Should schools be telling parents to walk kids to school?

[bellamountain]

This isn't an argument for the environment or to keep kids fit but to stop the roads around schools becoming so dangerously congested and for parents who do need to drive their kids, to be able to do so and not have to battle for parking. I take the kids to school and then have to shoot off to work, any one doing the same and the car is essential. However, the majority of the mums at my school do not work, they could easily walk their kids the relatively short distance but choose not too. They all have huge cars and all aim to get as close to the school as possible, it makes crossing the road dangerous, even with a one way system in place enforced by the school. Parents also sitting in their cars with the engines idling with the heater or air con. I'll be the first to admit that I love my car and I couldn't live without it, but when I'm not at work I walk to school and back. It's far less stressful yet the same parents clog the roads every day. I swear it's a pissing contest sometimes to flaunt who has the nicest car and this is a state school!

Honestly, I can’t get worked up about it.

before we moved I would drive to school even though I could have walked…. I’m lazy and mornings are rushed and stressful enough without allowing 3x as long to walk instead.

now we live opposite the school and walk there in 2 minutes. Loads of parents park on our street and it gets chaotic etc but they’re doing nothing wrong. Their choice.

the only things that bother me with school runs are people driving / parking dangerously. We gets daily occurrences of not stopping at the crossing, parking on the zigzags etc. that annoys me.

I have never been to a school that had resolved the issue and I’ve been to loads of schools as an advisory teacher.

The school my brother's children went to did, but the head made it really difficult to not do it.

I can't remember the exact details but something like parents were allowed to park in the playground but were not allowed in before a set time and their children were not allowed out of the car. All cars had to be reverse parked so facing the same way.

When school opened to the children the gate to the playground was locked, children allowed out of cars and into school.

I'm not sure what they did with walking parents / children because this was a long time ago. I assume there was a another gate just for pedestrians.

Once the children were in school the school doors were locked and the gate opened to allow parents out.

At the end of the day the gate was unlocked, again parents had to reverse park and wait in their cars, the gate was locked, children allowed out and into cars, once all children are in cars or collected the gate was unlocked to let the cars out.

The reason for the reverse parking was so that children would always be in the driver's sight if they were not in a car.

Obviously it meant staff hat to patrol the parking and open / close gates.

Unless your street is the first Street not closed and all the cars are just stopped in the road blocking people in and stopping us getting in and out. It's carnage, so badly thought out

My kids go to a welsh school which has a bigger catchment area. It's approx 30 minutes walk away, the gates open at 8:50 and my husband and I both start work at 9 so it just wouldn't work if ours did it, I hope they don't get any ideas lol

Yes that would be a highly responsible response. Driving is a privilege, not a right - something people would be well advised to remember when moaning about cyclists.

I agree with the OP - if you can walk, walk. And no, you don't need to drive if you get there 45 minutes before school pick up and sit there with your engine running (this actually happens, I see it most days as I live near a primary school).

Each area and school catchment will be different, but where I live people categorically do not need to drive.

That leads on to 'why can't you drop the kids off and then walk back for your car?', though - and you'll reply with a list of justifications why it is more important for you to have your car than anybody else, just like those other women will.

We walked. Got us there faster than those who drove. The only difficulty was the wait for the bus to go to work because the roads were gridlocked with others in their cars.

Our school encourages it. I sometimes pick DD up in the car though if I've been at work but she walks to school with her dad. They get awards I think if they walk every day

While essentially I do agree with you I do have to laugh at the bit where you say you are allowed to drive as you are going onto work but the rest of the slackers should all walk as they've got oodles of time what with being SAHMs. Hmmm.

'AIBU for driving kids to school because I'm important and busy but the great unwashed should be banned from doing this as they not as important as me?'

Yes everyone should be strongly encouraged to walk if that's possible. But people do want suits them for convenience. I kid you not but my elder DD has a less than 10 min walk to secondary school and the family up the street who have a 16 Yr old at the same school drive and collect her each day. It's bloody madness! My DD laughs because she usually arrives home at the same time as them.

I agree.

Schools should focus on TEACHING (which they often do quite poorly) and stop using up staff time nagging parents about what happens offsite.

If the streets are congested with unsafe driving, then that is a matter for local residents to raise with the Parish Council, who have a public monthly meeting and the power to get parking rules changed. It has nothing to do with the school.

