Mumsnet Talk

I'm sure this must of been asked before, but how old were your children when you allowed them to walk to school by themselves? I have a soon to be ten year old who wants to start, but I feel really nervous about letting her. Also no-one else in her year(5) does yet.

How far is it and any busy roads to cross?

at 9 mine have to get the school bus in so i prepare them in advance

my 7 yr old has just started walking up on his own,but its just 2 minor roads and a short distance....he wants to,but his brother would not have been mature enough at this age

My son is eight years old and has just started year 4. He has just started walking to school. He has a 3 minute walk and only has to cross one minor road.

If you are concerned about your daughter's maturity then why don't you let her walk part of the way. For example if she has to cross a particularly busy road then cross with her and let her walk the rest of the way. Or could you let her do a simple erand like going to the postbox first.

It is terrifying being a mother, but at some point you have to cut the apron strings. It is a tough call between keeping your children safe and allowing them to develop independence.

She doesn't have too far to go....and in general I'm pretty cool about her going out alone, the thing that worries me is the general chaos of the school run drivers outside the school, it just seems like a bit of a free for all. That's probably my main concern for her.

dd1(10/yr6) walks a few times a week but only with friends. They have to cross a main road but there is a proper crossing about 10-15 mins in all. She did a few times last year but is planning on being more regular now.

Y3, having crossed them across the only road they had to cross (1/2 mile walk according to OFSTED). But lots of children here walk by themselves.

My ds2 has just started walking. He is in yr 6. School bus has been culled by local authority. We live in a village, so he has to walk to local town - about 30 mins walk along busy A road. However he doesn't have to cross any roads, walks with a fellow yr6 boy and ds1 who is in yr8.

Today was the first day he walked and all went well.

My dd started walking to school on her own when she was 9. She had a 10 minute walk and had one road to cross which had a pedestrian crossing on it. She used to meet a friend half-way up the road.
Has anyone been hurt outside the school?

From Year 5 age 10. The primary school they went to insisted the children were taken and picked up from school by an adult until the end of year 3. Is there a frind that she could walk with?

i live two minutes from school, and all three walk together (yr2,4,6)

usually i pick them up, as the older two take hours to get out of the door and i don't want the youngest waiting around on her own for too long. but on two days a week they walk home together as i finish work at the same time the bell goes, and it takes me 5 or 10 minutes to get home.

End of Year 5 - but partly cos we happened to move house at that point to a location where the walk was safer / less complicated (even though it was actually a longer walk).

She originally had to walk past the school gates, which really wasn't safe because of all the cars stopping - after we'd moved she approached from the other direction, so missed the worst of it. Far too many near misses & at least one kid that I know of knocked down by the main gate .

I still preferred to collect or have her collected though, rather than have her make her way home.

Most of her friends walked from Y4 (didn't live near us though so she couldn't walk with them), & I felt I was being over-protective tbh... but she's now Y7 & buses herself to school & meanders home just like everyone else

End of Year 4. We live in urban area.

DS went at 7, DD at 8. School isn't exactly far away - about 500 yards, with one small section where there is no path. I started both with going to the local library, which is in our road and involves one minor road crossing. I got them to talk through with me what they were doing and what they planned to do when we did the school walk together, so that we could talk about what might happen as well as what usually did.

I was, I have to admit, completely petrified when they did the walk for the first time themselves, and hung out of the attic window watching them until they were out of sight. I was very, very tempted to ring the school to make sure they'd arrived, but contented myself with accidentally walking the dog past the end of the playground at playtime.

It is worrying, OP, particularly if no one else does it, and you might well get some comments (I did). DCs are now nearly 19 and 15, so they did survive!

DD started walking in Y5 when she was 9. We only live a 4min walk from the school, but there was a very busy road to cross so she HAD to use the zebra crossing or lights.

DS has just gone into Y5 and is because they have just introduced a rule saying you have to be 10 to walk on your own!

Thanks for all your replies. I think I'm just going to have to put my worries to one side and let her go for it, she is very sensible, I've asked her how she's going to handle crossing the road and getting past the main gate, to which she replied that she'd check if it was safe and cross when the adults crossed. I think I might start with her coming home by herself first, at least that way I won't have the added worry that she's going to be late for school!