Moving secondary school after 8wks??

[welshie10]

Advice needed deparately. My D is deeply unhappy at secondary yr 7 and i am on the cusp of moving her and making enquiries at other schools-has anyone out there moved schools so quickly and what was the outcome??

I have a friend who did it a week into the first half term after her child was violently beaten up by children from his form (outside school hours). Her Dc is now happilly settled in a different local state secondary school, |She never looked back.

Make sure you know exactly what mkes her so unhappy and make your decision from whether situation can be improved or not.

thanks -mostly everthing is making her unhappy-school is a half hr coach ride away,most friends went to a different school-the list goes on -my biggest concern is moving from one school to another and things do not improve. D has a great personality but is almost on shut down just now-current school and I are working on it but no improvement so far-how long is long enough??

MMh, that is a tough one as in my friwnds case, anything was going to be better IYSWIM. In your case if your dd is very reserved , she mu=ight be just as reserved in an other school. I am sorry, I realise I am not helping much.

please dont worry any advice is better than me sitting her worrying about her and the situation believe me!

We moved our son out of his first secondary school after exactly 8 weeks as it was apparent it simply wasn't going to work at any price and the school agreed (without boring you with the details for them it was the easy option.) Could only find one school that had a place in his year group and it was a disaster, 2 years on we have finally found another school where he is settled, happy and had made great friends. My advice would be think very carefully about the options check where actually has places available (in my experience most schools don't) and where you can move them to don't leave yourself in a position where the alternative is actually worse then the original.

thanks for the advice freedom3-glad yr son is in a happy place now!;)

i think that you need to get on and do some research. will local education authority give you a list of schools with places or can you ring any likely looking schools and ask? where did all her friends go?

it depends on the child, i moved my dd to a private school specialising in dyslexia for year 7/ it was a disaster and she was utterly miserable. hard though it was for me to admit my mistake, i took her out and sent her back to her old school who, thank god, had 1 spare place because somebody had moved.

show her you are taking it seriously, share your findigs with her- there at places at x and y, we will go look. she can make the comparions with you and decide what to do. you might find that whilst you are doing this, you will find that she clicks with her current school

thanks -this is good advice. Have asked at another more local school about places already incidentally-but we are in grammar school territory and local grammars are full yr 7 8 and 9-so i need to find another indep. school.

Still need to take care all my son's schools have been independent

I moved my son from his state school after 2 terms of year 7.

Basically, he was being bullied and was also getting very bored and frustrated.

Before moving him we repeatedly spoke to the school about the problems he was having, but despite assurances of changes and monitoring the situation, found no real improvement, also he was becoming very unhappy.

We looked round a local private school, he sat a test within 3 weeks and we moved him within 6 weeks. We have kept him in the private sector as have had help with fees - I never thought we would send him to private school and I still have some issues with it tbh - but he is happy now and doing well.

Before doing anything this early, I would at least speak to the school -they may have some suggestions.

I moved my ds1 after only 4 weeks of being in Year 7.

His new school is fantastic and he loves it.

Act on your instincts, I'm so glad that I did. ds is thriving in his new school.

Welshie, I'm in a similar position. After 8 weeks in year 7 my DS tells me he hates school, the teachers can't control the lessons, and he's not learning anything. I'm not sure if it's a secondary comp thing (my education v similar) which will get better as they stream classes? I dug a bit deeper, and it's not all the classes, just some. Lessons like music and art particularly unengaging for his class of 12-year old boys. Maths and english classes actually good. I'm seeing his form teacher tomorrow and will raise the issues and see how the school reacts before trying to move him. All the local schools over-subscribed and with waiting lists so moving him wouldn't be very easy to do.

i feel i am at my wits end today. She came home fairly positive last night, but this morning i had a phone call from her saying she felt sick and could i pick her up. I said I shld wait for the nurse to phone me and now have heard nothing!
On top of this the school have told me to not look at another school as it will make her feel more unsettled and less likely to be able to settle there.
the new school prospectus arrived this morning -do i throw it away and tell D there are no places and get on with it -or go and take a look????Help!

Welshie, do keep on speaking to the school about it. It might be they can move her to a different class? I'm going to give it six months and see if things settle down. It's so stressful when you know they aren't happy.

And I don't think there's any harm in finding out what options you've got if things don't improve. Maybe don't involve DD yet, as it might make her give up on where she is.

Best of luck

Your poor DD

Has she explained what is wrong about the school? Is it too big / not academic enough / too academic / behaviour poor, etc? Then you could think about another school which will meet her needs better?

Is it an independent school and if so has she moved from a state primary? Maybe that would have an effect?

Are you sure it's something about the school and not something within her that she needs help with and would need whatever school she went to?