To report two infant age children walking to school alone

[ThePosieParker]

... to the head of the school.

This morning I saw two siblings (I assume) walking to school alone, the oldest looked about yr2 at the most and the youngest a reception child. I wanted to phone the school as there could be a number of reasons these children are walking alone, not all sinister but in my mind none good enough,. This is Bristol, a busy city, not the place to allow children to cross roads and negotiate traffic and people at the age of 6 or below, surely.

That the school did nothing suggests that the OP had misunderstood the level of risk involved or the age of the children.

They did not escalate it in the way she wanted, so she took it on herself to do so. Since she knew better than the school

Oh well, if she keeps reporting other families to them, they may eventually begin to consider whether she is in need of investigation herself.

So are people saying they wouldn't have rung the school?

I second "if in doubt report it" worst that can happen is that the children are older than they look, and the school would know this. Best case scenario is that this could be another piece of information that indicates that this family may need help and support. Without that piece of info, they may not get the support. If everyone who had seen something amiss in many of the well known abuse cases had reported it, then perhaps those poor children may still be alive today.
Saying that reporting stuff is causing SS overload is not really a good enough reason not to report- if this is the case (and completely agree that SS are massively overloaded) we need to insist on more funding for SS and NOT stop reporting stuff.
Everytime we turn a blind eye, we fail a child.
Personally, I wouldnt have reported to SS though, the school are better placed to do that, and to judge if necessary to go to SS, as they will have a far better idea of these childrens circumstances than OP did.

"It was a duty of care team and they said thank you."

Which translates as "we will politely feign interest then fob you off and get on with some real work"

Am I on a parallel MN today? I didn't say the school did nothing.

I did not disapprove I was genuinely worried, they were really very young.

Did they say they would act on it though? Just curious - to me it does seem like a step too far but I have little experience of these things so wondered if it is like the emergency services where they tell you straight off whether you are wasting their time or not.

sickoftheholidays I've been of CHild Protection courses and they always say to report as it may be a piece of the puzzle so to speak.

A little bit of news for you, we ALL judge. Society judges because we have been conditioned to Judge.

I would have rung the school in this instance. Why wouldn't I be concerned about two little kids? I don't care about the parents, I care about the kids.

"I don't care about the parents, I care about the kids."

Oh give me a break.

At my DC's school, infant children allowed to walk home with older junior children siblings/neighbours. But no restriction on walking to school. My kids are reception and year 2, and if we lived on the same block as school (ie no roads to cross) I'd let them walk.

How do you know the older child wasn't 7 and in year 3?

PosieParker - you said "school didn't pick up"

I assumed you meant the issue, but I guess you meant the phone at the particular instant you were ringing

spidookly and your trying to say? ............

spidookly...You don't agree then? You think we should think more about the parents than a child at risk?

Right.one last time, my year old is teeny for his age.....but he still looks seven. My dd is four...and the other two are not as relevant.

They did have busy wide roads to cross, the school is in the middle of a rough estate, 9yr olds smoking, that sort of thing,.

"If ss don't consider it appropriate for an eight year old to be making her own breakfast then they sure as hell wouldn't consider it appropriate that an eight year old walk to school on their own."

I find this very odd, an 8y old isn't deemed capable to make breakfast?

My 6 & 8y olds make their own breakfast every morning, I have taught them how to do it & they will make toast & cereal whislt I get myself & the baby ready for the school run.

I wouldn't let my 8y old walk alone because it's a busy area & if I saw 2 small children walking alone I would have walked at a distance behind them all the way to school.

Unwind, I tried on and off for an hour, it was engaged,.

"worst that can happen is that the children are older than they look"

No, the worst that can happen is that parents, knowing they live in a society that thinks any kind of doubt about a child's parenting warrants a call to SS are afraid to parent their children in ways that their bossy, nosy, over-protective neighbours disagree with.

The time to report to SS is when you have reason to suspect abuse or neglect, not because you have reason to doubt parenting choices.

If you're worried about what appear to be small children walking what appears to be a long way to school apparently alone, then talk to a teacher or call the school.

But don't outsource your judgement to social services. Report when you have a good reason.

Children were failed because people failed to fucking think, not because they didn't make thousands of nuisance calls to busy professionals.

Spid....I am not their neighbour.

I think it is neglect to allow such small children walk to school alone.

Right, next time I see things that worry me, I won't judge and will simply say everything is fine, turn my back ignore. OMG, that is much easier thanks guys! Cause it would have been much more difficult to get involved with relaying the whole senario to whoever and feeling really guilty about whatever and by ignoring, I've saved myself a whole bunch of shite!

"You think we should think more about the parents than a child at risk?"

This.

This is the root of all of this bullshit.

The idea that parents and their children have entirely different interests, and that parents must be presumed to be a risk to children and that strangers and social services must be presumed to be a positive influence.

I think you should think about more than your own crusading.

Your interest here is no more the children's welfare than the man in the fucking moon.

"Right, next time I see things that worry me, I won't judge and will simply say everything is fine, turn my back ignore."

Right, because there are only two possible options - call social services or ignore.

FFS

If you actually cared about the children I'm sure you could come up with a few other options that might be more effective.

TheSleepFairy I was just about to post the same thing. My 7 yo has been making her own and her sisters breakfast on a weekend for some time now. She comes down at god knows what ungodly hour, fetches a tray of yoghurt, fruit, cereal and juice cartons upstairs to her sister (3). They watch a DVD in their room, go back down stairs, get washed and dressed and then dd1 fills up the kettle and turns it on and comes to wake me up to tell me the kettle is boiling ready for me to make myself a coffee.

If what Wannabe says is true, then frankly I think it is absurd and it's little wonder that SS have the reputation they do.

WRT the children walking alone, I think, Op, you would have been better just waiting for the school to answer the phone. It was hardly that urgent that it couldn't wait another hour. But what is done is done and FWIW you probably did do the right thing in acting.

spidookly some parents are a risk to their children? ....