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.

Driving at secondary is an issue due to cost of school bus. Dd was last pick up before school, under 3 miles and £44 a month. Especially if more than one child it’s much cheaper to drive them.
People are shocked at cost of school bus pass - when there’s a kick off on Facebook town gossip re school parking people say I thought school buses were free!

The first part was definitely true.

The second part not always. Plenty of my peer group in primary were latch key kids.

Well they can and do, if a child lives right next to the school parents could come to an arrangement with the school that they can walk in but I don't know why a parent can't just walk them through the gates .

Because parents are working and don’t have time to walk younger children there.

As a child back in the Dark Ages, from the age of 6 I had a long walk to and from the bus, followed by a 3 mile bus journey.

I once missed my usual bus that several of us took (dawdling) and it didn’t occur to me that if I waited, there’d be another.
So I walked all the way, stopping of course to look at the pet shop I’d passed so many times.
My poor mother was frantic!

It doesn’t matter what someone on MN says, I often see on here “ss wouldn’t be interested in xyz” but speaking from experience that’s not true either. I was reported to ss for leaving a 9 year old home alone for 20 mins 🤷🏻‍♀️ but on MN I would be told ss aren’t interested in that. You can’t speak for all ss departments to say what they will or won’t be interested in.

DS's lower school allowed it from the summer of year 4. From year 5 they get the school bus to a middle school in a nearby town so they have to be able to walk to a bus stop in the village and wait there unsupervised with other children.

It's good because it encourages parents to let go from a younger age and keeps some extra cars off the road.

My kids have always walked to primary school, but not on their own the school would have things to say about that! However we live quite close and it’s an easy walk albeit one without any pavements so it can be dangerous.
On the days when I’m due at work at 10am I take them in the car and continue my journey from there. We live in a rural area and some children have to travel quite far, so a lot of parents do drive their children to school, again a lot are on their way to work anyway, or it’s because the roads are fast and there are no pavements. Secondary school is a bit different, dd walks to the bus stop in the village and then gets the school bus.

Mine have a 30 minute walk to school. It takes 2 hours out of my day getting them to school and back whereas for their dad that drives its 20 minutes. It's a no brainer. I do the school run 2 days a week.

When I was at primary we lived two streets away from the school and always walked.

Not sure what's too hard to understand, roads are busier, people live further away, more households where both parents work and need to do the school run before heading into work all mean that kids walk to school less.

Other things that they didn't have in the 60s and 70s.

Robustly enforced and popularly supported drink driving laws
Traffic slowing cars down to a crawl in most towns
Speed cameras in locations where there have been previous crashes.
Cars designed specifically to reduce injury to pedestrians in the event of a collision.

I don't think the roads are more dangerous now than they were in my childhood - it's just that we're no longer happy to take the risk.

The main reason is different lifestyles.

Firstly no one walked home alone at 7 when I was in school in the 90s. That was not the done thing even then.
We walked to and from school but had a SAHM who walked with us, as did many other kids.
Now most women work and probably drive to work or at least to the station so they don't have the time to walk children to school, walk home, and then leave for work. It needs to be part of the same journey.

Also schools tend to be bigger and more condensed than they were in the past so they are further away from many pupils.

And what did ss services say about you leaving your 9 year alone for 20 minutes? You were reported - did they tell you not to?

All I’m saying is that the answer to ‘why do children not walk to school on their own’ should not be ‘because the school doesn’t allow it til year 6’. If I felt that my child, who would be aged 10 from the start of year 5, was ready to walk to school before year 6, and it was safe for them to do so, I wouldn’t be paying for breakfast club or altering my working hours or whatever (in answer to a previous poster’s question ‘why can’t an adult just walk them?’), just because the school said so. And if social services were to call me because the school had reported me, I’d tell them why I thought it was appropriate. But I seriously doubt it would come to that.

I'm getting in my car to drive to work so why wouldn't I take her.. it would be mean.

Absolutely, we are lucky here as we don’t have to pay for dd’s bus pass, the conditions to get a free pass were that she goes to the nearest secondary school, and that it’s more than a 2 mile walk, or if it’s under 2 miles it was unsafe to do so (no pavements etc) My sisters child went to grammar school quite some distance away and the bus pass was something in the region of £170 per month.

I would love mine to. We live fairly close by, there's no roads to cross at all using one route, except that there's a place near the school where parents shouldn't park but do, and in order to do so they drive across the pavement.

I don't trust those parents to always look properly because there have been near misses before.

It is obvious that some parents go to work after dropping off young children and also obvious that some schools are too far away to sensibly walk.

Which is why when I alluded to people being lazy I had specific families in mind. We live 15 minutes from our local secondary school. That's secondary school, so these children are old enough to walk without an adult. My DC go to school by themselves. As they go to school they pass many other children being driven to school by their parents. So we're talking children that have a maximum of 15 minutes to walk. I doubt my children's school is atypical in having particularly lazy children/parents, so I assume this is happening everywhere.

I drive a “tank”. I need the door height and a taller car as I’m disabled. It’s great for me.

As for getting dd to school when she was at primary, I had to drive as I couldn’t and can’t walk that far.

Distance and traffic may play a part now that kids don't always go to the local schools.
I went to school out of my area so DM took me on the bus but when I was in 3rd year juniors (now Year 6) I was able to get a bus there and back alone.

Secondary school Mum drove me the first few days, but then I walked there and home again.

Doesn't he have legs?

The busy roads are another matter, but 1.7miles is nothing – that twice a day is barely a normal, healthy amount of exercise.

Where I live pre covid there were "walking buses" for several primary schools. 2 adults, one at the front, one at the back, pick up children at designated stops and walk them to school together. They all have high vis jackets with the school name. It seemed a good idea to get some exercise and help them to adjust to walking on local streets before they do it on their own. I haven't seen them post covid.

The buses used to be free. However, the rules changed to save money. Now it is only paid for the closest school, not even the catchment school anymore if another school is closer. I had the same surprise when dd started secondary.

Exactly. Look at how quiet the roads are when it isn’t pick up/drop off time, compared to when it isn’t. I know somebody who drives their 16 year old half a mile through our sleepy town to meet her friends in the park… seriously…

As for me I got the school bus (without a parent obviously) from 8

perception of risk is different to actual risk, it is true that there are many more cars on the road that in 1970's but it is also true that the numbe rof children killed by cars is about dramatically lower than in 19070's so the risk from cars is actually much much lower than 30-40 years ago, The risk of abduction by a complete stranger hasn't changed in decades
There is a false belief that headteachers can allow/ disallow children arriving or departing on their own. it is actually a parental decision which the school could challenge and involve social services if they believe that particular child walking that particular route is a safe guarding risk. Social services is not remotely interested in a headteachers Y5 or Y6 rule but whether it is actually a true risk, it is unlikely to be a risk if you live next door to school in Y2, however if you live 2.5 miles away across 2 dual carriageways or along country lanes with no footpath it might still be too big a risk in Y6. Headterachers prefer blanket rules obviously but if Jane's parents decide in y3 or 4 that they are happy for her to walk 300 metres with no crossings on her own and inform school by letter this is what they are doing, there is nothing school can do about it, the fact that John next door to Jane couldn't be trusted to do the same is irrelevant.

I dont trust people. More traffic. Live too far from the school