DD started last September and is one of, if not the oldest. It was quite an upheaval for her as she went nursery out of her catchment area and her little 'gang' of close friends all went to another school. To add to it I then went back to work at the beginning of December which meant first breakfast club (disaster) and now she goes to school with her closest friend in her class. I get on well with her mum and help her out with school-run in the afternoons as well which works well for us, however...
DD and friend do see to have a bit of a love/hate relationship, but on the whole OK. She is friendly with others in the class and seems to have been invited to virtually every party going. She is also doing really well academically, but she still seems quite unsettled.
When we looked at the school they made a big a thing of the fact that reception was kept v. separate from the rest of the school so the little ones wouldn't have to deal with the older kids. Since starting DD has had 2 Yr 6 'buddies', they have Yr4 children helping out at lunchtime and older kids on the reception playground gates in the morning and afternoon. There have been issues with both the buddies and the Yr4 helpers, which were not major but I feel pretty unacceptable given the impression we got of the school initially.
They also seem to have a constant stream of different TA's and now two student teachers working with them as well. Hand on heart I have honestly lost count of them. She seems to come home talking about someone new once or twice a week and her teacher is often out for the day on courses.
She goes into school ok on the whole but is definitely not as happy there as she could be and I really starting to regret my choice.
Am planning to make appt to see the headteacher as tbh I feel really let down by the whole situation.
Would be interested to hear others thoughts - she's my only one so I have no experience of how other primary schools work.