With school offers for September now out, families across the UK will be getting ready for a new chapter. But what happens when the school you select isn’t right? One mother shares her story.
We live in a part of Bristol that has several primary schools and are fortunate enough to live between two with “outstanding” ratings so were spoiled for choice when it came to choosing which to apply for our oldest daughter. We opted for the marginally closer one, knowing how much was in the lap of the gods when it came to potential friendships.
My view was that the social aspect, and learning to rub along in a group, mattered more than the academic stuff. But that, as it turned out, was the real challenge.
Our daughter is August-born, so young for the year. Looking back, I think being younger was a disadvantage. But I also was not prepared for how tribal the playground would be and how segregated the social groups became: sharp-elbowed middle-class parents in one camp; a strong Muslim contingent; and various other groups organised around class, ethnicity and religion, all of it unspoken.
I was quite taken aback at how quickly friendship groups formed and the efficiency with which play dates were set up among the more socially ambitious parents, some of whom seemed intent on orchestrating their children’s social lives.
So when my daughter developed what seemed like a sweet friendship with two other girls I was hugely relieved. They all got on well and, together with their parents, we organised regular after-school playdates. For the first couple of years, I felt very fortunate that she had made some nice friends and was happy.
But in Year 2, things changed quite radically. A new girl joined the class and the whole dynamic of my daughter’s friendship group shifted. It was pretty brutal. My daughter’s two friends immediately gravitated towards the new girl who was very charismatic, and whose mother was quite intent on promoting the friendship.
Unfortunately, the net result – although perhaps not the explicit intention, at least at the start – was that my daughter was left more or less out in the cold.
My daughter stopped being invited on after-school play dates with her friends and they turned down any invitations from us. The parents of the other three girls seemed to agree that it was fine to exclude my daughter. No doubt they told themselves that you can’t force kids into friendships they don’t want, but from our point of view, it was awful.
She also regularly came home saying that nobody played with her at breaktime, which is painful for any parent to hear. I talked to her teacher, who would do things like talk to the class about kindness but did nothing concrete.
With no experience to draw on, I didn’t know how seriously to take it. I could see how sad my daughter was but tried to be positive and supportive. I advised her to focus on finding other friends (easier said than done) and veered between thinking it was all part of learning how to navigate friendship and thinking we needed to remove her from the situation.
Equally, I did not want to send the message that when things get tough the answer is to run away, and taking her out of the school felt like the nuclear option; I worried about the impact on her of being the new girl and having to start again.
Looking back, I wish I had listened to my instincts and seen that a new school would be far less damaging than the effects on her self-confidence. The exclusion essentially amounted to bullying; a dynamic that got steadily worse. We brought it up with the school repeatedly but a lot of the meanness was covert; invisible to the eye of a teacher managing 30-plus primary school kids.
Instead, we pinned our hopes on a new secondary school, hoping we’d be allocated a different school to the other three girls. Unfortunately, two of them ended up at the same secondary school as my daughter and the toxic dynamic followed. By now, smartphones added a new dimension; pictures and posts of hangouts, sleepovers and parties that my daughter had not been invited to were regularly sent her way. Again, we spoke to the school. Their response was, disappointingly, there was nothing much they could do.
We stuck it out for just over a year. But by the beginning of Year 8 my daughter started begging not to go to school. One good thing about my regret at not having moved her in primary school was that it helped me take decisive action. In many ways the timing could not be worse – moving to a new school in the middle of Year 8, when friendship groups are bedded in would be a challenge for any young person; particularly one who has had a tricky time. But with the prospect of school refusal on the horizon, it was a risk worth taking.
We applied for a place at a different school about half an hour away, with no kids from the primary and got one fairly quickly. The first few months were very challenging as she navigated the choppy waters of trying to fit in, and being the new girl. There were many emotional ups and downs, but luckily the emphasis on pastoral care at the new school was so much better than the previous one and the head of year took a personal interest in helping my daughter feel secure.
Now she is in Year 10, part of a nice friendship group, and is so much happier – it’s like night and day. It was a difficult decision but there is no doubt in my mind that it was the right one.
Should you move school? Advice to help you decide
Dr Jane Gilmour is consultant clinical psychologist at Great Ormond Street Hospital and co-author of ‘The incredible teenage brain book’ and ‘How to have incredible conversations with your child’
Find out what the problem is. the key thing with friendship issues is to identify whether it is a case of not quite fitting in – or actual bullying. Understanding will change your strategy.
Focus on listening: be calm and allow them to talk. You will feel concerned, anxious and angry but it’s not about you. It’s very important that what you feel as a parent does not bleed into the situation with your child.
For younger kids, get involved: be there on a playdate so you can notice where things are going wrong, scaffold the behaviour and help them learn to develop skills. Is it a mismatch in temperament? A struggle to take turns? Do they have different interests? Structured activities that are less verbal can take the pressure off. Tennis involves turn-taking but not much chat. A bike ride is less stressful for two nine-year-olds than sitting face-to-face.
See if the issue is fixable: your first question to a school should be, “What is your bullying policy?” Suggest a so-called “whole school intervention”: research shows that a bully-prevention programme can reduce negative behaviour by 50 per cent, focusing on the “bystander effect”: there’s usually one person showing the behaviour – but everyone around enforces that. Changing the environment so being picked on or left out is not OK shifts the whole culture.
Consider other issues: if your child is struggling socially it might be that they’re not reading social cues. Social skills training can help young people learn to engage with other kids; how to learn to take turns. Unidentified learning issues can be another issue. But education issues are easier to fix than friendship.
Trust your instincts: you might be able to address the issue without changing school. And you don’t want to send a message that you flip out every time something is tough. But if a young person is not feeling safe that needs to be addressed. Sometimes a move is the best outcome.
Prioritise the wellbeing of your child: the only thing that matters is that your child is OK. Academic results matter but if your child is saying they are struggling, take it seriously.
Three ways to support your child
1. Telegraph calm: if you’ve moved mid-term you are likely to be very anxious that the move goes well. But remember you are modelling something. The message should be: it is absolutely fine; I am not worried and so you won’t be either.
2. Connect with the new school: visit with your child to look around so they know the layout. Get the names of a couple of kids and ask if there are any parent groups you can be part of.
3. If they struggle, don’t panic: Remind them of a recent challenge that took time: learning to ride a bike or to draw. Listen without shutting them down and say you’ll figure it out together.
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