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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Aibu to ask when and why it became the norm for schools not to allow juniors to make their own way home?

335 replies

RedHelenB · 02/04/2022 04:03

Seems they need parents to collect them from the class teacher up until y5 or 6 now, whereas a few years ago my dc orimary school.Just let them out at hometime and stonewalled home, somewhere collected by older siblings and some by oarents. Just one staff member by the junior entrance.

OP posts:
AHungryCaterpillar · 02/04/2022 16:15

Well I reckon most parents would just turn up or get someone else to collect the child rather than letting ss get involved.

JustLyra · 02/04/2022 16:38

@AHungryCaterpillar

Well I reckon most parents would just turn up or get someone else to collect the child rather than letting ss get involved.
That’s what schools rely on.

SS don’t get involved btw. Never in my entire adult life have I heard of them getting involved purely because someone wants their child to walk to or from school.

I do know of two head teachers told, firmly, by SS to stop wasting their time though.

Amymegandbethandjo · 02/04/2022 16:40

@JustLyra is correct.

Cabbagepie · 02/04/2022 16:45

In the 60's I walked home from school from age 6. It was a short distance and there was no traffic to speak of - only one car in our street for.most of my primary school yearsp. We also knew all our neighbours and people kept an eye on one anothers kids. We used to be able to play out all day, coming home when we were hungry. My neice lives on the same road now and would not consider letting her girls out on their own. The traffic is the main concern - it's horrendous. Locally when I collect my grandchildren the school now have a member of staff at the gate to try and discourage parents pulling onto the pavements to avoid the double yellow lines and zigzags.

yellowsuninthesky · 02/04/2022 16:46

@AHungryCaterpillar

Well I reckon most parents would just turn up or get someone else to collect the child rather than letting ss get involved.
Not easy if you have to work to keep a roof over your head.

Not the school's business. Not social services business either. it's clearly not dangerous if it's fine in other countries. We're just a bit mad in the UK - I guess horrible cases like the Moors and Soham murders haven't helped, but other countries doubtless have comparable awful cases but still take a common sense view.

yellowsuninthesky · 02/04/2022 16:47

The traffic is the main concern - it's horrendous

it's chicken and egg though. If more people walked to and from school (or cycled) there would be less traffic.

AHungryCaterpillar · 02/04/2022 16:54

I said most parents won’t want to risk that not all, my sister use to be late occasionally to pick her son up from school because of work and she asked for him to be able to come home alone but he wasn’t allowed, they told her if she was ever late again even by a minute they would report her to ss and yes they did say that. Most parents won’t want to take the risk of being reported whether ss would do anything I think people can’t say for certain they won’t.

Abraxan · 02/04/2022 16:54

I went to school in the 70s and 80s.
It wasn't the norm here for children at the first school to walk home alone.

Children started to walk home alone from middle school which we went to in what is now year 5, so age 9+

This is pretty much what the nearby junior does now though.

I didn't go to school in a cosseted area either - you're very average state school in a mainly council house area.

Abraxan · 02/04/2022 16:57

I joined middle school aged 9 in 1982
Was at first school, from what I remember pretty much every one was picked up, don't know any when weren't, in the mid ti late 70s.

Amymegandbethandjo · 02/04/2022 16:59

I don’t actually think primary school aged children should be walking to and from school without an adult, but it doesn’t change the fact that this isn’t the schools call to make.

SartresSoul · 02/04/2022 17:00

Same at my DC’s school and I think it’s perfectly sensible. My DD’s just started walking home alone this year, they’re year 5 and 6. We live in a small town so there’s only one ‘main road’ and it really isn’t that busy. Eldest has a phone as well if they need anything on the way home but they never have. No one in year 6 goes home with parents, they’re getting ready for high school.

AHungryCaterpillar · 02/04/2022 17:10

Don’t parents with younger Kids still pick up the older ones then? My son will be year 6 next year but I have a child in reception so will still be picking him up as would be at the school anyway...