Also sitting in the car with engine running is ILLEGAL unless you’re in a traffic jam. Causes huge pollution. Suggest you start a poster campaign or screenshot and report to local police.

But as far as I can see the OP’s suggestion is that she is so busy and important she is entitled to drive to school, but the time of SAHPs is in her view a trivial thing and they should be told not to drive. To which I say: my time is just as important to me as yours is to you.

@Lavenderlast sadly parish councils do not have that level of autonomy. They can however work with residents, schools and communities to lobby District/Borough and County Councils(who have a remit for highways) for traffic restrictions and pedestrian areas.

The only way to change this is sticks not carrots. People will drive if it's most convenient for them, and they won't if it isn't.

Families round us would, literally, drive 200 yards to school. Now they'd have to park 100 yards away from the gate, and turn in the road to get back again. So guess what, they walk.

Families w kids who cannot walk, can drive into the closed area (it's camera-enforced), so it's not 100% car-free. But the transformation is AMAZING.

They've done this at one of the other local schools too, but have also blocked through-traffic on that road completely with a permanent barrier. One single bollard has not only transformed that road, but the whole area around. It's irritating for people who want to drive, but hey, once you're in a car, you're sitting in an armchair with surround sound, and if it takes you 10 minutes more to get somewhere, that's no big hardship.

I think, most people who live within walking distance already do walk where possible. There are always a large proportion of parents who either need to get to work straight after, or live too far away. It does depend on the school's catchment and reputation, as schools with a good reputation get more parents travelling from much further afield.

@Beepbopblop Gosh, that sounds exhausting 😂There were 60 kids a year at the kids school when they were in primary, and apart from about 5 per year where the kids were close, whilst I said hello and exchanged playdates with others, I still didn't know about what they all did, and very few knew about what I did. Didn't even know all the kids names in the year group, never-mind the school or all their parents!

@worriedatthistime this is it, I know that a lot of people have always assumed I'm a SAHM - I work very flexibly from home and did a lot of volunteering at the school so I had a lot of 'it's alright for you' type conversations - none of them knew that I'd sit at my laptop early mornings/evenings/weekends to get things done.

YABU and entitled

We live a 20 minute walk from school, lots of who live on this estate drive. We usually walk/scoot/bike because I enjoy the walk and I wfh and mostly don't need to go to work afterwards. Sometimes I drive because of the weather, or we are running late, or like today where DS1 sprained his ankle, or because I need to go somewhere else straight after - whether it be to see my mum, an appointment, or yes even just a coffee date with a friend. It's not up to anyone else to police how we get to school and whether my reasons are "good enough" to warrant a car journey.

I do feel for the residents in the nearby streets as it can get congested, particularly as the school has expanded in recent years so it's much busier than they used to be.

lots of parents, that should say

So what about other people who want to use those roads? Eg residents returning home or needing to go out, their visitors, delivery drivers etc

Go round 🤷‍♀️

Schools can and do encourage it. On days when I worked I would park 3 or 4 street away as 1) other parents parked like numpties and 2) DS got a sticker if he arrived on a scooter/walking.

On days where I worked from home then we walked/scooted the whole way.

(to be fair, I think existing school streets schemes usually have exemptions for people living ON the road that’s closed, or their carers, etc. But 95% of “anyone who might want to use that road” doesn’t fall into that category and so is temporarily blocked by design, because if everyone who might want to use it did, you just get the current situation.)

lol this thread is gold! OP should be able to drive because she has a GOOD REASON but all the other people with perfectly good reasons should walk, because how could they possibly be as busy and important as OP??

My friend used to drive her kid to school (then on to work). She lived in the actual school road. One time she actually had to park further away than her house.

I can never ever get over that.

I am so glad I don't have to drive my child to school, or drive to work! It's stressful, expensive, and unhealthy...

At our school, iit's been "walk to school week". Which is great but impossible when dropping off and collecting children, based at two different schools. I used to walk them, but the different schools make it impossible.

Most schools do, ours has a walk to school incentive scheme for the kids. However, schools have no control over how parents decide to get the kids there, where they park or how they drive!

Ha, let's add reorganising the streets American style to the almost endless list of non-educational tasks for schools to do. Maybe they should just stop lessons altogether and deal with all the peripheral problems.