Would I be weird to park a 10 min walk away from school for the exercise?

[ItsyWincy]

Unfortunately I'm having to move a 20 minute drive away from my kids school. At the moment it's a 20 walk away which does us the world of good. I like the exercise, I enjoy chatting to the parents and I like to see my children interact with the other kids on the way.

I will really miss this when we move. I couldn't afford anything suitable closer by. We are moving due to divorce.

Would it be weird for me to drive a 5 or 10 minutes walk away from the school, so that we can still get a bit of exercise and a bit of the interaction?

No, sounds like a great plan. Avoiding the carnage of parking near the school would be another advantage!

You can do whatever you like, you don't need permission.

Who would be judging you as weird?

go for it!

will probably be easier for you to park as well

The school in my street actually has use of a car park a 5/6 minute walk away and they actively encourage the parents to walk that bit

@ItsyWincy this is called "park and stride" and in my area schools actively encourage it as part of their travel plan.

Sounds good to me

Sounds like a great idea. You are not clogging up parking round the school, you get some exercise and also some social interaction. My DDs school used to encourage this.

Definitely not weird but I think you’d be in the minority, most park as close to the school gates as is physically possible!

it'd be good if more parents did this! Good for you, good for the kids, you go for it.

Not weird at all. I sometimes get off the bus to work the stop before I have to so I get a bit more fresh air and a stroll.

Thank you all.

The last few days I've chatted with parents I've never met before and seen my kids make new friends, it was so lovely it made me feel really bad about this coming to an end soon.

Great idea.

When mine were at primary, I’d park 10 or 15 mins from the school. Good for parking congestion, great for chatting!

Good luck trying to find a space closer than 10 minutes away from our school 🤣🤣 V sensible idea, much better for school congestion as well.

My DC's school actively tries to encourage parents to do this - healthy exercise and relieves the traffic around school.

Definitely not weird and sounds like a great idea. I used to do this when my kids were at school and they loved the walk to and from school. Great opportunity to chat and either wake up properly or decompress at the end of the day. They'd also love it when they bumped into friends along the way. Go for it!

Oh absolutely go for it.

My children are in a very rural school, but not the catchment one for very complicated reasons.

So they don't get the bus and we drive, which is super rare. Everyone walks due to location of school, or the children get the bus.

We now park and walk the village with everyone else. So many simple benefits and friendships

It sounds like a brilliant idea. Much better than the people I see parked up outside one of the local schools from nearly an hour before 3 pm, just so they can get as close as possible! Heaven forbid they should have to walk more than a dozen steps.

Not weird at all! I’d definitely do this if walking the full route to school wasn’t possible. Ours is a 25 minute walk and, on days when I’m not working or am WFH, I genuinely love it. We sing and chat and I feel so much more energised for the day after that plus a brisk stroll home.

Definitely do this! It’s a brilliant way to keep up the daily routine and they’ll get into school with a bit of energy for having moved in the morning. I wish more did this tbh!

That's an excellent idea. I would scope out a few different places with easy parking so that you can vary the route if you want. Also if they are different distances then you can choose your place to park by how much time you have available to walk. That way you're not panicking because someone needed to go back into the house for a last minute wee, you can just park 10 mins walk from school instead of 15 minutes and make up the time.