Deferred entry to indie school after accepting place

[turquoise50]

Well, I think I'm finally beaten!

After four months of agony, I confess that DS has worn me down with his begging to be allowed to go to the local comp with his (mostly awful) friends instead of to the private school which we wanted him to go to, but which would have required a move away. To be fair, he's mostly given up begging, but the emotional trauma has just been too much and I've decided I can't do it to him.

However we're seeing this as an opportunity to exercise a bit of leverage: 'We'll let you go to X High School IF you agree to do x, y, z - and if there's ANY trouble or your work isn't up to scratch, you'll be out of there and into the school of our choosing so fast you won't know what's happening' kind of thing.

With this in mind, we'd like to keep the private school offer open, not least because we suspect that if we applied again now - or after 'trouble' at the other high school - he might not get in again because of his behaviour (frankly the offer came as a shock the first time lol)! We're in England now but the private school is in Scotland where year 7 is actually the final year of primary, so effectively he wouldn't have been going to high school PROPER until next year anyway.

Can I write and ask them to defer his entry until year 8 (S1 in Scotland)? I have no knowledge of private schools and no idea whether this is a thing people do. DH says they'll agree because they just want our money but I think they might say no and that we have to reapply.

And what would happen if they DO agree, and we defer, but then things turn out better than expected at our local comp and we decide to forget about the private school altogether, this time next year? Will they be so pissed off with us for messing them around TWICE that they charge us a penalty of a term's fees or something, even if we give them enough notice?

I think you'll have to ask the school for the definitive answer, but my view is that they will say "no".

They won't keep a place open for him, as they will want money now, so will offer it to someone else.

I presume there is a whole other entry process that children are expected to go through for entry in S1? Even if he's passed the entry process now, I think they will expect him to go through it again next year, to make sure they are picking the best candidates from all those apply. I doubt they will want to make a precedent that passing the entry process lower down the school guarantees you entry into S1. Possibly they would consider this if there was a genuine compelling need that your DC couldn't take up the place now (they had to have long term medical treatment, for example) but just "changing your mind" isn't a very good option.

All that aside, I'd be very careful with your "threats". I don't think sending him to a school that he doesn't want to go to is a particularly good consequence for not working hard. If for no other reason than because you have no guarantees he'll do any better there! And, if he's anything like my DS, if we moved him away from a school he liked because he wasn't working hard enough, he would pretty much decide to do nothing at the new school on principle. It sounds very much like your DS is of the same ilk! Pick a school and own your decision.

What the previous poster said.

Can't believe you're rewarding a stroppy 10 year old for his shit behaviour tbh. Send him to the private school. Make it clear that if they turf him out because of his behaviour he won't be going to shit comprehensive with his friends.

It's not really a case of rewarding him for shit behaviour. I was admittedly flippant in the way I phrased it above, but truthfully we're genuinely concerned for his mental health because he's SO upset about the idea of moving away. If the private school was local I'd absolutely insist, but the prospect of moving hundreds of miles away from his friends and everything he knows is too much for him. And before you ask, there are complex financial reasons why a local private school isn't viable for us, or at least not right now, plus we've missed the deadlines for this year anyway.

We thought that DS would gradually come to terms with it, even if he wasn't wild about the idea, but it's been months and there's no sign of that happening. Any bad behaviour can be traced back to that because he's fine until someone brings up the subject of moving. He's not doing it to manipulate us, because as far as he knows it's a done deal, he's just genuinely devastated. Isn't there a school of thought that says you should never move with kids, even for a better school, and that the emotional trauma they go through outweighs any educational advantage? Well that's where I think we're at. In any case the local school isn't a bad school, it's more about the friends he'd be with.

With regard to the S1 entry issue, I don't think so, because it's all one school and all they do in the Scottish school in year 7 is do an internal exam to test where the kids are at. Essentially it's the same as Sats which he'll already have done. Other than that, progression to the senior school is automatic unless they've done something terrible obviously. As regards the deferred entry, there are genuine reasons with DH's health which we could say make us want to delay our move (not entirely untrue).

Again, I was trying to express it humorously, but I didn't exactly mean that we'd force him to go to a school he didn't want if he misbehaved. In fact he does like the private school, he just doesn't like where it is. His problem is a tendency to fall in with badly behaved kids and go along with them - and I think that would happen anywhere tbh - but when surrounded by well-behaved, hardworking kids, by his own admission he becomes a 'spoff' [swot] too.

However his last parent's evening was very encouraging and it seems like he's finally figuring out how to be friends with people without letting their bad behaviour drag him down. We were hoping that we could build on this and let him see that we have faith in him by letting him be happy!

A friend whose three kids are now grown up says she sent her eldest to private school, second was SEN but by the time it came to the third she'd realised that the private school was no better and just let her DC3 go to the school she wanted. I think he'll be happier and that's what's important. I just hoped we could keep the private offer as backup until this time next year in case I'm wrong, and was looking for anyone who'd ever done anything similar to see if that was possible.

I think you’re making the right decision. I certainly wouldn’t proceed with a move which would make my child desperately unhappy. People will say oh they’d be fine after 5 mins but what if they’re not? You will need a back up plan though. Good luck

Are you talking about moving as a family or sending him to board?

He will make new friends once at high school. My son went to a private school for two years and it was the worst decision we could have made for him. He is so much happier now he is at a local state school.