This is a long story -- one I've shared in two other posts here. Short: we moved to the UK (Essex) in late August; dd did not get any of our top-choice schools; she is in a local state school where behaviour is not very good; all of it is a huge adjustment for her, coming from a different country, a tiny school, being multilingual, very bright, etc; I appealed to our top choice school and lost; she is on waiting list for that school.
So...she has not made one friend. She is very lonesome and very homesick (last country was not our home but she considers it to be so). The kids at school taunt her for not hiking up her skirt (one girl actually said, "I'm loving the length of your skirt!" then giggling with her group of friends), for not having any friends (they come to her and ask her why she's alone, she replies that she hasn't any friends yet, they say awwwww and walk off). She says yesterday a boy purposefully poured water on her feet, saying Oops! in a very sarcastic tone. I try to help her but she's 12 and sensitive and just wants a friend! There was a girl downstairs from us who was talking to her but now she's not anymore. There was a boy who said she's pretty and was always happy to see her who is now not speaking to her anymore, either.
All this would probably be fine if she was academically challenged because she loves school and that would make up for a lot. She says she feels the school is actually opposite to what it says its specialisation is. She is extremely keen on those subjects but she feels her teachers actually hate those subjects. They seem to have put her in a low set in English despite the fact that I reassured them several times that she is in the top 3 percentile (they think she is an English-learner despite the fact that I am American). She chose to read Emma in class because that was the only book on the entire list that she hadn't already read. She says English class is so disruptive that she can't concentrate to read and nothing gets done.
She doesn't really understand the whole system very well and nobody has taken the time to explain things like sets and how the grading works, etc.
The school has very few interesting clubs. Her form tutor (he's wonderful) keeps urging her to join but there are no science-related clubs, no robotics, no rocketry, no animation, no website building, etc. She would play basketball but it's netball and she has no clue about that sport. There is no school newspaper. I'm just mentioning ones she was involved in the tiny school she was at before.
There is no space in any other school around here. I'm almost certainly going to take her out and home educate by the end of the week. I do have her academic review to attend this afternoon, so I'm hoping to sort some things out.
What would you do? How can I help her? How can I find a better school for her? I'm confused, stressed and quite lonesome myself, actually, since I haven't made any friends yet either. I suppose I'm also just looking for some sympathy here.