Banning the school run

[AElfgifu]

leading on from driving/walking thread, Gove suggests banning driving children to school.

All schools to be double red lined ( not stopping, unloading, pausing at all.)

all roads within half a mile of a school to be resident parking by permit only during school drop off or pick up time.

parents not allowed to park within half a mile of their school.

(Although most roads round here must be within half a mile of a school?)

Well, I'm not in charge of what they do and don't put on the website. P9 of the hard copy (imagine it's the late city edition), 8 paras single bottom right, headline 'Call for curb on school run to tackle child obesity'.

Why the fuck would I make it up?

Here 'tis:

Sounds like a money making scheme to me. Every street within 1/2 a mile will most probably need a permit so all residents with a car will need to fork out £x to pay for the privilege. Rip off Britain.

DD2 was very impressed by this idea.

"So my old primary has to buy a field for people to park. Then it closes 2/4 classes because of all the pupils who will have been run over by tractors, squashed by cows and kicked by horses"

She forgot the 40 ton trucks that thunder through the village as well.

What about the community centre/GP/church/shops/post office next to our sschool, which has a large amount of free parking. Will it just be parents who are forbidden to use these facilities or will the rest of the community be banned to? How will we distinguish between feckless parents on the school run and poorly adults on school run and popping into the surgery to see the gp afterwards?

You can't and parents would be banned from parking anywhere in the villages with DDs primary and senior school.

This isn't a policy anyone is seriously putting in place, just an idea that came out of an obesity conference, there are loads of ideas that come out of council conferences and are forgotten by next week. Mr O'Brien was also on about organising walking buses and putting in bike sheds, both of which many schools already do.

DS's school (in Kent) have had a walking bus from 1/2 mile away for years, parents drop kids off in a car park by the main road and then go rather than having to park and walk down the school drive then find somewhere to turn on the dead end road, so it helps with the congestion and gets the DC some exercise, it also means the parents that need it have a bit longer to get to work, that's all that's being suggested here.

I'm really surprised you don't have school buses. They've been the norm here for many years, long before I was born.

My middle son attends a charter school about 7 miles from home. He takes a bus, but occasionally I've had to drive him. Having to deal with the school drop-off is enough to drive me over the edge. I can't imagine anyone choosing to deal with that unless they had to.

For those who say it's a daft idea, what is your solution to the congestion outside the school gates?

Residents can't get in or out of their drives, DCs can't cross in safety because of selfish parking, parents with buggies can't negotiate the pavement in safety because of idiots parked half on/half off the road.

What is the solution?

Do parents have to park and walk the kids in at most schools? At my sons' schools, and at the elementary school at the end of my street, parents pull in to the school lot, drive up to the school sidewalk, the kids get out of the car, the parents pull away. The teachers wait on the sidwalk to make sure the kids get in safely.

For younger children, parents are required to go into school and wait until it's time to go in. DDs' school help a bit by staggering entry, so parents can drop in the classroom and run. Older years are allowed to wait on school premises until classrooms open.

This is a big change from when I went to infant school 35 years ago, when parents took to school gates and children just went in. To do with safeguarding children. When I went to school I do not think anyone even thought children would be unsafe to wait in their own in school premises.

All exacerbated by children often not attending the school most local to them.

at my dds primary school it's the opposite, parents are asked to leave the children at the bottom of the school path and not to actually come up into the playground/into the school building unless they have a particular need to do so.

I'm not sure this is quite the right answer, but I do think children should walk to school as the default and schools should provide adequate dropping off facilities (admittedly impractical in most cases). The people who park all over the place in most school roads are so inconsiderate of everyone else who needs to use it.

our primary is about a mile away, easily walkable. My problem is the weather. I'm in N Ireland, it rains a lot here. A lot. Even with waterproofs, there is a fair chance the kids would often arrive in school in wet clothes. It's an old school building with minimal space - if every child needed an entire change of clothes, or somewhere to store waterproofs and wellie boots, there just isn't anywhere. I detest the feeling of wet clothes, even if the hems of my trousers or the cuffs at my wrists get wet it makes me feel all agitated. The thought of arriving at school in damp clothes makes me feel shuddery.

