Children walking to school on their own

[Outofwater]

Since March I have been letting my two DC walk to their state primary school on their own some days. The DC1 is 9 (turns 10 in six weeks) and DC2 is 8.5. Both are fairly responsible children - never in trouble in school. They've been attending the same school since reception.

The location is inner suburb. The distance walked is about 400m. The first 200m or so is to the end of our road of terraced houses (without proper gardens, i.e. front doors of the houses are a couple of metres from the pavement) to a T-junction with a secondary high street. The next 150m is along the high street which has cafes, hairdressers, church, pizza, gym, then turn into the street the school is on (the school is not on the high street but is immediately behind the shops IYSWIM). It takes them 7-10 minutes, depending on how fast they walk and long they have to wait for the pedestrian crossing (see below). The school has a very small catchment (one form entry) and so most children live quite close.

This evening DP and I received the following email from their headmistress (paraphrased and abbreviated):

"It has been brought to my attention that DC1 and DC2 are, on occasion, walking to school on their own. This has raised concern for a couple of reasons. Firstly, we do allow Year 5 children to travel to school on their own, but ask that parents let us know, in case a child doesn't arrive. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, we are worried that DC1 is responsible for DC2, who is too young to be travelling to school without an adult. This raises safeguarding concerns."

I had a similar sort of walk to school in a fairly similar setting in the European country where I grew up. At DC1's age I also taking my younger sister with whom there was a much bigger age gap (3.5 years rather than 1.5 years) and going to her school first, dropping her off, and then going to my school.

I think given the ages of the girls the email is a bit over the top, particularly the bit about leaving D1 responsibility for D2. There's only 17 months between them and it's common for people to think they're twins. There is obviously a maturity gap between them but (unlike my childhood experience) it's very much two sisters walking to school together compared with one taking the other to school.

TBH I wouldn't be comfortable with either DC walking to school on their own but I'm much more relaxed about them walking together. I looked on the school website for policies and read everything that is there - but there is nothing about journey to school. I'm sure if I asked I would be told that it is "generally understood" or was in a newsletter that I got at some stage in the year.

I spoke with both DCs about the email and DC2 suggested the headmistress had sent the email to cover herself from liability (DC2 is a cynical one).

I'm fine to bring the DCs to school everyday but I really wanted to give them the sense of independence that I got walking on my own. If the school won't let DC2 walk to school until Y5 DC1 will have gone to secondary so DC1 and DC2 will never get the chance to walk to school on their own. I do think the email is a bit OTT, especially the reference to safeguarding which I read as the implicit threat of being reported to social services if I don't do what they tell me.

The better part of me says to just suck it up and accept it and that's what I will do. However, I wanted to get thoughts on whether I am way out of line with social norms.

I do wonder this, especially when I see comments about very young children walking to school on their own in other countries.

DS's (large) primary school was relatively easy for him to walk to alone, but he did have to cross 3 roads though admittedly the only main road did have a zebra crossing. The catchment area though included children who simply would not have been able to walk on their own as even for me alone the walk was 30 minutes plus taking a route that wasn't straightforward. Hence the sheer number of cars dropping off children made it less easy for any to walk alone who were close enough.

@newname12345 In my town (abroad) the catchment area is the entire town as there's only one school (except for one small school in the centre of town for the first and second graders in that end of town) so children can have a fairly long walk/bike to school of up to 5km (after that they're entitled to free minibus) but still manage it alone. Luckily none of the roads in town are incredibly busy with cars and its allowed to cycle on the (wide) pavements so quite safe journeys.

Another side of this is the kid picks up on your fear, they believe the world is a nasty scary place and they then don’t have the confidence to do things independently.

Our school dismiss from P3 (age 7) onwards without needing to hand over to a parent. Most still collect in P3 but basically none do in P4

Cars take no notice of pedestrian crossings???
Don’t be ridiculous!

@Pottedpalm the fear mongering on this thread is insane. Of course every parent has to safeguard their dc and risk assess. Sadly, many kids in year 6 will never be able to walk to school by themselves due to the location of the school, e.g. too much traffic or they live too far away and have to be driven.

Letting NT 9 and 10 year olds run small grand such as walking to a nearby grocery store or walking to school or their friends' house if it's not far and the streets are relatively safe is fine. This might of course not be possible or safe if a child has additional needs or someone lives by the motorway or in a very isolated location.

