different ethos)?.

Have people just moved away, for new jobs, to provide support for elderly relatives etc?

Some moved house. New head and alot of staff leaving. Also a violence issue going on. Not great but my son is happy and other schools in the area are full

If this is London, this is totally normal. People move house pretty often if they are in private rented - it’s not common to stay in the same place for 7 years.

DS is in year 4 and I would say only 20 of the original 30 kids are still there - but there are 6 new ones (and the role has gone down a bit).

Nobody has left for private school (it isn’t that kind of catchment!), it is all just relocation.

You say it’s London so I assume it’s pretty multicultural? I’m up north but we had a similar situation in a local primary where over the course of reception all the white kids left. At the start of the year there were maybe 10 white English kids across the 2 classes with the rest being mostly Indian nationals with parents who didn’t speak English at all so it made play dates, parties etc really challenging to arrange. There was a very real sense of exclusion with the white English kids being left out.

The school was also so focused on attainment for ethnic minority cohorts that it overlooked that the white English cohort was the poorest attaining in the entire school.

When this happened in my son’s primary school, it was because we had had a lot of very disruptive physically aggressive children (we are talking the type of kids who have previously been expelled from 2-3 schools for behaviour issues) suddenly join the school and be put in one class. The teacher and TA were clearly overwhelmed and struggling to cope with their behaviour.

And not only did it mean that the other kids in the class weren’t learning as much as before while the teacher and TA were spending a lot of time on managing behaviour, there was a lot of physical bullying towards the rest of the kids happening all of a sudden from these troubled children. While the children the same age who happened to be in the other class were doing fine.

A lot of my son’s friends left as a result, and some of them even moved away from the area as a result. There was a lot of playground chat about “are you going to keep your child on here or move?”. I was very on the fence about whether to stay or leave, and ultimately I stayed, but I was very worried about whether I was doing the right thing, as my son was being shoved around by these kids regularly at break time. And as more of his friends left, the more worried I was for him. Actually I will say that the school responded well and somehow dealt with it when those of us staying reported the bullying issue as a serious concern. And it did all settle down, my son even ended up being friendly with some of the former bullies. But it was too little too late for some.

I agree, if you really want to know what’s going on then ask the families that are leaving to be honest with you about why they’re going. Not as a parent but as a teacher. That’s not gossip at all! More like an “exit interview” in a workplace.

“Somewhat naively, I think that we should make our choices, stick with them and stick together through adversity.“

Well, no. We selected our original primary school because, at the time it was a good school with a strong head, low staff turnover and a good community. Roll forward 5 years and it had all changed. My older Dc was miserable and the school weren’t changing anything. We didn’t cut and run at the first hint of trouble, we worked with the school and provided lots of opportunity to change. But when it didn’t why should my child continue to suffer “adversity” due to some misplaced loyalty to the group? My priority is my children, not keeping you comfortable.

My priority is my children, not keeping you comfortable

Why did you write this @AubergineParm? It seems a bit personal.

we worked with the school and provided lots of opportunity to change. But when it didn’t why should my child continue to suffer “adversity” due to some misplaced loyalty to the group? My priority is my children, not keeping you comfortable.

For most people, OP, the idea of sticking to choices through your child's adversity is not usually a good idea.

There will always be principles that are worth sticking to, and for which your own and your children's comfort are a sacrifice worth paying. School choice is not usually one of those.

The design of a school is built around continuity, however.

No school setting is optimised by rolling admissions. School populations aren’t intended to be this dynamic. And reduction of roll means a reduction in budget, which is detrimental to everybody.

Educating a child is not a zero-sum game. We are all in it together.

And that doesn’t mean putting your child in danger or perpetuating a miserable situation. No one is stopping anyone leaving, are they? They can’t.

But this thread has space for the reality that taking a child out of a school to go to a neighbouring school impacts those who remain. And that parents might have some role to play in supporting or rebuilding their school community.

Educating a child is not a zero-sum game. We are all in it together.

And that doesn’t mean putting your child in danger or perpetuating a miserable situation. No one is stopping anyone leaving, are they?

No. But you are the one who said: I think that we should make our choices, stick with them and stick together through adversity.

Others are saying that in the matter of school choices, their child's welfare comes first.

I think that is the reality for most parents (where there is a genuine choice, and I know there often isn't). They may briefly consider those who remain, but id their child will clearly benefit from moving that's what will happen.

@bluegreygreen I actually said this:

I should admit that I feel angry and let down about it. I also know that I am totally wrong to feel this way and that nobody makes this decision lightly. It is a horrible thing to move a child from their school, so no one is doing that casually.
Somewhat naively, I think that we should make our choices, stick with them and stick together through adversity.

Quite balanced, really, isn’t it? And obviously couched in a personal opinion that I acknowledge is flawed and emotive.

If you take words out of context then it becomes quite hard to engage in meaningful conversation and it hijacks a thread that is about what those who stay can do to stabilise the situation.

There are loads of ‘should I stay or should I go?’ threads on Mumsnet. This isn’t one of them.

@Gruffalowings No - schools are not just there for their community. Schools are meant to listen and respond to local communities but if you read the Governors Guidance, published by the Government, the role of a school is not really designed around a community. It’s designed around education, accountability, leadership and compliance. Being at the heart of a community is very difficult and not required because it’s too diverse and a wooly aspiration .

You will also find CofE aided schools and other religious schools define their community very differently. They choose pupils from their community and locals are excluded. Of course schools have a responsibility to parents to listen and respond to them, but some schools pay little attention to this. Others have very effective parent engagement.

School populations can be very dynamic. Look at military area schools. Lots of roll changes. I do agree it’s not ideal but you cannot stop people leaving. They are not “in it” with you or the school. Even in very stable schools, parents aren’t all in it together. You wait until you get the dire teacher followed by the one that’s sick half the year and you get poor supply teachers in. You might think very differently. Are you all in it together if a violent child rocks up and dc have to evacuate the classroom? I bet you will be wanting more from the school and you won’t appreciate being in it together. You will want the violent child out of it pretty quickly. Or you go!

Yes, departures mean less money but it’s up to the school governors and head to evaluate why parents are going and see if their worries can be acted up. It’s about listening to the parent community and sometimes they say things schools don’t like and sometimes schools don’t see what’s wrong. Do not ever think parents have unquestioning loyalty to a school. They simply don’t when the grass is greener or something goes wrong.

You should become a governor if you want to be more involved but being a cheerleader is a bit questionable when you don’t know why people leave. Maybe they don’t fit in? Maybe they have discovered your community isn’t what they want?

How is that personal but expressing anger and disappointment at people who made the same decision I did is not?

My comment wasn’t aimed at you personally ally merely a reflection that the welfare of my children and their education is more important to me at the end of the day than fearing the disapproval of parents of kids who keep their kids there. Or, the consequences of the school having less money because I took my kids out.

London primary schools need to appreciate they largely aren’t in the massive position of being massively over subscribed any more. Parents have more options to move with their feet when things aren’t good enough.

If you genuinely want to help the school succeed I suggest looking at whether any options to become a governor.

It actually takes more courage to make changes then stay in the current situation. I fully respect those who acknowledge things are not working and that their kids deserve a better set up, then move them. Children often have little agency. An adult unhappy in their job would certainly look for a better job.

Bullying not dealt with.

That's appalling

I think people normally only move to neighbouring schools if they are unhappy with something in the current school, rather than something better in the new school. Unless that better thing is so overwhelming valuable - like for example a greater chance to get into a favoured secondary school, but you seem to think it is not the case.

My guess would be bullying - either real or perceived - or some parents being uncomfortable with their DCs mixing with certain other kids.