How ridiculous, we live about a mile away from school, we used to walk to and from school most of the time but I now work every day about ten miles away so I have no choice but to park 5 mins away from school otherwise I'd be late for work. I usually have time to drop the car off at home and walk to pick them up, but this just isn't possible in the morning.
My children can't walk to school by themselves yet (7, 6 and 4) as they have to cross a very busy road. When eldest DC has gained more common sense I think I will let them walk by themselves. I would have thought most people have to rush off to work on a morning. I am very lucky as my job is school hours which allows me to take the kids to and from school and I don't have to pay for child care. Why would I want to pay for breakfast club in order to comply with a nonsensical law?

This is probably the first thing I haven't totally disagreed with Gove on!
There are so many cars outside DS's school and the vast majority of parents live no more than half a mile away - usually less if they're in catchment and a few possibly up to a mile if they're outside it.
I can't see how banning cars would work as residents may have people visiting them or deliveries.
Also in some cases parents are on their way to or from work or children may be picked up by grandparents or childminders who don't live locally.

I'm a teacher. I already hate Michael Gove. This just adds to my hatred. The man is a pompous twat.

Well bang goes my job, and the jobs of many other parents too (not just women_).

I can just about make it into town for 9 dropping the kids at breakfast club at 8. If I had to walk from school to station at 8 I wouldn't be catching the train till going on 9 and would be about an hour late for work. That's not gonna work is it.

Also much traffic and poor parking is unrelated to school. Markets, shopping centres, work all get people in their cars flagging the roads up and parking badly. Tackling the dependence on the car generally I could get in board with. This idea seems vicious though.

Rideronthestorm I agree that selfish school gate parking is a massive issue but surely if it's banned outside schools, the selfish parkers will just move elsewhere? If children are 'made' to walk 0.5 miles, you can bet your entire bank account contents (well not mine, there's sweet FA in there ) that the selfish arses will congregate at exactly 0.5 miles from the school.

What is needed is to look at each school individually, what the school run issues are and how to help clear that.

Each school is different and has different ways the problem could be solved whether that is providing more school transport, walking buses or allocating a local car park as the safe parking space. Along with more double yellow lines (and policing of them) to keep people away from the congestion areas.

here is a revolutionary idea: start school at a later age so that children can walk to school on their own. maybe 6/7 would be a good age.

problem (in many cases) solved.

kalie Have you read the whole thread?

Fifty lines, please:

This is not Gove. This is an obscure councillor.
This is not Gove. This is an obscure councillor.
This is not Gove. This is an obscure councillor.

And don't use cut and paste.

I loathe Gove too, but this is not his nonsense, it is SOB's nonsense.

No, mousmous many roads are unsafe for a seven-year-old.

mousmous, do you think all the cars at the school gate every morning have children under 7 in them?

The point with parking outside the school is the danger it poses to people crossing the road to get into the school. We hear a squeal of brakes at least once a week and one day contact will be made. It's a narrow lane and only just wide enough for 2 cars to pass each other.

The idiots at the school in our lane think nothing of parking on the zig zags for up to 20 minutes while waiting for a DC at the end of the day. Every morning and every evening someone (sorry to say always a woman) parks across our drive. When asked to move so we can get in/out they say they'll only be ten minutes! And get aggressive if we insist it has to be now. One woman said she had to park there because her daughter didn't like getting her hair wet.

There is a layby at the bottom of the lane and a church car park, plenty of room but they are too lazy to use them.

Last month DH caused total grid lock by stopping in the middle of the lane and indicating to turn into our drive while the dim-witted woman in her car pretended not to notice we were there. She moved eventually after everyone started sounding their horns.

The police some along and ticket them from time to time but they always come back.

It's illegal and dangerous but they don't give a stuff because they "have to get to work" as if that's more important than the safety of DCs.