School - Local or not?

CeNedra

Hello,

Looking for opinions here. I live in a rural area where everybody goes to the local national school. My son is due to start school in Sept but I just heard a few things about the local school that has me worried. I know that there has been a case brought against the school where bullying of a child went unaddressed. There was no record of the issue kept, even though it was significant and sustained over a long period of time. There was no contact made to the parents and the young child had to tell his parents themself and was seriously tramatised by the whole issue. The head is very unpopular and the whole parish want them gone, but this is basically not going to happen any time soon.

I know bullying happens, but I would like to think that there was policies in place that would address them. I also would like to think that the school my son would go to woudl have good policies to deal with issues like this. It had nothing. Obviously this is being addressed, but I guess it will take time.

So, I want my son to go to school locally and have local friends, but I do have the option of sending him to another school which is further away. Pro, wont' have to deal with issue above and a school that has a bad head, con: he won't have local friends.

Do you have any advice how you would deal with this?
Thanks!

Sleepy

For me, I'd go with the other school if it has a better reputation. The best gift we can give our children is a good education.

Daisy M

How far away is the other school? Its surprising that other parents havent chosen a different school if the problem is as wide spread as you have been lead to believe. How many children are in the local school? If it is going to be affected by recent cuts that may be reason enough to choose a different school.

Sorry just to add the reason I am wondering about the bullying is because parents have been known to exaggerate or only believe the childs story and can see no wrong in their own child, I am not saying this is the case here. But an incident happened recently in my childrens school where a parent came in threatening and shouting the odds. This is a first for this school most people conduct themselves with manners. As it happens this persons child is a known troublemaker and regularly lies about others in the class, but the parents dont want the truth just for everything to go their childs way.

CeNedra

The other school is about 10 miles away (v's 2 miles to the local one). the other school is in a town, so would be much larger.
Some Children have been pulled out of the school, but not many to be honest. I know of one other case that was related to bullying and in that case the child was pulled out, at the time I thought it was isolated, and it was a couple of years ago. I am obviously asking parents who have children in the school what the think of it, generally they really like it except the Head, I have heard so many complaints about this Head, but the other teachers are fantastic seemingly!
The school is being rennovated/extended, it is a very nice school structurally, I was astonished to see the large extension in view of current economic climate. That obviously means the Head has some positive points as he was able to get that approved.
1 new teacher was added due to expanding population in the area, but it is still a very small school (<100 students).

Daisy M

Ten miles is a lot. We live rurally too but there are loads of small local schools too many really. The school you mention seems to have a nice number not too big or small and it seems to have good facilities. Is there any chance that the head may retire before your child would be taught by him?
If you do decide to send your child elsewhere try and keep his ties with your own community as much as possible. Enrole in local sport activities ect. Have you other children 10 miles may be a lot to go if you have multiple pick ups at 2 and 3.

hoodwinked

in my opinion you have two choices,

a:
send your child to the local school, keep a close eye on him and if you feel something is amiss, or he is being bullied, pull him out and send him to the other school.

or b:

send him to the other school, and deal with the long distance, it isn't the end of the world, if it helps my partner was pulled from his local rural school due to bullying and was moved to a larger city school, he said it was the best thing he ever did because he finally had a happy primary school experience and his grades improved drastically, his mother didn't mind the long commutes in the morning much as long as her son was happy.

Wantobe

I had a similar dilemma when sending our eldest to school but it was because I had been using a childminder where I worked who I thought was great but she was 10 miles away from the nearby school to where we live. The choice was the school where we live or the school local to the childminder.

In the end I went with the local school and for me it was the right choice. There are all sorts of things going on with the school, after school activities, playdates, parties, even just meeting their friends who live nearby at the weekend that we would have lost out on if we hadnt gone with the local school.

RubyGirl

OP, where are the complaints about the principal going to, is it the Dept. of Education?

How long ago was the bullying happening, maybe those kids have moved on to secondary school, would you child be in their company at any time during the school day.

If it is on your mind constantly I would go with the further away school aswell. To get local friends you could join the local soccer, hurling clubs. Join the scouts etc.

Best of luck with it.

campo

I also think you should keep in mind what Secondary school you would like to see him go to as a lot of primary schools are connected to certain secondary schools.

As an example my young lad is going to primary now but is due to go to a secondary school next year the school we wanted to send him to told us that because he is not going to a primary school in the area ( but we do live in the area ) it would be difficult to get him into the school

so my advise think long term aswell as short term when making a decision

Fittle

Go with the other school.

If it's as bad as you say it is, there will most definitely be other local parents who send their kids to the other school too.

While your concern is that he won't have local friends if he goes to the school further away, keep in mind that as he gets older, he will probably join the local soccer/gaa team or scouts etc so he will get local friends through other routes.

deisemum

If it were me I'd go with the other school. It's all well and good having policies but they're worthless if not implemented. I also think a school is only as good as it's principal and if a principal is like what OP described here then it will impact on the morale and running of the school no matter how good the rest of the teachers are.

I wouldn't worry about your child making local friends, that's easy to sort out through local activities.

January

Moved from Parenting

byhookorbycrook

I'd presume all investigation into bullying would not be done publicly, so people really can't make a call on that one. I'd make an appt to visit both schools and see what vibe you get.

goat2

CeNedra wrote: »

Hello,

Looking for opinions here. I live in a rural area where everybody goes to the local national school. My son is due to start school in Sept but I just heard a few things about the local school that has me worried. I know that there has been a case brought against the school where bullying of a child went unaddressed. There was no record of the issue kept, even though it was significant and sustained over a long period of time. There was no contact made to the parents and the young child had to tell his parents themself and was seriously tramatised by the whole issue. The head is very unpopular and the whole parish want them gone, but this is basically not going to happen any time soon.

I know bullying happens, but I would like to think that there was policies in place that would address them. I also would like to think that the school my son would go to woudl have good policies to deal with issues like this. It had nothing. Obviously this is being addressed, but I guess it will take time.

So, I want my son to go to school locally and have local friends, but I do have the option of sending him to another school which is further away. Pro, wont' have to deal with issue above and a school that has a bad head, con: he won't have local friends.

Do you have any advice how you would deal with this?
Thanks!

1 your son will have no friends locally, if he does not go local,
2 your petrol bill will be harder,
3 if you are caught on an evening that you cannot be there to collect, it is easy to share that kind of thing with a neighbour,
4 you say the school was brought to book for a bullying problem, then that school will be making it important that that does not happen again.

ShamoBuc

goat2 wrote: »

1 your son will have no friends locally, if he does not go local,
2 your petrol bill will be harder,
3 if you are caught on an evening that you cannot be there to collect, it is easy to share that kind of thing with a neighbour,
4 you say the school was brought to book for a bullying problem, then that school will be making it important that that does not happen again.

Point number 1: Nonsense. He will still make friends with the lads from the neighbourhood. In fact he will have two sets of friends by going to the other school. I went to a school outside my locality and had more friends as a result.
Point 2,3,4 are spot on.

Gleesonbelle

My son doesn't go to our local school that is so close to our house that I could throw a stone and hit it. I didn't like the school. Trust your gut. There is 6 schools that I could have potentially sent my son closer than the one he is in but I loved the school he is in. It's a 25 min drive from my house to the school. My son is thriving and so happy with loads of friends. That comes before convenience for me any day!!! Moms know so trust your gut!