Moving school at beginning of Y10

[christinarossetti19]

First day back today, another child's bullying of my dd has continued from Y9.

Dd very upset and, based on experiences last year, sadly don't have faith in the school to actually do something about it.

Having spent the summer counselling dd to give Y10 a go, it looks like moving schools is going to be the only option.

Dd wants to move to feel safer, but there's a GCSE that she's doing that she can only do at her current school and she has friends there.

Has anyone else moved their child successfully in Y10? I feel very angry and upset she's the one who has to face the disruption, but she's agreeable that if the school aren't going to take action, we will have to.

I moved my DD in y10 as she was very unhappy at her school, was obviously very worried about a move academically but we couldn't find a solution with the school. I looked at the other schools and what did what subject and compared syllabuses, DD was taking 11 which gave us more flexibility as she only needs 9 and I found one with all her options and very similar syllabus. One had been taught in reverse order and one was at a lower level (GCSE rather than level 3) and few topics taught in different order in science. English was very similar and same texts pretty much.

So I contacted school and explained what we needed and asked if it was viable and said she was in top sets and the school came back saying she could do all her subjects and be in their top sets. So we went for it and she is much happier, made friends in the three weeks before the end of year 10 from the move.

I don't know what effect it will have academically - she has also increased to 12 as she signed herself up to 2 extra GCSEs. So far she has only done one of their exams and got a 9+ and one assessment and she got 11/12. She did catch up the subject in reverse order over the summer and so now there's the new subject to catch up and a few bits and pieces but new subject can potentially be dropped.

But the main thing is she is gone from being depressed and stuck in her room, to meeting friends most days, exercising daily and enjoying school. New school have been great. I would investigate it.

Move her now.

If you have no trust in the school then yes I'd move her

Thanks all, it's looking like that.

I've emailed the school asking for an urgent email meeting re safeguarding, but I don't have much faith. This other girl sounds so out of control. I do think schools should do what they can not to exclude children, and bullying having been dealt with would have been acceptable, but this isn't.

We'd spoken about moving schools before summer, but what was keeping her was having friends and this particular GCSE she wanted to do.

I did enquire and find out that there were places at her brother's school around the corner.

She says that she's in different classes to all of her friends this year, which I've asked about in my email. She's always been a 'top set' sort of child and I know that she underperformed in some end of year tests as she was off school frightened of this child during the revision classes and generally wasn't in a good space mentally.

I'm concerned that this has affected her academic performance too.

I've completed and sent off the in year transfer form to the council. Could be a couple of weeks.

I feel so upset for her that she's the one who's going to have to cope with disruption, not being able to do at least one GCSE (I imagine that she'll have to fit in where she can in a new school), and being parted from her friends but there we are.

Move her.
My dd moved at the beginning of year 10 due to bullying. The school she moved to had started GCSE courses in year 9 so she had quite a bit of work to catch up. Luckily the school she moved to were fantastic and put a lot of measures in place to catch up. She left this year with 10 GCSEs at grade 8 and 9.

Thanks loobyloy44.

Spoke with dd this morning. She's said that she wants to stay at her school and would be okay if this other girl was moved tutor groups. This was spoken about in the summer term, but hasn't happened.

I agree that this would lead to more of the day when dd wasn't feeling persecuted. I'll see what the school come back with. I need to know that they're taking this seriously and dealing with it via their own policies rather than sticking their heads in the sand.

I was very, very depressed at secondary school (to the extent that I just stopped going). Very different reasons, as due to stuff at home, and this is really distressing for me on so many levels.

Just received phone call from new Head of Year.

I had suggested in my email that another member of staff who knew the children involved and the history might be best placed to deal with this matter, (the previous HOY left in the summer) but he was keen to 'speak with the girls and find out what was going on and go from there' and that this was a 'courtesy' call.

I said that it wasn't necessary to 'find out what was going on' as the school already knows and it's not appropriate to deal with this as though it's a new situation.

I asked why this still wasn't being dealt with by the school's own bullying policies. Also, that I'm concerned about the effect that both the bullying and the adults who should be in charge doing nothing is having on dd's mental health and academic performance.

