Moving secondary schools- when is the "best" time?

[preciouslillywhite]

My son is currently in year 7 at an inner London comp.It was one of those schools which people wouldn't touch with a bargepole a while ago, but I have nothing but praise for this school..although my son hit an awkward bump half way through the year (problems settling in, doing homework etc) the teachers handled the matter very gently. Now he's very settled and happy at the school-he's learning well and what's more, they're getting him to do things he would never've done before at his primary..drama and the like.

BUT

We have two other younger children, our house is tiny, the school is an hour away by public transport, we can't afford a bigger place in inner London yik yak yik yak. So we need to move out, most likely to Essex...

The rest of us are quite happy to do this but my son is very unhappy about it.I think he'll be much easier to move after a couple of years, when he's (hopefully) more mature and confident..but of course after year 8 we've got GCSEs looming so I'm assuming that will be a bad time to do it.

Does anyone else have experiences of this they can share?

Thanks very much!

I would not move him in year 10 or 11 obviously. I am looking at having to move mine who starts year 9 in September. If we have to move back to UK, then I will move him back to a UK school from Easter next year, so he has had a term to shake down. I would obviously prefer two terms, but needs must. That way, year 10 isn't a combination of trying to settle in a new school, new teachers, new friends and GCSEs all at the same time.

Moving them in year 7 or 8 is fine. Year 9 can be hard to move in as options have to be considered.

We're moving back to the UK this year, when my son will be starting year 8. We were due to be abroad until start of yr 9, but we took the option to come back early because we think/hope! he'll settle easier in yr 8, when the other kids are still relatively new to secondary school.

We moved dd at the end of yr 9. We moved from Outer London to nr Bath as my dh semi-retired. Dd had been very unhappy at school but she settled in to yr10 at her new school with no problems and made more friends in the first few weeks than she made in the three years at her previous school.

Thanks for all these...probably means we don't have to rush it, which helps!

Course am aware that it could mean the longer he stays at his current school, the harder it'll be for him to move.

Who knows?Whatever we do could be the Wrong Thing!

You move schools as soon as you can. The sooner he is at his new school, the better. Definitely by Year 9.

Thanks for all...

We've been doing a lot of heartsearching all this week and decided to stick it out here in London by moving into the next (slightly cheaper)borough...not only because of my son, but my daughters...where we were planning to go has VERY popular single sex grammars and some not so popular non selective schools-my son would stand a fair chance of getting into one of the grammars,I reckon, but at this stage I don't know about my dds.We're not too convinced about single sex/selective schools either

Thanks everybody- you've helped us reach a happy(ish) compromise!!