Why don't kids walk to school anymore

[Failingatthemoment]

I'm obviously old. BUT, when I went to school the majority of kids walked to school on their own from around the ages of 7/8. Now it only seems that ( some) secondary school kids do this.

P5 for us , Scotland so about 10. I think children generally have less freedom nowadays. I’m rural and I suspect People will judge as my kids have quite a lot of it. I’m happy to padlock the bottom gate and let them ride bikes up and down, there’s a trampoline/ ninja line/ swings/ climbing tree/ hammock if you need to chill. I’ll go down and supervise if there’s a campfire but otherwise they play , build dens, gather sticks, draw, find interesting stuff in nature.

Sometimes they take a break for toasted crumpets with lashings of butter because I was a big fan of the famous five as a girl.

When I was eight I walked to the bus stop with my six year old brother, took a two mile bus trip, got off and walked 10 mins to school. Public bus, not a school bus. It was absolutely fine. If I'm honest, my super confident ds could also have done this, but school wouldn't allow it. I actually don't even recognize the timid nature of lots of kids today. I'm 60. A generation before that my Dad was wandering east end bomb sites at the same age and living between his parents and his aunts houses, meaning none of them had much idea where he was. He's 86. Thing's change.

More kids walk to our primary and academy than drive/take public transport there. For the ones that are driven or take transport it’s because they’re either too far to walk or there are no safe paths from their home to the school. Either way not sure why you’re bothered how kids get to school, surely the fact they’re going to school is more important than their method of transport.

We walk to and from school every day (just under a mile away).

Our school doesn't allow children to go walk unaccompanied until year 6.

There is a huge dangerous junction (essentially 3 sets of pedestrian crossings to cross the road to the school) and queuing traffic is oblivious as to when the signal is showing for pedestrians to cross so pedestrians end up weaving through cars moving over the crossing - driver behaviour is appalling and it is an accident waiting to happen. None of this traffic is school traffic as there is no parking for the school so everyone is on foot!

We teach our kids to be road safe but I see dangerous driver behaviour all the time with no consideration for pedestrians - that has definitely changed since I was a child walking to school.

Yes there's a lot of dangerous drivers, i was crossing the high st and carrying DD plus her scooter, i wasnt going fast enough so a driver sped up (it's a 20mph london high st) and drove at me

My DD walked to school by herself from Y6, before then I walked with her.

TBH I would have been quite happy for her to take herself from Y5 but by then I was working a bit further away so if she left the house when I did she would have got to school about 8:40 and they had a rule that only Y6 were allowed in the classroom unsupervised before the bell went, so she would have been hanging about outside. Hence, for that year, I paid for her to go to breakfast club and dropped her on my way to work.

Most local people walk to our local primary school with their children. The school only allows pupils to walk alone from year 6 though and written permission has to be given by the parents first.

My dc walked on their own from year 6, but our house is only a three minute walk from the school gates.

For secondary, my eldest was on SN transport which took an hour to take him to the other side of the nearest city.

Middle dc walked until they became physically disabled and I was given permission to drive them and park on the school site and dd currently walks.

For some reason there seems to be far more parents driving the local secondary school pupils every day than there were at primary. For us it’s a 20/25 minute walk along a designated ‘safe route’ but my neighbour still drives their dc, despite them being super sporty and fit. The driving standards are appalling and parking ridiculously inconsiderate and entitled, which makes it more dangerous for all the pupils. I hated having to drive onto the school site in the morning and afternoon, first I had to try and avoid all the dreadful school-run parking/driving, then somehow navigate the school site through crowds of oblivious teenagers all staring at their phones or pushing each other about to reach the disabled parking spot. I have no idea why anyone who didn’t have to would want to drive on the school run.

Dd wants to walk and refused lifts even when she had a foot injury, because she meets all her friends along the way and they all walk together.

Secondary school mine will be walking.
Primary school I will walk them up to year 6.

7/8 seems way too young to be walking to school alone. DD did it at 10/11 - a 15 minute walk. One road crossing (with lollipop ladies).

We live in a Scottish city and most kids walk with friends from P5. Not sure if all Scottish schools do it, but ours tracks how they travel to school and promotes active travel. My older one walked with friends from the beginning of P5 so just turned 9.

There seems a definite difference between England and Scotland.

I don’t get the whole ‘schools don’t allow it’ for walking TO school. Home, maybe, because they can refuse to release them (although I can imagine a school refusing to release an 8 year old year 3 to walk home alone and calling social services would get short shrift by social services). But TO school? What are they going to do, turn them away? Call social services to say ‘an 8 year old just walked themselves to school’?!

Safeguarding issue and yes at our school due to the layout the reception absolutely will see who arrives alone.

Not every child gets their local school. My child has been to 3 schools none were in walking distance.
I have always had to drive them to school.

Not "allowing" young children to walk to school is making sure parents are being responsible for their children it is the dreaded by some on mn Safeguarding.

I know our local primary have always had playground attendants in the morning so they see who comes and goes.

Well, if the school wants to raise a safeguarding issue with social services I guess that’s their prerogative but I doubt they’d get far, assuming the child wasn’t ridiculously young. The fact that different schools have different rules proves this. Ours, for example, says children have to be handed over at the classroom door up to and including year 2. Others on here have said year 5, or even 6. There clearly isn’t one single rule, and unless the child was turning up at school aged 4 having crossed a dual carriageway alone, I seriously doubt social services would be interested.

I don’t care whether they will be interested or not, like someone said not every kid gets the local school we get the bus to ours and I’m not sending my children on the bus alone. Our school say year 6 and I think that’s the right age.

we live over a mile and there are so many busy roads. Not to mention my son isn't comfortable doing it himself and I would not be comfortable letting him do it himself. Instinctively we know it's not the right time (age 10 y5).

I don't see it as a bad thing, each child is different, you can't judge a parent for not joining in sending their child off at the first opportunity they get. Parents instinct always best.

Oh I think schools would raise issues with .Young kids wandering into school alone why can't parents/ orher adults drop them off what is more important than a 7 year olds safety ?

We waited til year 6. Not sure where you are getting 7/8 because I was only allowed to walk to school in year 6 too, as was my Mum.

Parents drive their kids to school in great big 4x4s as, if they walk, they might get run over by all the other parents driving their kids to school in great big 4x4s.............

But my point is the school can’t, and shouldn’t, put a blanket rule in place that says ‘no walking to school alone until year 6’ regardless of circumstances. For your child it wouldn’t be appropriate. For a child who lived at the end of the road the school was on, with no roads to cross, it would be different. It’s not up to the school to unilaterally decide regardless of circumstances.

Also, in the 60's/70's two things were true:

Less cars on the road

A parent at home to receive the child at 3:30pm.

I do think that some of the reaction against parents walking their slightly older y5/6 kids to school is a reverse kind of judgement; a way to say that children are too "coddled" or whatever because they do it differently.

Not all situations, routes, places you live, roads and kids are the same.

I personally couldn't forgive myself if my child didn't look when crossing a busy road, or got nervous because some nutter approached them (there are enough in our busy city). Every parent and child should choose for themselves when they are comfortable, without feeling judged by others.

My kids go to school in the car simply because I work, and I don't have time to walk back home to collect the car to get to work. It works the same the other end of the day too, I don't have time to take the car home and walk to collect the kids.