School not letting my child from the school

And no doubt the child is home safely by now so all is well at the end of the day ( if you pardon the pun) 😁

They handed to a parent up to year 3 and that was it.

So they let a child walk home unsupervised once were old enough to be in year 3 but not year 2? Sounds like an age limit to me....

.perhaps year limit might be a better term and is more practical to implement in this setting.

" The school are insisting on overriding that parental decision."

The school disagree with the parents risk assessment and are acting accordingly including advising they may need to refer to social services who override parental decisions quite frequently I'd imagine.

Is that reasonable in this case? Possibly not but no one on here has enough information to make an informed decision on that

There wasn’t an age limit at Dds school. They handed to a parent up to year 3 and that was it.

If anything happened to your 9 year old on their walk home, would you be “sad face” all over the Daily Mail?

These threads always depress me. The total hysteria.

If you’d read the OP’s posts you would have your questions answered and save yourself this arsey reply too.

Exactly this

"Social services will laugh at the school as there's clearly no safeguarding issue here"

Given that social services and the school could be subject to an inquiry and used as case studies in training session if harm came to the child I think this is unlikely.

Many professionals err on the side of caution when it comes to child safety. I'm sure they'd far prefer the occasional snide comment than the alternative.

@Beeboopaboo She says husband and elder sibling get home around the same time. So what good reason is there for one of them not collecting the 9 year old on their way home?

Her DH WFH, but sometimes he could have meetings at the end of the day. Who knows with the eldest child, adter school activities maybe?

I think the point is that the OP and her DH have decided, quite reasonably, that their almost 10 year old is quite capable of making a simple, safe journey independently on foot and would like her to have that responsibility and independence. The school are insisting on overriding that parental decision.

I am actually astonished how many people on here seem to think it is reasonable that a child that age should not be allowed to do this unsupervised. By the sound of it, the OP does not live in a high risk area.

‘lawful’ 🙄
They are not ‘withholding’ her child. They are making her child available for collection by a suitable adult as per their rules.
As I said before, if she doesn’t like their rules she’s free to choose a different school.

Our school policy just says written request for under year 5. However they don’t actually supervise the departure of children from Y3 upwards so it’s pretty irrelevant whether you’ve written it or not!

edit - policy isn’t written anywhere I’ve seen but is what I was told when I asked about my Y3 leaving on her own.

how do the school know who is picking who up at my daughters school they all just come piling out could you not pick her up for a few days in case they check then just have her walk home after that?

Bonkers. Children should be walking home from year 3 as long as no dangerous roads to cross. No wonder there's such poor mental health in children and teenagers when they are babied to this extent.

Social services will laugh at the school as there's clearly no safeguarding issue here.

Because she’s already said that her DD would never be alone at home. An OP getting into a tit-for-tat with posters trying to pick holes in what they’ve posted just leaves an OP with less time to engage with posts that are relevant and useful.

"Do you not think all schools would be doing the same thing if it was?"

Well they do though don't they? All of the set age limits and rules on collecting children are.

They differ only in the minimum age they will allow pupils to walk home unsupervised etc ( parents written request or otherwise) presumably because of areas / local risks / past history of incidents in the area etc.

The “she would never be alone” suggests otherwise.

If the DH would arrive home just after and the eldest child might not be there until a bit later too, then OP could have written “so she would only be alone for a few minutes.” But she didn’t. She wrote “So she would never be alone”. Which indicates that precise timing of when DH finishes work is not a concern for whether there is someone home.

OP also mentioned in a later post that her DH might have meetings at pick up time, which explains why pointing out that he was working, not just sat on his arse at home was relevant.

I live the fact that so many people think because someone in a school has decided something it must be correct. Do you not think all schools would be doing the same thing if it was?

Yes, much later and when she’s been asked if he WFH. She still doesn’t use that phrase, just says ‘meetings’. It would have been very easy to clarify on the first page when people asked about the post. I wonder why she didn’t?

@cardibach

I bet they won't contact the authorities though. They know they will look pretty incompetent if the child is 9 or 10 and the parent has said they are happy for them to walk 300 m home by themselves.

Today @16:55
No, there is always someone at home. My husband finishes work around the same time, and our eldest child arrives home at a similar time, so she would never be alone.

Today @19:48
Yes, there is someone at home and the Child will not be alone

In another post she mentions her DH WFH and has virtual meetings that he can't just drop.

"She, and the rest of the children in the village were absolutely fine. It's been the norm for years and will continue to be."..

Your village is safe I guess and the governors share your confident assertion she is safe travelling alone.

The OP lives in a different area and the governors of her school assessed their risk differently...

I agree that the school is being very unreasonable. I had a similar issue with SD, I wanted her to walk to meet me at the bus stop as the way the buses worked meant I would have to arrive a whole hour early in order to walk to meet her at school in time, and I was heavily pregnant. It was a 10 minute walk with no roads to cross in a very safe area. They said she could not walk home alone until Year 6, even though she is an October birthday and some of the Y6s were only a couple of months older than her.

However, you can't just refuse to pick her up. DH needs to request some flexibility to pop out for 10 minutes to pick her up for now.