Children in the UK have the lowest levels of life satisfaction across Europe, with “a particularly British fear of failure” partly to blame, according to a major report into childhood happiness. www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/aug/28/fear-of-failure-giving-uk-children-lowest-happiness-levels-in-europe

A bit of independence is vital to building self confidence and self efficacy and kids love to feel that they are doing things by themselves. At 10 years most kids should be able to navigate the local neighbourhood and may 9 year olds will be able to do this too.

I'd much rather let 9-11 year olds walk places and have a bit of time away from parental supervision outdoors than giving them a phone and letting them watch YT all day.

@Pottedpalm

In some locations, they really dont.
In my town, everyone stops at the one outside Tesco. No problem there.

But the one outside the highschool is just on the top of a hill. Drivers come up the hill, just level out on the flat and there is the pedestrian crossing. They come flying up that hill. I got clipped on the crossing. I was crossing, car was about half way up the hill. They just kept on coming really fast, and I ran to get off it they clipped me. A child from the high school was knocked down a fee weeks ago. These stories happen every few weeks in this town.

Obviously lots of people do stop, but a huge number of drivers just fly through it whether someone is crossing or not. Council wont do a thing until someone is killed.

Absolutely!

Kids where I live in the UK can walk home from school in the last term of year 4 in preparation for walking to and from school in year 5 ( change to middle school) school automatically rings if they aren't there for register. 90%of kids here walk.

My eldest started walking to school in year 5 when he was 9.5. Until then I had walked with him and he never used to paid attention to the roads or anything else around him because I was with him. I was apprehensive about letting him navigate his own way to school but as soon as he started he was much calmer and less hyper. I followed him a few times without him knowing and I could see for myself that he paid attention when crossing roads, having to be responsible for himself really focused his mind.

@Pottedpalm - sometimes they don't, no. I stood and watched a massive lorry run the red light/green man the other day in our village. It's at the bottom of a hill and he was coming down far too fast, guess he just didn't see it in time. He tried to brake and did slow down but just barrelled on through. Luckily it was the middle of the day as that is the main crossing for the primary school.

Saying that, I do let my kids (11 and 8) walk themselves to school every now and then as they are sensible kids and the vast majority of the 7 minute walk is down quiet residential streets with just that one main road crossing (which is supposed to be 20mph) at the end. Its down to personal risk assessment in the end really.

English schools have such a different attitude to Scottish schools. In my leafy suburban area lots of children aged 8.5 are walking to school in small groups or with siblings. It's totally normal. School would not and do not ever comment on how a child gets to/from school. Only the youngest - 5 year olds - are brought to the door by the teacher. The rest are dismissed and off they go.

And this isn't in a wee Scottish Katie Morag style island with 6 people and a few sheep. It's the edge of a large city.

I would be telling the Head that you have risk assessed the journey, @Outofwater and that you are perfectly happy that there is no "safeguarding issue" whatsoever.

I think it's fine and none of the schools business really. How can they enforce policies outside of their grounds?

I walked to school without an adult from 7 taking my 5 year old brother with me! I wouldn't think that suitable now but we weren't alone - there were a huge group of us kids that all walked together.

I think the school wants to ensure they're not liable so I'd suggest writing to them and confirming that as the parent this is your decision and you agree the school aren't liable if they don't turn up.

But they absolutely do have a right to dictate what happens on their grounds.
so our school has the rule that under y5 you must be accompanied by an adult after entering the car park / pedestrian gates. You are not permitted to let your child walk in to the playground alone. So how they get to the roadside gate I guess the school can’t do much about but they won’t let them walk into school alone.
This stops anyone under y5 walking alone. They also won’t release your child until y5 alone.
They are very very strict about this rule for everyone

@Silverswirl And they’d have absolutely no way of enforcing it if a parent pushed it without specific safeguarding concerns relating to that child’s journey to or from school

They simply rely on parents accepting that they are “very very strict”

www.autoevolution.com/news/children-misjudge-speed-of-cars-33123.html

Research showing primary children can’t accurately judge speed of traffic. Crossing a busy road unaccompanied age 8 would be a no for me.

They would have rights once the child is on school grounds. They would also have rights when releasing a child from their care I would imagine.
No school is going to agree to do something which they genuinely consider a direct risk to that child.
The rules are set and told to you before you child joins the school. You have to sign a contract stating amongst other things that you agree for your child to wear the correct uniform and follow the policy’s such as entering and leaving school grounds with a parent or guardian.
If you repeatedly did not follow these rules (particularly around safety of the child) things would be taken further and arrangements would be made. If no arrangements and agreements could be reached with the parents, the child would no longer be able to attend our school ultimately. Would be a long drawn out process and every effort would be made to accommodate but at the end of the day if the school thinks you are putting your child at risk (and ours deem letting children enter school unaccompanied under y5 a risk) then further steps will be taken.

