Transferring Schools

[iloveglee]

I recently put a question on here about bullying, this question is different but related to that. the school my grand-daughter is at are unable/unwilling to sort out psychological bullying that is going on. she is adamant she wants to go to a different school. this process is underway, there is a school they like that has a place. have any of you out there experienced the practicalities of this situation - age 15, a term and half into GCSE work. we all understand the implications of moving at this stage, but the fact is her school work is being very adversely affected anyway. two of her options are not what she really wanted, what she really wanted to do was not available at her current school, but are at the new one. how do schools help with a change of option, or catching up on work already done in other subjects, but maybe in a different order from another school. i feel there has to be stuff in place, after all people do move house and have to change schools for their children. and service kids have to move around all the time. it is the most worrying thing, although the kid herself feels that no matter how it is at the new school, it cannot possibly be worse than what she is going through at the moment. it is affecting her mental health, and i can forsee before long she will be refusing to go at all. psychological bullying is so covert, and insidious it is very hard to get a grip of, but she has explained it all to me, and having worked for most of my life in a predominantly female environment, i know exactly what she means. the school's attitude generally is 'well that's what teenage girls are like'. i very much doubt if boys were fighting, which is what boys are like, they would be so complacent about it.

[murraymints]

oh dear..that bad ?? home schooling an option ?

[iloveglee]

unfortunately murraymint, it really is that bad. she is having panic attacks, she's spending most of the time in class anxious about what's going to happen next, so is simply not concentrating properly. this girls perpetrating the bullying, used to be my grandaughter's best friend, which has made the whole thing so much more hurtful. my daughter has been in touch with the girl's mother, but from what we can see, the parents are fairly disengaged with her, and leave her to her own devices a lot. at 15 years old this is a recipe for disaster as far as i am concerned. my children and their partners are, and always have been very involved and engaged in the lives of their kids. i feel this girl's behaviour demonstrates a distinct lack of self esteem, and maybe she envies ours their close family ties and has decided my grandaughter is to be her victim. however, knowing what the roots of this probably are, doesnt help at all to resolve it. their friendship is well and truly over, no going back, but that would be ok if she had not decided to pull all the other girls in the friendship group, and girls from other groups along with her, leaving my grandaughter very isolated. sadly home schooling is not an option. there are a couple of subjects i think i could probably teach her, but maths and science are way beyond my understanding. her parents have to work and neither of them would be able to home school at that level. private education is absolutely a no no. even if we could afford it, we violently disagree with it on principle

[woofgang]

So she is moving to a school where she will get the options she wants and is moving away from the bullies....isn’t that GOOD news?
Setting aside the affordability, I am slightly surprised that you would consider putting principle above your granddaughter’s happiness even theoretically.

[elliemay1]

Surely the best thing to do is to make an apptmt with the head of the new school and put all these qns to him/her.

[MallyJ]

I am surprised that you are asking how your granddaughter will be supported on this forum....I was a head of upper school for quite a few years and each new member of the year group would be supported in different ways according to their needs (generally related to the reasons for such a move during GCSE years) I suspect other schools would have strategies in place to support the child. I would be making an appointment with the person in charge of the year group that she will be entering and ask how she will be supported in that school. If she does not achieve the grades she needs at the end of Y ear 11 she can retake in those subjects in the autumn (I failed all but 3 of my o levels and retook at the local college whilst embarking on Alevel courses and left at 18 with 10 o levels and 3 a levels...

[iloveglee]

if people refused to opt out of the state education system, the private sector would die and, we would have a much better and democratic state school system. its being able to buy your way to education that has led us to the dire state of state education. how is it right that money should be able to buy your child an education when the vast majority of parents have no chance ever to get this for their child, perpetuating the class system over and over. Rant over. as far as the practicalities of this are concerned, my daughter has been in touch with the school on numerous occasions to be met with 'we cant make these girls be friends, this is what they are like'. she actually thought that by going to them with a view to moving her, it might prompt them to get their act together. wrong. they filled the form in and sent it off to the local authority. if i had been the head or deputy head of a school, faced with what she had put on this form, i should be bouncing it right back and asking what in god's name is going on here, get these parents in and get something sorted. one of my other grand children had exactly the same thing happening at her school and they were on to it like a ton of bricks. as far as the school where she wants to go is concerned, although they have a place, there seems to be an issue about whether each ability class has space? not quite sure what this is all about. it all goes through a procedure via the local education authority. what i am actually asking on this forum is, has anyone actually been through this procedure successfully. i know that there is always the option of resits if it badly affects her gcse's as i did this myself although very many years ago!!