School not letting my child from the school

Curious do these schools with policies about when they allow children to walk home independently from school also have policies about when children can walk to school independently?

Easy enough to deal with that if the school has a defined rule in place. They can just say no to parents asking for "leniency".

Yes it is, while they are in school the school is de facto caring.

However, this parent doesn't want the school to provide care she wants them to allow her child to walk home after the school day has finished so your statement is doubly wrong.

The risk of a child being abducted is significantly less than the risk of them being killed in a car accident.

The children most at risk of being harmed on the way home from school are those driven home regularly. So if a school implements a safeguarding policy to not allow any parent to drive their child home we'd all be fine with that I'd assume.

Absolute nonsense @birdingbear of course parents still have rights when their children are in school. Schools are not exempt from the law of the landf. In any case the child in question isnt in school, theyre at an After School Club - the clue is in the name. The After School Club is outside school hours and has no right to detain a child whose parents have not requested nor consented to the childs attendance.

"You have no rights once your kid is in school" Wow, just wow. That's a radical idea.

No there aren't.

If there is a danger locally, the school/police inform parents. It would be relevant to all children walking to or from school.

This child walks to school alone and the school doesn't have any objections to that.
If there were specific dangers making walking home alone unadvisable, wouldn't parents be informed so they could re-evaluate the way to school?

Which is why the school should be happy to report the OP to SS and even the police so they can share their concerns with them plus get additional back up on their stance.

Btw due to the people I know who work and have worked in schools I know school heads can overstep and under step when it comes to safeguarding. It should not take a member of staff who due to their voluntary position elsewhere having to remind the head that they have a legal duty to report that schools actions/inactions if they don't follow their legal duties.

There are many instances where we let schools know about potential safeguarding dangers which are not publicly disclosed to parents and carers, which have the potential to cause distress or harm.

They are allowed to leave at the end of the school day. If the school have safe guarding concerns they should inform the police or social services and follow their advice.

OP isn't being lazy. She is working. I did the same thing and while Dd went to after school club until year 5, she was so happy when i said she didn't have to go anymore and could walk home.

"If they can't provide a specific concern, then SS will tell them that absent such evidence, they should allow the child to walk"

We can all wait for the OP's update then to find out what action SS take......

Are you friends with any parent in the same class?

My child used to be met out the classroom by another mum to keep school happy. Then would leave her and walk to my place of work on her own. Easy solution. Everyone happy.

The default position is to adhere to parents wishes unless of course there are safeguarding concerns.

Agreed. But those safeguarding concerns have to be detailed and relevant to this particular child. They can't just say 'we have safeguarding concerns' or 'those are our rules'. If SS get involved, the school's HT will be asked what those safeguarding concerns are. If they can't provide a specific concern, then SS will tell them that absent such evidence, they should allow the child to walk.

Sounds like an awful place to bring up children if schools feel the need to take these precautions. I’m glad my children have freedom.

The school is allowed their own policy. They can change it to year 6 if they want. Stop being lazy and wall the 300 yards and get your child.
And the school is right. You have no rights once your kid is in school, you can't just think they are allowed to walk oit when they want ot because you say so.

"The school's policies are neither here not there, frankly"

Right going around in circles here again.

The default position is to adhere to parents wishes unless of course there are safeguarding concerns.

Most posters admit that a parent who wished for a 4 year old to walk home alone would not be adhered to ( for obvious safeguarding reasons)

They disagree in this case because of the age of the child and it seems to me that the school is not adhering to the wishes here either ( but for less obvious reasons)

You don’t seem to understand what lawful means. That’s fine, we have courts to sort that out so you don’t need to worry about it.

You've got this the wrong way round @Walkden, it's on the school to prove they have a good reason for thinking it is unsafe for this particular child to be allowed to walk home. The onus is not on the OP to prove it IS safe because the default position (as far as SS are concerned) will be to adhere to the parents' wishes vis-a-vis the child being allowed to walk. This is precisely why the OP said in an earlier post that she welcomes the involvement of SS.

The school's policies are neither here not there, frankly.

"Many parents think that is okay as evidenced by the fact that many 9 year olds are allowed to walk home from school by themselves/with friends."

Maybe so but these posters apparently don't work at this school and can't advise why they has different rules which many think are overzealous but probably wasn't put in place for shits and giggles...

"How do you know it is incorporated into the policy.?!"

Secondary evidence admittedly but

The OP said they only allow year 5 to walk home unsupervised from April

It was also in a booklet she got sent when her child started.

I'm inclined to think the op overlooked the policy document on the school website while she was hysterically calling the police about her child being kidnapped and posting her outrage on Mumsnet.

In the good old days of course County could have a quiet word with the head but these days there is no proper oversight of schools

How do you know it is incorporated into the policy.?! According to OP, they haven't got a written policy and given this is a blanket rule they likely don't have a reason for thinking it is less safe for OP's child than any other 9 year old.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say SS are not in the habit of "overruling school policies" Do you mean that they won't advice on whether something is a safeguarding issue if the school phones. I very much doubt they will be the slightest bit interested in the fact that a parent thinks it's OK for their child to walk 300 meters home from school by themselves. Many parents think that is okay as evidenced by the fact that many 9 year olds are allowed to walk home from school by themselves/with friends.

". A school does not need a blanket rule to say a child cannot walk home alone in Reception/Y1"

And yet many posters on this thread have said their school lets kids walk home from say year 3 so it seems most do have a blanket rule of some description...