I imagine the school would back down long before the children got kicked out of school as I image if ended up in court the parents would win because its not schools place to dictate how the kids arrive at school.

Obviously that's a very extreme cases i imagine at least one party would backdoor long before that.

That's why the rule for my daughter has always been that you don't cross the road when there are cars moving. She can only cross when there are no cars in sight, or cars have come to a complete stop at the zebra crossing.

ChocolateBonBon · 29/04/2022 08:25
@Pottedpalm the fear mongering on this thread is insane. Of course every parent has to safeguard their dc and risk assess. Sadly, many kids in year 6 will never be able to walk to school by themselves due to the location of the school, e.g. too much traffic or they live too far away and have to be driven.

Letting NT 9 and 10 year olds run small grand such as walking to a nearby grocery store or walking to school or their friends' house if it's not far and the streets are relatively safe is fine. This might of course not be possible or safe if a child has additional needs or someone lives by the motorway or in a very isolated location.

Children in the UK have the lowest levels of life satisfaction across Europe, with “a particularly British fear of failure” partly to blame, according to a major report into childhood happiness. www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/aug/28/fear-of-failure-giving-uk-children-lowest-happiness-levels-in-europe

A bit of independence is vital to building self confidence and self efficacy and kids love to feel that they are doing things by themselves. At 10 years most kids should be able to navigate the local neighbourhood and may 9 year olds will be able to do this too.

I'd much rather let 9-11 year olds walk places and have a bit of time away from parental supervision outdoors than giving them a phone and letting them watch YT all day.

I would totally agree. I'm rural and the kids can get on the school bus but I go down a couple of times a week and my 9 and 11 yo go off with friends, walk to the shop, head to the park. I have a coffee and they know where I am. It feels like a massive jump to high school if they've never managed to be independant.

Natsku In a quiet area that sounds sensible doable but Op is in London I think. If her children did that they’d never get to school. Plus in London you always get bikes and courier type motorbikes that carry on even if cars stop (not saying just London but something I really notice if I go for a day)

I'll be honest I was about to say that school were being unreasonable but actually I thought back to when I was younger and myself are my older sister were walking home and we got stopped by the school bully. She was 12 and told her where to go but I was terrified!! I have kids close in age to yours and they can't walk home from school anyway but the thought of them coming up on somebody who is anyway dodgy, not in terms of snatching or anything, more someone hassling them ... it's just not great! Also whether you think the older is responsible for the younger or not, they are really, they know more, and have more sense. It's up to you of course!

Good point, didn't think about how traffic never stops in London, scares me to cross the road there even as an adult! I know I wouldn't feel comfortable letting my child cross a busy London road alone unless its a traffic light crossing, though OP will know how busy, or not, the road in question is.

My dc's junior school has no policy on walking to or from at all. Most children walk a short distance to parents (no space to wait at the gates), year 6s often walk in groups, but not many younger than that.
When my oldest was in year 6, middle in year 3, they walked. It's about 40 minute walk, but only one busy road to cross. I let them because:

1. There were always plenty of parents around to help if something had gone wrong (and also I would get reports back if things were going wrong-the only time that happened was when one of dd1's friends decided to join them and it wasn't them that were the problem)


2. DD1 was very sensible and dd2 was keen to walk so would do as she was told


3. I put a cheap mobile phone in the bottom of dd1's bag in case of emergencies

I didn't let dd2 and ds walk alone at the same ages because their characters were very different!
The road down to the school is very busy (and parent driving is dreadful) so they were under strict instructions to keep on the inner part of the pavement. It's a fairly urban area so lots of cars, but that has the advantage too that at no point would they be totally unseen by everyone.

We also went through different scenarios (eg normal route road blocked)

I didn't let dd2 and ds walk alone at the same ages because their characters were very different!

that’s the key to the whole thing.

School’s want to have a policy that covers the worst possible situation, which is understandable in their position, but it’s not good for children as individuals. That kind of policy also doesn’t take into account the fact that teaching staff in schools very often don’t d
know the area as well as parents do.

all of the schools locally (apart from Dds) have a blanket Year 4 wish - which is nonsense considering the location and catchment of two of them.