Still struggling with year 7 transitions?

[Bob104]

Is anyone else’s year 7 still really unhappy with the move to secondary?
My daughter moved from a small primary to an average size (large) secondary in Spetember.
She flew at primary had lots of friends, did well academically and extra-curricular.
She loved school and was always happy to go.
Within the first month she changed. She had some issues with a couple of boys in her class and the one person she knew from primary made new friends and “left her behind” (in her eyes). The school were really supportive and helped with the boy issues, but she just doesn't feel like she has clicked with anyone.
She constantly asks to leave, move, or just to stay home.
How long do we keep pushing for? Or when do we decide maybe its not working?
Just don't know if this is character building or cruel and we should look to move her?

My child struggled for a LONG time after moving to secondary school and we agonised over whether we were being cruel by insisting she had to keep going. However we knew she didn't want to go to any school so changing school wouldn't help. Lockdown school closures had already shown us that homeschooling was NOT going to work for us.

We used every method of support offered by school, focussed on going to school daily (even if that didn't include getting to class) and prioritised outside of school sports. If school called us to collect we always picked her up. We supported and pushed for her to be able to drop a subject that caused the most distress.

We are out the other side now so in retrospect we did the right thing. We know other parents whose child left school.

Yes, She definitely wouldn't suit homeschool she hated homeschooling in lockdown and missed school and the social side of it!
We don't let her not go and she is adamant that moving school would fix it.
When at school she's very compliant, doing fine in lessons, and not having any issues with teachers. It's just the social thats the issue. She doesn't know anyone and say a she spends a lot of breaks alone.

Has she tried going to extra curricular activities to help her find like minded people?

She did well socially st primary, so that suggests she has the social skills to make and maintain friends. It sounds like either she has just been unlucky or she has found it harder to navigate in a bigger pond. What happens in year 8? Do they mix them up for classes or will things mainly stay the same? Are there any clubs she could join? If she had 1 friend, that might be enough to tip the balance for her.

I would have a quiet look into other local schools. Do any have space? Would you need to go on a waiting list? Then look at the pros and cons. There's clearly a risk that the same thing will happen again and she will be at a new school without friends, plus possibly having a longer commute etc (whatever your reasons were for preferring the current school originally). However it could work out well. You might feel it is worth going on a waiting list and seeing what happens.

This is the point in year 7 where friendships start to change and primary bonds break and new groups start to form. DD went to year 7 with three of her primary, her main friendship group now contains no friends from primary and changed a bit - a couple have drifted and one has been added. (Now year 8.) There’s been a few fallings out and as an ex-secondary teacher, I know this continues into year 9 when it tends to calm down.

I would talk to her form tutor or head of year before deciding to move her. Sometimes a sympathetic seating plan could help, or could they buddy her up with someone. DD will talk to anyone in class, but would disappear off to meet friends at break, if she realised that the person she sat next to didn’t have anyone, then she’d be saying come and join us.

The library is often a great place to hang out, that’s where DD met two of her now closest friends. Librarians are lovely and seem to have a magic hand at involving students who feel lonely.

Yes Ionacat great advice.
My view was that friendships will change and it was a great opportunity to make new like minded friends - sets are done.
As I said the school are supportive, I have contactrd class teacher and she and year head have been amazing. They did rearrange the seating plans at Christmas, and they have also been monitoring her - they noticed how unhappy she was.
With all this done she's still claiming nothing is improving.
My eldest is at the same school and doing well in year 10 - but they are v different people.
She wants to move to a school with a larger group of primary friends.
The other school has spaces (is private).
The existing school is v good state. There isn't much difference in terms of results.

What a nightmare. Sometimes moving is a magic wand and sometimes it isn’t. Problem is that primary school friends change and there’s no guarantee that she’d fit into those friendship groups as there’ll be new dynamics at play as their friendship groups will have expanded.

Also, it’s hard to know whether there’s any element of I want to move schools so I’m not going to make the effort. (I’ve seen that because I’ve buddied up people before and the buddy comes to you, saying we’re really trying and we’ve done this and that but X just disappears or refuses to join in.)

I would arrange a face to face meeting with her head of year and tutor and ask these questions and say she wants to move. Is it that her tribe aren’t there or she’s been unlucky with a cliquey classes? It would be unusual for friendship groups to be stable at this age. would moving classes or form groups help? They’ll know the dynamics of the year. If everyone including your DD has tried everything and she’s still miserable then it’s probably worth moving.

I'd seriously ask for a new form group & look at the extra curricular she could do. It's a huge financial outlay to move to private for no guarantee her mates would still fit her in. Does she see all these other friends all the time outside if school? Does she talk to them a lot? Is that holding her back from getting involved at new school?

I was going to say what the previous poster wrote. Ask for her to move to a different form group. Hopefully teachers will have an idea which she might suit best by now and can advise.

I third the suggestion for a new form group. It’ll provide enough of a shift to allow Ned bonds to form.

if you can arrange it imminently, you may find things settle. If they don’t, the private will always take her next year.

