If your child moved schools, was it successful?

[whalesorwales]

Just that really. Did your child move schools and did it work out? Looking for advice about moving at year 9 stage or later

Depends on the school and what you mean by successful

I've been to 5 schools
Primary
> y7-8 all girls state, bullied
> parents put me in private all girls y9, dad was going to be made redundant and education not good teaching so moved pre gcses
> y10-11 mixed state, horrifically bullied death threats etc
> y12-13 boys grammar school (25% girls for 6th form) - good school and edufation

I mean I did well in exams/am a Dr, so spose you could call it a success, but im scarred from the bullying and don't really think any of the schools really contributed to my success I pretty much self taught everything

(my gcse school refused to teach me higher subjects as "anyone here would be happy with a D so should you')

Moving during year 10 is made harder because schools may not offer the same subjects, exam boards etc. Course content may be studied differently in each school so lots of catch up needed. Controlled exam assessments in some subjects may already have taken place.
If you are thinking of moving in Year 9, do it as soon as you can to get option choices sorted.

Yea hence I moved for start of yr10. Meant I studied romeo and Juliet 4x running lol.

Didn't really cover Islam in great depth, which was the 2nd religion my new school did in depth in my previous schools so just meant I only had 1 choice of q to answer in the RE exam not 2 (so learnt Christianity really well and still got a*)

My gcse school didn't offer languages which was annoying as I'd done French and German till y9 but no gcse languages. But as I did the IB I learnt Italian from scratch in 6th form so not a massive deal

Also meant cos i didn't do sats in y9 as private schools don't, I got put in bottom set for everything and my mum had to spend hours and hours fighting me out of it

Got given predictive gcsegrades of D-F in everything as they averaged thr years grades, which v nearly lost my 6th form place and uni but they eventually amended it and I got 9a*s, 5a and a b in geography that I self taught in 6wks when I got removed from doing PE after being beaten up in the lesson

DD moved for the start of year 10 (this school year) and so far it’s going well.

I moved at start of my 2nd year at secondary school from state mixed comp to state girls grammar, within same town. Awful bullying, really hard to move when friends established & girls can be so bitchy & nasty. I did ok in exams etc but vowed I wouldn’t move my kids schools unless absolutely necessary.

From my own personal experience I’d also say no. And with hindsight my parents agreed.

Ah, I was going to say that mine moved very successfully at the end of Year 8, but that's earlier than you are thinking. Best thing we could have done for him, though.

Both of my children moved in year 9 from a very large mixed comprehensive to single sex schools. We all hated the first school because of poor behaviour from other pupils. It has been brilliant. We got our lovely happy children back and they both have done brilliantly academically.

Use sunscreen, and SPF moisturiser

Wise words, but perhaps not relevant to this thread?! 🤣

It depends doesn’t it. If you are moving because your child is unhappy at a school or you are moving because you have been evicted and you have to move house then it is what it is.

Thanks all. DC (year9) is fine academically at a very big and very good comprehensive but only 1 friend. We chose this school because it was big and more opportunity to meet more people and more academic subjects. Unfortunately they don’t seem to make friends easily though.

The potential school is small (approx 500 students yrs7-11) but with the possibility of more friends because it’s local. Also doesn’t offer the same range of GCSEs so probably won’t get the exact options they want.
WWYD?

She is unhappy that she hasn’t got friends and if that friend isn’t in, she is so unhappy to go in (she very reluctant and has to be made to go in)

DD2 moved at Year 10 - from a big london comp to a rural boarding indie (for music). She's really happy, doing fine academically, has friends, has an academic scholarship offer for sixth form so it doesn't seem to have held her back much.

She has some holes in maths that she's still backfilling, just where they taught in a different order, and dropped from triple to combined science which also helped. So it is doable, if the child is up for it and has a good reason to go.

I should stress she was happy at the old school too (just really wanted more music) so it wasn't a decision where the other option would have been awful and we had no choice.

The new school taught a 2 year GCSE course though (the old one a 3 year) which made it far easier. That is worth checking as it is harder if everyone else is partway through the course.

Good luck with your decision!

Hmm, that’s tricky. I agree with your original thought that a bigger school = a bigger friendship pool. Equally, local is good (neither of DD’s schools are/were that local so that hasn’t changed for us).

Does the range of GCSEs work for your DD?

You’ve also left it quite late, haven’t you?

Does she know anybody at the new school? I think that might be a tricky move if she doesn’t know anybody and isn’t good at making friends. My DDs were fine as DD1 is very sociable and DD2 had a good friend at the new school.

Friendships - especially for girls - are generally a source of angst and woe for most of Y7 and Y8 and seem to start to settle down by the end of Y9.

If you are going to move, do it sooner rather than later and check that the new school starts the GCSE course in Y10 and subject choices align.

DD's school picks options in Y8 and starts GCSEs in Y9, so switching in would be very difficult in Y10.

I removed my son when he was 15 as his mental health was really suffering.. he's now in a 14-19 study programme with our county council and he's so much more happier. His school were not interested in helping him so I withdrew him.

Our experience was that although our son was much happier, his results nosedived for a bit as he got to grips with a whole new school environment. And he was being actively bullied, rather than unhappy when a friend wasn't there (to point out the obvious, the friend won't be there at all at the new school).

I would be reluctant to move without some evidence that the problem would be resolved at the new place.