Does this sound ok? School run…

To add, yes it's crazy how times have changed but because of so many cars parked outside of schools and stricter rules it is what it is.

My Mum used to walk me to 'junior' school, be able to leave me in the playground as teachers were on duty and there were no fences and gates, then walk siblings to infant school. Then I used to walk on my own, it was only round the corner, all one pavement but also far less cars.

Society, including school runs, is all rush, find the most obtrusive place to park because it's only a few minutes, drive at speed to get to work. All because every second counts and what one has to do is more important than everything and everyone else, so blocking driveways, emergency exits, zig zag lines with signs stating keep clear at all times, it's horrifically entitled and more importantly dangerous!

This won't be allowed by the school as parents need to be present for safeguarding and you can't expect other parents, who may well be in an equal rush also, to be responsible for your DC.

Best thing would be to put them in breakfast club so you can take your time woth second drop off. If you need to get to work after then this will be a less stressful start to your day, albeit a bit earlier.

I do feel for you. As my username, I walked to school on my own from age 5 and home one mile each way,and when 7 took my brother aged 5.How times have changed!

All those saying their school wouldn't allow it, what exactly will the school do? They can't stop it. Social care will not be interested - they barely act when children are in truly difficult home settings; they certainly don't have the resources to deal with a couple of KS2 children being dropped off 5 minutes early.

I absolutely would not do this, and presumably you will have the issue in reverse at the end of the day with 2 kids left waiting for you? If the schools are so close in travel time, why not have all 3 in the school 5 minutes further away? Not perfect I know, but I think best.

If your DC are sensible then that sounds perfectly safe, OP, especially given there are two of them. If they are prone to silliness, running off or fighting with each other you may need a rethink, though it seems like a very difficult position for you.

6/7 is the normal age children start walking to school alone where I live and in many other places. They're not a different species and there are cars on the roads and everything. Children just tend to live up to expectations imo. They do really tend to start behaving much more sensibly when you give them the trust and responsibility, compared to how they behave when an adult is in charge of them.

Mine started getting about by themselves at 7, start of their second year of primary school, and took it in their strides. They have about 1 km to go to school with a few zebra crossings with crossing lights.

Not saying I'd necessarily want to try and be a cultural outlier in England and get myself reported to social services, but the general opinion there of what children are capable of is pretty skewed.

We started doing this when our childminder started charging full hours - DH used to drop at her house at 8:30 and she would send the junior kids up to walk to school at 8:35 for their gates opening at 8:40 and she followed after with the infants. She used to charge 30 mins for each child then decided to charge a full hour each. So DH started dropping them at school at 8:30 and they waited together until the gates opened at 8:40. They would have been either 8 and 9 or 9 and 10. They were fine and loved the independence. There was always other parents around at that time so they weren’t alone.

It's terrible when parents cant get all kids in one school, i voted you're not unreasonable meaning if the older 2 are dropped off together it will be fine. I remember being in infants and waiting for my older sister in juniors (separate building over a mediocre road with bridge) and walking home together. This was the 90s. It will teach your older 2 a bit independence.

From the age of 8 I walked (half a mile +) to school on my own. Yes, I know there were fewer cars around then (1960s), but the OP doesn't intend to make her children cross a road. I'm not sure what else she could do, to be honest.

It seems like our primary is quite relaxed with the rules compared to others. From year 3 ours are allowed with permission to leave school at the end of the day unaccompanied and obviously walk to school alone so this wouldn’t be an issue. My child’s birthday is at the end of August so technically would have been allowed to leave school alone a week after he turned 7. Which honestly seems wild to me and I haven’t given permission for this! But I wouldn’t see an issue with leaving siblings at the gate for 5 mins.

If you trust them I don't see an issue but I think we don't give kids anywhere near enough freedom in this country.

So kids can’t walk to school anymore in these schools where it’s not allowed to be outside the gate on your own for five minutes? Madness!

They would be absolutely fine. My 5yo walks to school alone, it’s normal where we live. However it sounds like you’re going to run into issues with either the school or other parents so it’s not going to work. I’d look for another parent you can drop them off with and they could walk them in.

Is there a breakfast club at either of the schools? If so I’d use that. If not id probably feel ok with this if they had a phone on them.

Why can't your drop the first 2 at 8.40 as gates open and youngest at 8.50?

I really don’t get all the ructions on this thread! There is an another thread about a baby being left on its own in car for 30 minutes today! And people are popping on to that thread to say obviously that’s different to running in to Tesco Express or the petrol station to pay for petrol. I actually think both of those are dangerous with an infant left on its own in a car! These children are 8 and 9, and won’t be on their own. In sight of the school where loads of other children and parents, childminders etc. will be appearing unless they are all always late for school!

Why not?

My daughter spent a year walking my son to school when she was p7 (so 10/11) and he was in p2 (so 6/7). We are the furthest house in the catchment so it’s a mile. In a city. Plenty of roads to cross. They were on their own the first few minutes but as they got closer to the school there were loads of kids and adults around. The last 5 minutes of the walk they’d see maybe 100 kids on their way in. Their school actually did burn down a few years ago but it never occurred to me to be worried about what would happen if it burned down again while they weren’t inside yet.

All this to say that really id think they could just walk themselves in so the OP isn’t rushing around. And waiting a few minutes is nothing. If the school doesn’t actually allow this than that’s a different problem but I can’t see a safety issue here at all.

An 8 year old shouldn’t be running off - if there’s behavioural issues or additional needs of course that is different but by 8 a child should be able to walk to school or just stand and wait a few minutes with loads of other children doing the same thing.

Perfectly fine. There are no teachers at our gate or any staff kids come and go as they please. Mines have walked to school themselves since they were younger than that. As long as you trust them not to go on the road etc then go for it.

Sounds fine from a safety point of view, but you need to check whether school allows it. The school are perfectly reasonable to have an age before which children cannot be on the premises without an adult before school opens. In fact they should have to make their own safe guarding responsibility clear. If that age is 9/year 5, then you would either need to stay with your 8 year old until the bell rings or pay for before school care.

Do you know any of the other parents?

There’s a girl in DD’s class who is dropped off early as her brother needs to be dropped off somewhere else (he has SEN so has different arrangements) and a few of us will look out for her and make sure she gets in in the mornings. One of us is usually about.

"In the care"
They are stood at the school gate, ready to go in.
She isn't planning to leave them at home whilst she buggers off to the pub!

I’ve only felt comfortable doing this with mine now he is year 6. Our breakfast club opens at 8 and I drop him off at 7.50. I think if he had a sibling in year 6, we might have started from year 5.

Having said that, I’d have let him walk to school from year 5 if we lived close enough.

Making sure your kids are safe isn't a luxury, it's the bare minimum.