To think 11 is not too young to travel on a train alone?

[Tellmeifimwrong]

Please settle a debate! Happy to hear all opinions.

Is 11 years old, starting y7 in Sept, too young to take a one hour train journey, without parents but with a slightly younger child? Put on at one end by an adult and met at the other end by an adult, with a phone and data, and train staff informed? No behavioural problems or SEN.

You do realise that having dropped your 16 year old off at their declared destination you have no idea where they then go, unless of course you then stalk them!

That reminds me, at age 15, when I got dropped off at a friend's house for a sleepover, and went on to a party from there...

I knew two teens who went to a rock concert, one set of parents thought they were at the other girls house.

Mum 1 phoned mum 2 to ask about collecting her DD,
Mum2 not aware mum1 didn't know about the concert said she was just going to collect them from the station. Which then opened a load of questions
They'd made it to concert, were nearly back before the cover was blown!

well yes, but I think it is hard to remember that you couldn't just phone internationally in the same way.
This was 1970s and in all my time at boarding school I never spoke to my parents on the phone. I am trying to remember if they could phone on my birthday, but I can't.
They were in a country with poor phones and they wouldn't have had any way to contact the departing airport or Cairo or even necessarily the airline. NO gogle for phone numbers remember!

I think it's very unfair/neglectful to expect them to be responsible for a younger child.

The schools around us who have staff at bus stops supervising are there because of complaints about the behaviour of the kids. It is also why Community Support Officers sometimes pop down. It is not about the safety of the kids, it is to stop kids attacking and verbally abusing the public.

That's scary - really scary.
I don't remember much about to 70s but I remember issues trying to call Canada in the early 80s it being really expensive and not always easy to get the international line.

My mind is blown by the idea of putting kids on a flights and the airline effectively loosing them - like a lost parcel!! 😲 😱

Supervising trains and buses:

I said it was a thing for primary school, because on offcial school buses, (not public transport) in rural areas you can have 4 and 5 year olds on the bus accessing the nearest school.
There is a bus supervisor. Not necessarily a trained person or a school TA but an adult.
Those schools that have primary school buses usually do have to have a TA supervising drop off at school due to the young age of kids.

That does not apply at secondary.

I can assure you that most of the teachers in secondary schools are not rolling in on the same train as kids at 8:40. When I was teaching my contract stipulated that I had to be there 30 minutes before kids arrive, and after they finished. Most staff are in school well before 8am.

I also know that many teachers would refuse to do this. There is no way I would want to do this as a teacher.
Random number of kids getting off a public train and then supervising them on to a bus. No. You don't know how many kids there should be, you can't count them on (how many off sick today?) You don't know if some have stayed on the train that has now departed, or snuck off to have a fag behind the station.
Honestly it is a logistically nightmare and there is no way I would want to be responsible for it.
You said something about 'part of their extra currilular activities' That isn't actually a thing. All extra curricular activities are run at the goodwill of the teacher and not in their contract.

But I am sure some academy has decided to spend their money on it and persuade their teachers to join in. There are always some.

😂😂

Looks innocent....

Scotland no supervision on primary school buses. Driver that's it.

I don't know if they ever had TA on them in the past but not in the last 15 years that I know of.

As @AskMeMore said - it's not really about the children's safety why they have staff supervising at bus stops - it's down to the dreadful behaviour of many of the children.

When I went interrailing at 18 my parents did not even know what country I was in on different days. I did not phone once for a month.

I think it depends on the child. My sister an I used to get the train in to London to see our dad every other weekend it was about a 40 min journey. I was about 10 and she would have been 8 we were both sensible and it was fine, neither of us were worried or anxious about it and back then there were no mobiles (early 90s).

@Reugny sorry, only just seen your reply. It’s not my child, it’s my friend’s daughter. She goes on her own, mostly in school uniform but not on mufti days etc.

@WomblingTree86 I’ve just seen this…. At no point did I say that teachers were standing with a clipboard checking off individual students…

Trains: there are 2 trains which link through to two school owned buses in the morning and go the opposite way in the afternoon. Member of staff and or senior pupils are present for journey (their normal journey to school that they would be taking anyway). All they do is walk up and down the carriages a couple of times. That’s it. They’re there to supervise to keep the peace and in case of emergency. Up to the pupils to organise themselves on/off the transport and it isn’t like a school trip with a headcount…

Buses: pupils use both school and public buses to get home. In both cases a member of staff or two is present at the bus stop until the students have departed. To organise them and prevent them spilling out onto the road. There are a lot of big schools in the area and they all use the same bus stops.

Also the reason they have designated help on board (in case it’s required) for the train+bus journey specifically is that the train is 1hr journey and bus a further 15mins and they feel it is a bit much for the younger students…

Hence why it relates to OP’s situation.

@steppemum ……… again there are no head counts…… they (teacher and or senior pupils) get the train at same time as the kids, the kids are aware who is there for help if required, and they do a walk back and forth to keep them in line.

Once they arrive at station everyone gets off and teacher and students walk down from station to bus that is waiting (private owned by school) they wait 5 min to allow everyone to get on and then they all go to school. This scenario repeats for the second train.

There is a lot of pressure for staff to do extras. Some opt for this or the bus duty as it’s easier than having to say run the X club taking up half hr of lunch or after school + prep time… not to mention some of the clubs have weeks away for competitions in hol time. For some it is preferable. And as I say the senior pupils get credit for their role.

There is no money involved nor community safety Whatsits.

Depends on the 11 year old and the age of the younger child. But in principle, yes.

Alone, probably fine although I would be anxious about the length of journey. With another younger child, absolutely not.

It depends where you live. Two boys got stabbed and killed near me recently (age 15) and an 11 year old was beaten up and filmed.

My son is independent and is happy to travel alone on the train (he is 11) but I definitely wouldn't let him be responsible for someone else!

Yes. Because 11 year olds travel to school independently all the time

I dont think you tell and rely on train staff. What they gonna do?

Far to young to travel alone , it’s not safe

Where I live, children of that age travelling alone would stand out and attract attention outside of school hours. If they look young for age, they may even be asked if they are ok by adults. As a kid, that alone would have made me feel nervous and uncomfortable. I’m sure there are some routes and some kids where this would be ok, but I can’t think of anything outside of school commute where I’d let my DS do this in my locality.

I would be okay with that. Aged 11 I was getting a bus to and from school by myself and having to deal with missing buses of both senses and with no phone. Kids around here get the train to school at that age. Put some what if scenarios in discussion so they know what they could do if something goes wrong but I think they'll be fine.

Only you will know if your child(ren) are responsible enough to travel alone OP.

But please don’t try to pass responsibility to the guard/train crew/conductor.

They are responsible (along with the driver) for the safety of the train and everyone travelling on it. That could be around 40 passengers or it could be hundreds.

If, god forbid, there were a major incident, (not necessarily on that particular train), they would have so much more to worry about.

And what would you expect to happen if there is a delay to the person meeting the children? Some stations are unmanned. Are you happy for them to wait at a station by themselves?

Out of curiosity, would you complain if the guard you asked to keep an eye out, left them alone at the next station ? Would you complain if they didn’t want to leave them and took them to another station miles away? Or the final destination? Or would you think their responsibility for them is only as far as stop B and not dream of saying anything if something awful happened after that?

i appreciate that it may be a completely uneventful journey and I am going on about a worst case scenario.

The reality is that no-one can ever know.

So many stories of kids being abducted taking journeys like this. Sorry OP it's not about their maturity, I would not risk this.