Amymegandbethandjo · 02/04/2022 17:11

I don’t think anyones suggesting you are wrong to do that - but people saying the school can decide for parents are wrong.

TooManyPJs · 02/04/2022 17:21

[quote RewildingAmbridge]@TooManyPJs 😁 I feel very old, started school/nursery in the eighties by the time I was actually year six it was actually 1995/6[/quote]
I’m even older. There was no year 6 when I was at school. Finished 4th year primary in 1984!

Tbf I still feel like the millennium was a few years ago, maybe 10 at most! Lol!

CarryonCovid · 02/04/2022 17:25

Don’t parents with younger Kids still pick up the older ones then? My son will be year 6 next year but I have a child in reception so will still be picking him up as would be at the school anyway...

Could the yr6 walk the reception child home ?

AHungryCaterpillar · 02/04/2022 17:26

@CarryonCovid

Don’t parents with younger Kids still pick up the older ones then? My son will be year 6 next year but I have a child in reception so will still be picking him up as would be at the school anyway...

Could the yr6 walk the reception child home ?

No they have to be 16
Amymegandbethandjo · 02/04/2022 17:29

NO THEY DON’T!

CarryonCovid · 02/04/2022 17:32

Oh my yr 6 took his yr 3 sister home.

JustLyra · 02/04/2022 17:33

No they have to be 16

That's a myth.

AHungryCaterpillar · 02/04/2022 17:35

myth? the school have told me this. Whether or not they can’t “technically” stop you is something I won’t get into with them as I do believe ss would be concerned about a 10 year old taking a 4 year old home alone so not going to go against the schools rules.

JustLyra · 02/04/2022 17:35

It's amazing how much schools have hoodwinked people into believing that they are the ones totally in charge.

Especially when you consider that so many school staff don't even live in the area they teach in so are not best placed to judge.

ImInStealthMode · 02/04/2022 17:35

Society has changed. I started at a village primary school in 1987 and don't remember being walked either there or back after year 1 or 2.

For all the kids on our estate there was only one main road to cross (with a lollipop lady) and the rest was footpath straight there. There was always other parents about taking younger ones to nursery or reception but largely we all walked there and back on our own.

You'd have been a laughing stock to have a parent collect you after Year 3 Blush

Thinking about it everyone was on foot too. Literally everyone. Aside from the teachers car park there was no parking, not even on-street, anywhere near the school. Crazy days!

JustLyra · 02/04/2022 17:38

@AHungryCaterpillar

myth? the school have told me this. Whether or not they can’t “technically” stop you is something I won’t get into with them as I do believe ss would be concerned about a 10 year old taking a 4 year old home alone so not going to go against the schools rules.
Given how difficult it is to get SS involvement for neglect that people would be shocked at I can assure you the chances of them getting involved in a couple of kids walking home from school are virtually nil.

You have the choice not to tell the school that's what you are doing if you do wish. But it is not their call. No matter how many times you say it is.

Amymegandbethandjo · 02/04/2022 17:40

@AHungryCaterpillar - you have made that decision, as parent.

Should your view differ to that of the school, then your wishes are the overriding ones, not that of the school.

Original poster
RedHelenB · 02/04/2022 18:05

@lljkk

when Madeleine McCann broke -- yes, really, that was the moment. That's when it changed at DC school for yr3s & yr4s. Suddenly they couldn't be released into playground any more without an adult to collect them. My youngest is now yr9 so I am out of touch with primary but wouldn't surprise me if 'No parent no release' was the rule. for yr5-6 now.

High school discos, the yr7s & yr8s (age 11-13) can't leave at 8:30pm without a parent to sign them out.

That could well be it. I was wondering why the change. Although leaving a 3 year old asleep with 2 younger siblings in an unlocked apartment seems miles away from any " dangers " of 7\ 8 year olds walking a well known route home, or even being treated as responsible enough to go back inside to the teacher in the door if their paremt/ carer hadn't come for them.
OP posts:
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