School not letting my child from the school

Ok, so I've skim read OPs replies.

I assume that if your child is now in Yr5, then this has been ongoing since Yr4. I admit that your schools rules about waiting until April is ridiculous.

My personal opinion, if you feel that strongly about it then the only way to challenge it from now is through court..... Which is likely to cost more than the afterschool club.

Because she wants the child to have some responsibility.
It's not the schools job to do the parents job.
They have to learn sometime.
My kids walked home from school from 7 years of age.
No wonder the kids can't do anything on their own.

I am with the school on this one - it is there responsibility to make sure your child is safe on leaving school. If requests have been denied then there will be a reason behind it - perhaps there has been some recent safeguarding issues that the school are taking seriously.

I think you have this the wrong way round.

The school are breaking the law. They have no justification in keeping the child in school.

They have not reported a safeguarding concern.

If the school has genuine concerns there is a very clear process for them to follow. They havent. They aren't following their own processes or established safeguarding procedures.

Calling something a 'rule' doesn't make it acceptable or legal.

Coming from an neglectful and abusive household, and being a 'latchkey kid' way younger than I'd be comfortable with for my kids - I can guarantee that if my school had insisted on a parent collecting me (with threats of additional costs or social services involvement) it would have increased the abuse I was subject to, not made me safer..

If a parent wanted to let a toddler walk home from school then it would be better to inform social services because that child is obviously being neglected. How is it in the best interest of the child to insist the parent takes them home from school when they are clearly not going to be looking after the child when they get home?

And in a situation like this (a toddler strolling home), the school would be justified in raising safeguarding concerns with SS.

IME schools, quite rightly, aren't afraid to escalate any safeguarding concerns.
They've not done that here. Because the truth is they don't have any.

The fact they haven't suggests this is money making scheme. Or they're worried that SS would tell them they're breaking the law.

Sorry, quote fail, that was in response to @bignosebignose

But it isn't about rules. It's about development of life skills.

If you are seeing this through the lens of rules you really are missing a huge point in education.

At every age? Obviously not, assuming you don't favour toddlers strolling home alone from nursery. So there are going to be ages where some parents might not like a school's decisions.

You do actually get to tell the school if they are doing something that is outside their remit as in this case.

So rather than challenge a stupid nonsensical policy you think a better option is disrupting a child's education?

That's terrible but you can't let things like this cause you to fall into panic.

A child of her age is more likely to be knocked down by a car - but you don't mention that? She's also more likely to be sexually assaulted by someone in the home - but you don't mention that? A statistically anomalous tragic crime shouldn't stop you from living your life normally - and letting a kid walk to school from her house on an estate to her school on the same side of the road on the same estate that can be practically seen from home it's that close is living your life normally!

You sound ridiculous and entitled now.
what is it that you don’t understand about rules?
Oh wait, you do understand- you just think that you should be the special exception.

Yep.
If you don’t like it, pick a different school.
This is the choice you have. You don’t get to tell the school what rules they can make.

Raise a safeguarding issue with the school.

They school have indicated that they will hold your child in school without her or your consent

Parents also act in the best interest of their child and are the ones who make the decisions out of school hours. If a school or anyone else thinks the parent is being irresponsible they need to take it up with the authorities.

Exactly, the OP has not entered into a financial agreement with them. They can't then try and charge her for a situation she has not entered into willingly. If its a safeguarding issue they can't charge her for care she hasn't consented to. They need to address what the safeguarding issue is, and refer to social services if necessary if there is a disagreement over child care and the school think there is enough of a concern.

Why will she not win? The school are in the wrong and they haven't got a leg to stand on. They can't put the child in and after school club without OPs permission.

The parent should make the assessment. If the school has a specific concern about a child walking home alone, they can then address it.

Parents should be able to cope with that - and schools should be able to present a reasonable case of why they feel the need to safeguard against the parents wishes.

A lot of this should involve fostering good communication between schools and parents.

By April DS will be well 10 years and 7 months in y5. Some of the kids will be going to high school when they are 11 years and 1 day in y7. The logic of a random day in April would be 'unfair' to him by this measure. It is holding him back considerably though. Should we be holding kids back because of 'unfairness'?

Which is the better logic for the well being of the kids?

Reasonably, kids age 9 and 10 should be learning that not all kids have the same ability and life isn't fair anyway.

It shouldn't be based on what everyone else is doing. It should be about who is ready and who isn't.

It should be about talking about ability levels just like maths or english. I don't understand we have this ridicilous notion that all the kids should be doing things at the same time because of 'fairness'.

Maybe if it was led by this, parents would be more willing to take their part in teaching independence skills.

At my SD's school they brought the children out in a line and then each child had to point out their parent on the playground before the teacher let them go and watched them go to the parent before moving onto the next child in line. If the parent hadn't arrived, the child waited beside the teacher until they did. If your child happened to be at the end of the line (class of 34 children) you were waiting a really long time. This was all the way up until the end of Y5, so SD was nearly 11. I thought it was ridiculous.

I was thinking back to this post, OP. The school feels that kids up to a certain age should not leave unaccompanied at this time of year. In order for them to change that for certain children, but not all, they would need to look at why an individual should not have that rule apply to them. In this situation, that's by nature a risk assessment. I've been a school governor and a parent at a school where kids were not allowed to walk home alone before a specific age and time of year. Like it or not, the school is acting in what they believe to be the best interests of the kids - from a safety perspective.

You're not going to win here OP and it's likely causing your child a lot of stress.

What, no? The school shouldn't be risk assessing each individual child. It's the parents call, not the schools.

"What does your daughter think about this saga?"

She raised the question of why the school is not adhering to the law, as I thought we all were required to follow it.

Heh. Of course she did.

This is a fun thread though. Schools should risk assess every child individually rather than have any policies for all. What if this school did that, for the sake of argument, and then decided that actually - on balance - they thought some kids should be able to walk home alone, but not the OP's?