He said that he's going to speak to some people in Student Services and get back to me later on today to feedback and arrange a time for me to come in on Friday.

I mentioned the proposed move of tutor groups and he was very keen to talk about my daughter moving. I said that wouldn't be appropriate as dd has done nothing wrong - the original discussion had been about this other girl moving tutor groups although there would still be breaks and lunch time to consider.

I'm so upset about this. If the school can't follow its own policies and actually address the situation, dd will have to move despite not wanting to. The impact on her will be so much greater than if the bullying had been dealt with and she had felt supported.

Oh Gosh OP I do feel for you and your daughter
My DD had a similar problem and the HOY was all about “getting to the bottom” of things and getting DD and the bully together to “resolve things”
Eventually I insisted The Head was involved and The Bully was expelled
I hope you get this sorted, DD never really recovered and we both lost a lot of trust in the school

Thanks Hoppinggreen. That's my concern about moving schools - the bullying and in particular the fact that it wasn't properly addressed by the school will have a much deeper impact on dd's life than if it had happened, been dealt with appropriately and she'd been supported through it.

I tried to escalate it up via my email, but it's still at the HoY stage.

I am concerned about the impact on her academically as well, in terms of what this is doing and will do for her self-esteem.

Dd home now, miserable but not wanting to move schools.

She has been moved down sets in English/Maths/Science based on end of Y9 marks when she was off school too frightened to attend due to this bullying and missed the revision classes, and wasn't in a good space mentally.

She's with the 'kids who mess about'. I'm so upset about this. She's a smart, well-behaved, quiet child who based on her 10 years in the school system should fly through her GCSEs.

Still waiting for HoY to call.

HoY called, having looked into things a bit more.

It does sound like he's got a bit more of a handle on it. He's going to speak with dd tomorrow and get an idea of what's been happening over the last couple of days. There's going to be some tutor groups movement which he asked me not to be explicit about with dd, but it should be helpful to her.

In regard to sets, he's emailed the departments for their views. Setting was decided on marks in maths/science/English and dd's were considerably worse in the summer than previously. I said that it seemed very unfair that she was being penalised for not being able to focus and concentrate while this bullying was going on. She went from a 6+ in the autumn term to 3+ in in the summer term for English for example.

Her 'flight path' is an issue. She didn't receive her SATs results as her whole year group was annulled. I did inform the school of this (she was the only one from her school who went to this school), and the primary provided them with data that showed that she was 'above expectation's across the board but they set her targets as the lowest.

I thought that this had been sorted out, but it appears not. She's not 'targetted' to do well, so they've set her accordingly.

I can't believe that SATs results that she didn't even receive are still affecting the school's expectations of her three years down the line.

Well some of that is promising at least.
It is a shame about the SATS affecting things even now but perhaps her capability will be obvious pretty quickly and she will get moved up

Her capability is what has got her into the top sets up to now.

All summer she was saying that she'd get moved down because of her lower marks in the summer assessments, and I was reassuring her that they wouldn't do that on the basis of one set of marks when they knew what was going on.

Being in a set with children who mess about does matter in Y10, especially if the reason for that is a combination of SATs results that she didn't get and being bullied, neither of which are her fault.

It's what it's doing to her self-esteem that is upsetting me the most.

I moved schools at the end of Y9, owing to my Dad getting a new job. I was delighted as, like your daughter, I hadn't been enjoying my Y7-9 secondary. Fortunately I was able to do all the same (then O-level) options and was much happier.

Thanks BlueChampagne that's encouraging.

Dd's mental health is really suffering and I just want her to feel safe and well at school and be supported to do her best in her GCSEs.

Move her now. These processes take time and Y10 will start covering content quickly and soon.

Could you go private (just for Y10 and Y11)? They might be more used to helping pupils like her flourish and won’t care about her SATs.

I've completed the forms for in-year transfer and have emailed the prospective school about going to visit.

Her brother goes there and is happy and well.

