WIBU to mention this to school?

[ChaosTrulyReigns]

Really concerned that I might br interfering where I shouldn't but also concerned that this isa safe-guarding issue.

So MN guide me please.

Have seen a young child walking home alone from school twice now. It's probably 500yards,no major roads to cross. But he's definitely younger than the age the school suggests they can walk home from after a parent school conference.

Now I don't know whether school have made a special exception in this case and so I'm butting in unnecessarily.

Or, no arrangement has been made and the school needs to be alerted. I don't feel comfortable speaking directly to this parent.

No it means people should report an actual problem.

walking a few metres when 8 year with no roads isn't a problem.

no wonder kids are stuck inside playing computer games all the time . what's the point of going to your friendly local school if your not going to enjoy the benefits of being so close and the freedom it gives you.

how do you expect them. To get anywhere under their own steam when they aren't allowed any freedom or chance at self sufficiency. He will be on buses to secondary in no time.

500 yards? you couldn't park that close to my dc school, so I should imagine the area is crawling with children and parents anyway?

we live less than 200 years from school (one very busy crossing maned by crossing guard) and ds, year 3 is not allowed to leave alone, despite making his own way to school. Ds in year 5 collects him and apparently this is acceptable! We live across the road, always have. Dc understand road safety, best place to cross etc - bizarre.

Op- You are infantilising your own child by never letting them go anywhere alone at age 8/9.
9 seems to be the new 3!

When you're immersed in your own primary school culture, it's difficult to see whether a different approach is reasonable, hence the OP's question. At my small local school, children arriving/leaving unaccompanied is officially 'allowed' from Y3 up, but on the quiet it's very much frowned upon by both staff and parents, so hardly any child below Y6 actually does so. Playing outside is seen as a completely separate thing, and parental supervision is minimal even from a very young age.
By contrast, at the much bigger school DS1 attended, it was commonplace for children to travel alone from age 5, even though the distances involved were much greater, but I seldom saw any of his classmates playing alone outside school.
Both of my DC found their way to secondary school unaided, incidentally, in spite of these contrasting approaches to pupil independence.

A Yr 3 child is probably coming on for 8; it very much depends on the child I'd say.

One of my boys I let walk to the post box age 7/8 or half of the way to school as I walked (far) behind with younger children, now aged 9 he's allowed to cross a busy-ish road to go to the Coop if I give permission.

My other son who will be 8 in a couple of weeks isn't quite so sensible, he looses focus and get caught in daydreams so I wouldn't have given him quite so much responsibility but I think a short walk with no crossing big roads would be a good start.

I would imagine there is someone waiting for the child at the end of the walk from school who would come and find them if they took an unexpectedly long time.

Its - I am not mistaken. Organisations dealing with children IME keep all complaints, however ridiculous, on record. I also found it quite chilling that although the complaint to the school was only about my giving packed lunches instead of hot dinners to DC1, the school on receiving that complaint took it upon themselves to call me in on a pretext and then file a report on DC1's file about how I interacted with DC2 (too young for school). Any kind of complaint whatever, in this case anonymous and ridiculous, is interpreted in a "no smoke without fire" way, and that kind of suspicion changes the relationship between parent and school.
I have never suggested that one should never inform a school of a concern about a child. I have on the contrary said that I would do so myself, if the concern were both reasonably held and serious, and I had no good reason to believe that the school or Social Services were already aware of it. But I do think that parents should be very careful about complaining about other parents over a difference in parenting style, as is being discussed on this thread. Personally I think it's a good thing that parents bring up their children differently, so that we're not a nation of clones.

One of my children is tiny. So tiny that the other week we bumped into a four year old taller than him. My son is 8 1/2. I live about 500m from school and I let him walk home, go to the park, go to local shop etc.
Usually I collect from school, cross the road with them and then he does his own thing. If he buys a snack in the shop, he gives me his bag and buggers off to the park. Otherwise he walks with me, or with a random friend, home to get his processed sugary fix, and then buggers off to park.
I've let him play in the park on his own since he was six, and I would LOVE the chance to challenge any busybody with actual facts about child safety but, of course, people like to make tutting sounds and rely on the Daily Mail.
Children need independence. Parents are best able to judge if their own child's capabilities and set their own rules.

9bluedolphins- there is more to that story. If you are sure there isn't, then ask the school for a copy of the file concerned, and insist that anything irrelevant is removed. Or insist that your own account of the incident is added.

My child walked home at age 8, it is very close. He's lived to tell the tale and it helped me massively at the time for various reasons. In our school its only year 1 and year 2 that are not allowed by school entirely because some kids live so very near and our school consider it to be up to parents. Actually year 1 and 2 can walk with permission as some of them literally just cross with the lollypop lady.

9bluedolphin
so the issue on file is about your treatment of your pre-schooler?

Hak - there were many more malicious things done by the same person elsewhere and on different occasions in what was a long campaign lasting several years after we had moved to a different city. I went to the police over it a couple of times, but she did everything anonymously or using a false name, over the internet with a made up identity, etc. She was a psychopath, as far as I can make out. But as far as her actions towards that particular school went, she only complained about her having seen my DC carrying a packed lunch bag, which demonstrated that she was eating packed lunches instead of school dinners. The school took it upon themselves to construe this as a general complaint of neglect, and to bring me in to observe me with my younger DC. They also elected not to tell me about the anonymous complaint about the packed lunches.
The DC is no longer at the school, and is flourishing at secondary, so the existence of the paperwork is not relevant to us now.

On Mumsnet, as in RL, if you mention this kind of thing having happened to you people suspect that you were at fault, no smoke without fire, etc. But some people focus on children as a form of attack - it's very effective.

I used to walk over a mile to school. And back. I crossed main roads en route too. How old was I? I was six. But this was in 1948 and I certainly wasn't the only kid of my age walking to school. Not much traffic then and not so much parental anxiety about 'strangers' trying to entice kids into their clutches then, although of course they were around. I did almost get run over by a bus once - driver did a fantastic emergency stop and yelled at me. I scuttled away and thought I'd got away with it, but a passenger on the bus knew my parents and dobbed me in. I got spanked.

As for OP's worries, if the parents, and the school are OK about this, then perhaps she should let it go. Sounds a pretty short, and safe, distance for the child to walk.