Are my children to young to be walking to school alone?

[Scorpion111]

My children go to a school that is on the same street as our house. They leave through the front door, cross over the road and then walk up the road for around 3-4 minutes and they’re at the school gates.

Because the school is so close, I can watch them walk the entire way from my bedroom window. Both of my children are extremely sensible, not just in my opinion but their teachers and their friend’s parents are always singing their praises.

They have only walked to school alone 2x and I take them through the same safety briefing in the morning - stay out the road, stay together, look where you’re going, look left and right before crossing etc. Also before letting them walk to school alone (which they have been begging to do btw) we started with saying bye to them at the gate instead of walking them to class, progressing to only walking to the top of the road with them, then half way up the road with them until I was confident in their ability to stay safe.

My children are 7 (almost 8) & 6 years old.

I think it's just about fine.
It's not far and its one supervised crossing.

Too young. I also live on the same street as what will be my kids’ junior school and no way will i be let them go on their own, especially considering the car parking chaos by the driving parents.

Definitely too young in my opinion. And sort of pointless if you're watching them from the window anyway, you could spare the few minutes a day to walk them yourself.

DDs are 7 and 5 and we live on the same road as school, they literally just have to walk in a straight line from our house but no way would I be letting them do it alone yet. I probably will when they are both in KS2.

It’s absolutely fine and I would let them do it.

they are watched across the road (the possibly dangerous bit depending on traffic). Children of that age are capable of walking down a pavement alone for 3 minutes. OP knows their abilities.

i find these threads on MN so frustrating, this whittling away at all children’s independence.

It's weird to see how much norms have changed on this from when I was a kid, I walked about 10 mins or so to school solo when I was in around that age (admittedly in a mid-sized village in rural Scotland rather than on city streets). We had a lollypop lady who helped kids cross the main road but otherwise we were left to it.

It doesn't sound like there's actually an issue with your kids doing this solo but if it'll get you in trouble with the school it's probably not worth the grief.

They don't need independence at 6/7 years old. They need safely taking from the parental care of home to the care of school without this five minutes in between where something could happen that a young child won't have the experience/strength/wit to deal with.
They are still so little at this age.

Even in the 80s in a village where everyone knew everyone, there was much less traffic on the roads etc., kids were in y4 before they started walking to school alone.

I think you should trust your instincts more as it seems that deep down you're not happy about this but you're doing it because your DC keep asking.

This is why we have children who don't know how to take calculated risk. Why we have children who have no resilience or streets smart.

Let your children walk to school in these circumstances, OP.

Way too young
You need to be going with them

Too young.

For those of you banging on about the good old days - you weren’t dodging herds of massive cars flying everywhere in a rush, driven often by frazzled parents.

Other parents” driving is my no 1 worry about my own kids walking to school, unbelievably

Way too young. I'm surprised school haven't got in contact with you about since they are being dropped off without a parent.

For me it's less about danger than it is about little ones needing emotional and social support from their parent.

I think that the UK, and possibly the US, are the two countries where this sort of thing is considered a problem. In large parts of the rest of the world, it would be completely fine, even expected. I have nieces and nephews in other European countries and they have all been allowed far more walking around than is normal here. DD is 9 and has just started doing a short walk to MIL's house... I am quite surprised I haven't received any calls or emails yet. I did with DS.

It sounds like it's fairly normal where you are so crack on. The biggest risk usually is the judgement from other parents.

We lived in Germany for a while.
I never saw a parent, on their phone, mount the pavement at speed whete school children are walking, so they can be as close as possible to the school gate. That is one major difference...

I saw plenty of children using the nice safe cycle lanes though.
(And being dropped off at school by their parents).

our primary school has no idea how kids arrive, they walk in on their own through an unmanned gate.

Your eldest is almost 8, of course they are capable of walking 5 mins up the road. I'd be much more concerned for their welfare if they couldn't. And your younger child is with an older sibling. Unless they have some issue and may run off then I can't see any reason why not. I am always surprised by MN reactions, what on earth do they think can happen along a pavement in 5 mins? It's not like they are running across a motorway.

We have actively encouraged independence from a young age with both DC. I appreciate this will make me sound like a complete twat, but I think a big benefit is that both of our children appear to be broadly more capable and less prone to panic/poor decisions than many (not all) of their peers. DD was unexpectedly separated from DH recently and won significant praise for how she handled herself. Similarly, DS has had a coule of moments where he's handled things much better than some of his friends.

I'm in Scotland and it is not normal here. Most kids around here walk with a parent until P5. Not a chance I'd let my 6 year old walk to school - even if I could see hm. If it truly is only 5 mins, why not go with him?

@ConfusedConfuse Do you know what the school would do in the event this rule was broken?

It seems not uncommon for schools to try to impose their authority outside school grounds and outside the school day. Perhaps it's reasonable to push back against this - it might be unnecessarily and unhelpfully infantilising for some pupils who would be more than capable of getting themselves safely to and from school (clearly this depends on the individual journeys). And perhaps it's unfair: September-born students have to wait until they are nearly a year older than August-born students to travel independently to/from school.

I wonder whether Ofsted have a view on schools imposing this type of rule?

i’d definitely let the eldest but probably make the youngest wait until yr 3.
we used to let our dd walk out the house and through the park to school from yr 3 no issue (and she is only yr 8 now so not that long ago) loads of kids on the estate did and still do. The biggest problem is making sure they’re not stopping in the park too long on the way to school

This argument is circular though. All those parents driving right up to the gates are doing so because they believe the children can't walk alone from a few 100 metres back. The more kids that walk, the less cars.

Not too young given the setting and context.
Nice to hear about this. It's normal for many of our European neighbours.

I think what you describe sounds ok.

Definitely not normal where I live in Scotland, local schools would have a word with a parent who let their 7 year old walk home alone.