What changes are there on the horizon? For example, the DC's school streams for maths from Oct HT in Yr7 but, other than for sport, they spend all of their time in the class with the same 30 kids. In Yr8, they have the same core class but are streamed for more subjects and the way they do art & things is mixed up too so they get to meet more people. Going into Yr9, DC1 met more people again.

I would really focus on finding a non school activity that she enjoys. It takes the pressure of finding friends at school.

As someone who moved schools a lot I would caution that it is really hard being the new girl. Even if she knows more kids at a different school there is no guarantee she would end up in their friendship group if she moved.

She is a competitive gymnast and has great friends at gym. She also plays a team sport out of school and gets on well with those girls.
Outside of school she's happy. But being unhappy at school is affecting everything.

That's great that she has gymnastics and a team to be part of.

I don't know what the answer to school is. We really struggled for a few years but now she is clear we did the right thing by making her go.

Whenever I read these type of posts and speak to parents at others school I am sooo grateful that our school has forms but for 2/3 of timetable is not in forms, They band them or set them or just mix up. They meet so many kids & find their tribe. Less politics

Our daughter is also very unhappy at current private secondary because of friendships. She is desperate to go to another much smaller secondary because 2 of her primary friends are there and it had close ties with her primary so she knows lots of teachers etc.

We wanted the larger secondary to hopefully build more friendships but it hasn’t worked at all so far.

I’m wary of a move to somewhere much smaller however another friend with a Y7 daughter is at an even bigger secondary than DD’s current one and she’s also struggling with friendships - so it seems to be that even with a large year group it doesn’t always mean they find their tribe.

I feel your pain! I also wish my daughter had outside school hobbies like yours does….

I have come across this a lot, in the vast majority of cases, it works out fine. Don't consider moving schools, this school seems to have been very supportive and proactive.
At break and lunchtime, is there somewhere she can go, any type of group or club?
Do the PE staff know any other keen gymnasts she can talk to?

We had exactly this situation. Lasted til mid y8 when we realised school couldn't do anymore (too full to move classes) .. our DS just needed a smaller environment too..we moved (albeit to a private) & after a bumpy start - which due to it being private was fantastically well supported- he is now thriving. It's also single sex. Never thought we'd go that route but it's taken out all the drama that comes with boys/girlsetc.. I'd hold out & say to your daughter you're looking into options so she feels you're listening/ acting on her behalf - but also do your research as another says, are there spaces in the other sch/ tests required etc. good luck.

My friends daughter was like this and now in Year 8 (I know it's a long time to wait) they have streamed and she's made a lots of like minded friends. I'm unsure why they don't stream sooner. She was reluctant to do clubs and spent a lot of time in the library.

I agree that streaming does help find similar friends. Wierd but true. One of my DC had loads of their Yr6 class in her form and they all split those friendships quite early. Friends they see both in/out of school arent old ones.,
Second DC has made loads new mates in school but out of school mainly sees old mates who went different high..
DC1 no contact at all with old mates who went different high
DC2 out of school time, is 3 best mates all went different privates and he sees them a lot.
Non of those private kids have madd new mates as yet

My daughter was the same and around Easter of yr 7 she moved forms to one where she had friends. So much better almost immediately!

She's now yr 9 and has fallen out with one of those friends so there are still issues 🙄 but that's 14 yr old girls I think. I'm hoping they all mix up again in gcse lessons and she makes new friends then!

It's so hard when your child is miserable at school. I must say the staff have been fabulous and endlessly patient with her.

Depends how much the school are willing to help in my mind.

DD1 started this year, historically has had huge difficulties with transitions and is awaiting an ASD assessment. School have been absolutely fantastic with her - although undiagnosed, they support her via their SEN key workers as if she is - and we had one period of very low-key (scissors along arm) self-harm which school have responded to by setting up a circle of friends/offload to trusted staff type session fortnightly to try to ease her over the hump and it seems to be working (although she's more impressed she gets to dodge a lesson and drink hot chocolate).

She also had slightly struggled with the fact that her primary school go all over the place and don't just progress to one single secondary - only three of them moved up together and I think she found that hard (to be fair, with 15 in the year group they don't really move up as a massive group to anywhere!).

People always say "don't move schools" but if you were really miserable at work, would you not want to look for another job? I don't see the benefit in forcing your child to go somewhere she's really unhappy when she is asking you to let her move schools. My daughter moved in Year 8 and is super happy at her new school with loads of friends. I would look into moving her.

Absolutely,
My question was how long do you try for?
When you start a new job it can be bumpy and you can't always just give up. It's a good school and I feel they have been supportive.
Also there's no guarantee moving will be the magic answer. So I was hoping for experiences.
I'm glad your daughter’s move was successful. 😃
I think my daughter has her heart set back in an independent school, and I wasn't sirebshe was really making the effort to get along where she is.
But I don't want her to be miserable for 5 years.

We gave it a full school year only because it was a private school and we had already paid the fees in advance. I really liked the original school and wanted my daughter to stay. I tried everything to convince her, but she was adamant she wanted to move and would have moved sooner had I not made her wait the year.