This all kicked off just before the end of summer term, when it was too late to move, so I've been taking a 'let's see how Y10 goes' line over the summer, as I didn't want her spending all that time worrying about a new school.

Her mental health slowly improved over the summer and I'm so pissed off to see her self-esteem back in the gutter.

@LizzieBananas

Move her now. These processes take time and Y10 will start covering content quickly and soon.

Could you go private (just for Y10 and Y11)? They might be more used to helping pupils like her flourish and won’t care about her SATs.

This. We moved my eldest to a small private school in year 10 and they were fantastic with her. Worth every penny.

We can't afford private tbh and even if we could, we're in London where decent private schools are already over-subscribed.

I have always thought that academics were the one thing I wouldn't have to worry about during her teen years.

I'm very concerned at how persecuted she feels. I can see why - she's the only one in her year group whose data is fucked up, she was the one chosen by the bully and now she's in a different set to all of her friends.

They're all interconnected and the school is the only body who can influence any of them.

If the school aren't going to sort this out quickly, I would move her and I'd also submit a complaint to her current school. There should be a complaints policy on their website.

Thanks BlueChampagne. Tbh, I currently have no faith in the processes at her school and need to focus my energies on helping dd rather than sending complaints into the ether.

Yes, I've completed the in-year transfer forms to move to another school who have places and have asked them if we can go and visit. If there are no tangible actions at her current school before the confirmation of moving schools comes, then she will definitely be moving.

I am so angry and upset that it's her who is suffering because the school can't follow its own bloody policies.

She's the easiest child - bright, well-behaved, hard working and all she wants to do is be happy at school, be with her friends, work hard and do well at her GCSEs.

It is honestly beyond me why the school is making this so difficult.

The school are making it difficult because it's hard work and will ultimately affect their local status if it gets out. If they sit on it long enough, DD will leave and they can get someone just as well behaved and capable in (and I don't doubt that she is) but with less paperwork attached. Probably within the hour

We moved DD to an online school at the beginning of Y10 for exactly the same reason - uncontrolled bullying, dropping sets due to marks, school unable / unwilling to get to grips with it. My actual tipping point was finding they'd given one of her bullies the Embodiment Of School Values award at the end of Y9, for charity work.

DD flew in a different environment and now has 10 GCSEs and has just started y12 in her Sixth Form of choice. The one subject only her previous school could offer was fixed by paying the teacher to tutor privately.

Hope your DD recovers and you have some support too.

Possibly, who knows. I can't see that it's that hard for the school to move her to the appropriate sets (thus addressing the self-esteem/social isolation issues) leaving just the bullying to be dealt with, which feels more in hand with a new HoY, but it clearly is.

Dd has spoken about home schooling, which I don't really think is an option as she really needs to get out there in the world in some shape or form after lockdown. She's stopped all of her out of school activities - mainly lock down related - and i can't set her spend her teenage years sitting in her bedroom on MSTeams.

I hope that she can recover too. I'm desperately worried.

I'm sorry @christinarossetti19, it is really hard for parents too. How is she today? How does she feel about tomorrow and the start of a new week?

IWillWashTheGreenWillow dd very chirpy yesterday as it felt like the bullying was finally being properly taken seriously and she was convinced that they'd move her to the appropriate sets when they reviewed the situation.

Received a gaslighty email from HoY this morning. No, they're not going to review her setting - she's been put in a class with 'children who mess about and don't try' (her words) and who were being taught how to add and subtract fractions last week. She was working with sin/cos and tan before the summer break.

No response to my request that the school shares her GCSE targets with me (or her).

I can't have her spending her GCSE years being taught stuff that she knew before she left primary school. I don't care what set she's in as long as she has access to teaching that will enable her to learn something.

She is very, very upset that she's going to have to move schools. She has done nothing wrong, and is fully aware of how poorly the school have and are managing this situation. She can't talk to her friends about the bullying (too embarrassing) or potentially moving (she's worried they'll be angry with her) so is further isolated.

This transfer can't come through quickly enough. It's heart-breaking to see her being treated so carelessly by a school that she has been in for 3 years.