If your Y6 child walks to or from school alone, do they have a phone?

[crosspelican]

We gave dd1 a phone because lots of kids in her class have one - it's an old iphone 7 that I upgraded from this year. I've just given her the phone with a cute case - no SIM card though.

But... should she have a sim? A phone number?

She literally just didn't want to feel left out - that's why I gave it to her. She wants to be able to casually put the phone in the teacher's phone box in the mornings like the other girls, which I get. That's fine. But the sim then brings us to messaging, a group WhatsApp etc. and I'm unsure about all that.

It's a 6 min walk to school and she has started walking there and back on her own.

What do you think?

My year 6 walks to school for a similar distance but won't get a phone till she's 11 which is right at the end of the school year. Her older sister is an autumn baby so had a phone earlier in the year but never took it to school (does now she's at secondary) and does have a SIM card but doesn't have lots of roaming data. We control what's available on the household network (just blocking sites that are porn etc). DD1 has whatsapp to chat to her friends but no other social media although she's campaigning for the under 13 version of tik tok at the moment.

If she's not asking for it yet I wouldn't give her one but think about what rules you are going to have. DD1 has a sleepover recently and 2 of the girls were not happy that they weren't allowed their phones in the bedroom overnight.

Mine has a phone, but doesn't take it to school. It's a 12 minute walk, but I take her younger siblings a few minutes after she leaves, so if anything happened I would very quickly know it.

Get her a sim with a PAYG and don't enable data?

I would give my child a phone if they were walking home definately, I gave my child a phone in y6 when he would go to the park on his own so I could get hold of him and vice versa and it also had a tracker on it.
When it came to messaging I let him have WhatsApp but found in y6 it caused alot of bother and deleted it. He would be added to groups with his class in and the kids on there were too immature to be trusted with phones and he and others would get alot of bullying from certain children.
He got WhatsApp back in year 7 where I think alot of the children had grown up alot more and it hasnt happen again.

Yes. Ours has a Nokia "dumb" phone for calls and texts.

My daughter is in Year 6 and we got her an iphone in Year 5 when she started walking to and from school by herself. She’s extremely sensible though so I have no worries about her having one. I use the app on iPhone which allows me to see her getting to school. She often texts me to say she’s there as well. She does use WhatsApp but doesn’t have snapchat, tiktok etc like some kids do. My older child also got a phone at the same age and we haven’t had any issues with either of them.

I think a Y6 child walking to school is safer with a old-style Nokia than a smartphone, simply because they won't end up looking at it when crossing the road.

Crossing the road while texting is a skill for later teenage years.

Smartphones are banned at DD school so while she has one, she doesn't take it.

I thought you didn’t have to have a SIM to use WhatsApp? WhatsApp works on my old iPhone with no SIM inserted.

Either get her a PAYG dumb phone or be very strict with her smartphone.

When I walked home alone in Year 6 mobiles weren’t that widespread and so I was always given money for the phone box and did have to use it on a couple of occasions to phone an adult. Two years later I got my first mobile specifically to keep in touch with parents when out and out alone. I definitely think it’s a good safety precaution to let your child have one.

I guess the question is, what are you expecting to happen on a 6min walk that would be helped by her having a phone?

She's not going to get lost.
If she gets attacked it would be likely to steal her phone anyway.
It will be daylight and there will be others around.

Mine walked home in primary from yr 4. About a 7 min walk. Didn't have a phone. Usually went to the park for an hour on the way. He is yr 9 now, so not that long ago.

Mine have been walking to school since year 5 (about 25 mins) and only got phones when they were 11. We are in a three tier school system (lower, middle and upper) and it's the "done thing" to walk when you start middle school. They are always with at least one friend and there are literally hundreds of kids walking that way every day, so I never really worried before they had phones.

DS has gone to school by himself since Yr5, and didn't have a phone till yr7 - though he doesn't take it to school anyway as it works out

My 10yo y6 DS walks home from school alone. It's a 5-10 minute walk and he doesn't have a phone. We will let him have one (though maybe not a smart phone) when he goes to secondary school in September.

We also sometimes leave him home alone for half an hour or so, and he can pop to the shop (also 5-10 mins) if we need him to.

As others have said, nothing that happens in that short time would be helped by having a phone.

Dds are y5 and walk half way (about 5 mins). There is a busyish road and Dd2 is still a bit drippy but we expect them to be fine by the end of the year.

Phone is for 11th birthday. They have access to tablets on weekends and as someone above said, their walk is short and busy so it's unlikely to help much....

I walked 15 minutes to and from primary in the 1980s without a phone. High school was a 25 minute walk then college was a 60 minute walk. All with no phone

Oh I don’t especially think she needs the phone to cope on a short walk! Was just trying to paint a picture.

Just wondering what the “norm” is. I want to give her some leeway (which I have by giving her the phone in the first place) but don’t want it to add stress to her life (catty WhatsApp groups etc).