DS1 in year 2 has not thrived socially at school as we all thought he would. He did very well in his nursery and was well liked but moved to the local small village school and a class of only 13, mostly local children with older kids at the school already.
First few terms were okay, except his teacher was a little hard to engage and not very friendly- so far as rolling her eyes when she saw him. First formal feedback came at Easter when she told us he was on track. Weeks later there was an incident with another child where he scratched them and we were called in and told he had development delays and he then was given a Not Achieving Good Level of Development for his social skills. Around that time, the two mums I had befriended dropped talking to me on the school run 🙄 . One was the TA in that class and her son at the time was close friends to my DS.
After a very painful period, with a new Head we finally got the SEN support we needed and are waiting for an assessment and we suspect Dyspraxia or HFA.
Two years on DS1 seems to be much happier and there have been no more incidents of him hurting other children but he is behind a little with reading and writing. I stay close to the school and they tell me he is doing well socially. I am too and now have a couple of friends that acknowledge me on the school run so it’s not quite as miserable as it was in Y1.
I had just started to think we could try and carve out a normalise life and build up friendships so I invited the son of the TA over the Xmas holidays and got no response to the invite at all. Not even a no. Something similar happened with a different child last year.
I’ve asked school if there is any issues socially and they have said not. He had a birthday party last year all the kids attended and his teacher said he was quite popular.
The thing is, the friendships are changing all the time and DS1 would like to have friends over. I’m not sure if the reason we are not getting very far is because of the incident in reception, the unfriendly TA, a notoriously clique village or all of those things.
I don’t want to pull him from the school, this is our home and our village. He does lots socially - beavers and swimming etc... sees our friends and their children all the time, including holidays and sleepovers.
I’m just worried the difficulty making special friends might hold him back. Does anyone have any experience of something similar and words of wisdom please ?