Moving Year 7 child after late offer

[ItsAToughie]

DS is currently in Year 7 at a school that was last place on our application. (Didn't really want it, but it was a place filler, choices are limited) Supposed to be an 'up and coming' school, but data isn't good.
This morning I received an offer of a place for him at a school we put 4th (first 2 were grammar, he scored well, but cut off was very high last year)
DS is happy-ish there, has some friends from primary, but best friend is in a different class and rarely sees them.
The difference in the schools data is quite stark:
School A - current school
School B - alternative school

Grade 5+ in English & Maths
School A - 22%
School B - 47.6%

Progress 8
School A - Well below average
School B - Average

Persistent absence
School A - 49%
School B - 23%

Other data that is relevant but didn't want to flood with figures.

I'm raising it with DS when he gets home but seeing these figures I feel like I'd be failing him if I didn't push him to move.

What would you do?

Dreading DS's return incase he's dead against it straight away!

Some other things to look at

• GCSE options
• data for high achievers (presuming this is your DS category since you mentioned Grammar schools)
• relevant extra curricular

Better to move in y7 than leave it till later. It sounds like it's worth the move on paper. How's your sense of the current school been beyond DS's feelings? Are they communicative/responsive? Have you been impressed or underwhelmed by it so far?

I think I'd probably move him if he wanted to move. Y7s move quite a lot (I work in secondary schools).

Socially it can be disruptive, but more so the older he gets, so I'd be more inclined to move him while he's still Y7 rather than wait and do it later

Not particularly impressed. Yet to have a parents evening.
There doesn't seem to be anything in place at the moment for high achievement although I appreciate it's still year 7

I've just lightly broached it with DS and it didn't go well. He immediately shut the suggestion down and got upset.
I'm worried I'll risk our relationship if I force the move, but equally, it's clearly a school with better outcomes!

If he's against it, that's a lot harder. I don't think I'd move him unless he wanted to go

I know, i felt awful seeing him so upset at the thought of it, but I'm so worried I'll regret not pushing it. He's a bright boy, just missed grammar, but that data is really very poor isn't it?

Give him time to absorb it. Its a big move for him.

Remind him that it's your job as mum not just to help him to be happy but to prepare him for his whole life. And perhaps show him those stats sometime. They do give a powerful message

I realise I sound like a snob but the central London comp most kids from our state catholic school go to has 67% grade 5 and above in English and Maths and I don't think it's good enough. I would absolutely beyond the shadow of a doubt move my DD and her preference wouldn't even come into question. If he's a bright kid he'll thank you later. At this age who they hang out with and the expectations the school has of them are so much more important than what we do at home so going to the best possible school is super important. But appreciate that's just my point of view based on how I was raised as well.

School A sounds awful - whereabouts are you?

I feel for you. I anticipate I'll be in a similar situation shortly: DS is in year 7 at our 3rd choice and is top of the waiting list at the first choice. The data for his current school isn't as bad as your DSs, but still below average on Grade 5s and Progress 8. Like you, I'm not particularly impressed with the current school: communication is poor, everything feels very lacklustre.

But I know that DS is happy and settled and I suspect he won't want to move, even though he has friends at the other school, and would undoubtedly appreciate some of the opportunities it would bring (much better sports facilities, bigger pupil population so wider range of GCSE options etc).

Can you ask if he can spend a day at the other school to see what it's like? Perhaps that might give him a better sense of it - it a hard one if he doesn't want it, but it does feel like it would be better to do it sooner - my DD's school which was oversubscribed, often had children coming in later as places opened etc, and the y'all seemed to settle in quite quickly.

The main question to ask (did you see the school before he started? Did they cover this there?) is why the results are below average and what they are doing to improve the Progress 8. If you're in a grammar area, the answer might simply be that they have lost most of their high achieving children - in which case you need to understand how they support these children. What do they have in place to improve things?

if DS really doesn't want to go, I'd be asking a lot more questions before decide for him. Just looking at stats doesn't give you the whole picture.

You say that his current school was 'just a space filler', but was that just your opinion of it, or your DS's as well? If the latter, go back over with him why the both of you decided that the school now offered was a better option. If the former (and especially if he was actually quite keen on the current school when you looked round them all), you might have more of a struggle to convince him, however.

Not just, 'because a bunch of pupils who left your school before you'd even started didn’t do as well in their GCSEs as they possibly should have'.

What were the results like for pre-Covid cohorts?

I wouldn't move my dc at that age unless they were on board in your circumstances. If he's happy, has friends and wants to learn then he'll most likely be fine.

I would absolutely move , it’s a no-brainer.
I would maybe even take the opportunity to just double check there hadn’t been any movement in the top 2 choices, just in case..!

@ItsAToughie on the government stats site https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/ you can scroll down to the place where it says "results by pupil characteristics" where the score can be broken down to help get a better feel about whether your particular child is going to thrive there - most important for me was "by prior attainment" but there are other relevant categories too. In our case there were two schools that both had pretty good overall scores but for one the great overall score was mostly built on doing really well at getting low-previous-attainment kids to do ok, but the high-previous-attainment kids had a much lower score, and in the other school it was totally the opposite way around.

I would move, unless you think it's likely you will get a place at one of your top three choices anytime soon.

Re school communication.
I'd not focus too much on this.
We get very little from ours as the onus is completely on the DC to sort themselves out.
Don't expect it to be anything like primary.
They do reply to emails but no one would email unless a definite issue.
Generally contact is negligible and that's normal as far as I know