To tell you the school does not decide when your child can walk home alone

[Itisuptoyou]

I keep seeing this on threads and I don’t want to derail what the thread is about.

But the school cannot decide this. You do as parent. It may be you are broadly in agreement with the school and I am but this is your choice and not the schools.

It irrationally annoys me when people claim ‘the schools don’t allow …’ Not up to the school!

I’m not trying to be argumentative but no, they don’t.

Yes, I'm in Scotland too, and couldn't agree more with your post

@JenWillsiam ultimately the school would have to give in unless they could prove it was a risk, if you send a signed letter giving John permission to leave school alone and then you do not collect him the next day so school ring you and say you haven't collected John, you reply I have given you written permission he is allowed to walk home just send him home, they say we will call SS , you say i consider John capable of walking home alone it's a short distance and he's sensible, they refuse to let him go and they ring social services saying John hasn't been collected , Social services ask have you managed to contact parent? school say yes, SS ask what was their response ? oh parent says to allow him to leave, social services ask so why won't you let John, school answer he is in Y4 we don't allow Y4 to leave alone, SS reply that's not a good enough reason why isn't John capable of walking home alone,? do you have parents phone number? then SS decide actually school is right it is unsafe for John to walk even that short distance and he is absent minded and unaware of danger and a risk taker rather than sensible or SS decide that 400 metres on small well lit roads with no crossings is not a risk and tell school to allow John to leave. SS will not be impressed if this was repeated several days running, in the end school will have to let John go home every day alone

I think what some people are not understanding is the difference between in school, and out of school.

I have no problem with sending my child in the right uniform, making sure they've done their homework, being polite and respectful, turning up to school on time. What happens in school between 9am and 3pm is absolutely determined by the school rules and the school absolutely DOES have the right to set rules about what happens or doesn't happen on their premises, within school time.

However, school does not have the right to determine what happens between 8am and 9am or 3pm and 4pm. That is my responsibility as a parent. School's responsibility and rights to set the "rules" ends when the bell rings at 3pm.

As other Scottish parents have said, when the bell rings at 3pm, children as young as 5.5 in P2 are sent out into the playground to find their own way home. Maybe there's someone there to meet them, maybe there's not. Maybe they are going home with older siblings or friends. Teacher doesn't know what is going on as it is not her/his responsibility. This is common practice in Scotland and last time I looked there was not an epidemic of Scottish 7 year olds coming to harm walking to school.

This.

Then unless your children have a relevant disability you are doing them no favours by refusing to allow them to mature It's benign neglect to refuse to give your children the opportunities they need to develop independence.

"If they won’t release your child with explicit instruction from you then that is false imprisonment "

🤣🤣

But they do. My DC’s school wouldn’t let them leave without an adult until year 5.

They’d very likely back down (or indeed as I’ve seen multiple times say “oh yes, that is just our guidance” when they know they’ve presented it as a rule) if challenged as most know it’s not their call ultimately.

They're older than 9 now (obviously) and all independent older teens. So that's clearly bollacks.

Okay, I'll put it from a different angle - only 2 parents have ever asked me to let their child walk home. Parent 1 was one of those women who kept having more and more children and claiming more benefits for each one until the government put a cap on it (and eventually forced her and her husband to do some work rather than replying on the state).
Parent 2's excuse was that it was her evening to go to the pub, the 9 year old would have been going back to an empty house.

But "in loco parentis" means that the school is the parent whilst the children are with them, and are responsible for any decisions, including whether a child can walk home on their own or not.

The school is not the parent while children are with them, the school has limited duties and powers ie those required to allow them to undertake the task of educating your child, they don’t have parental rights and responsibilities for your child and can’t make decisions for them out with those needed to fulfil their education duties.

Id have a lot of concern if parents really thought “that’s them in school, the teacher is now their parent”.

+Okay, I'll put it from a different angle - only 2 parents have ever asked me to let their child walk home. Parent 1 was one of those women who kept having more and more children and claiming more benefits for each one until the government put a cap on it (and eventually forced her and her husband to do some work rather than replying on the state).*

Thats just dripping with judgement, being on benefits, or having a lot of children, doesn’t make you a neglectful parent. Awaiting the drip feed now that’s her 20 kids were running about the streets half naked at midnight.

It doesn’t matter whether the parent who wanted the kids to walk home was making regular appearances on Benefits Street or was Kate Middleton. She is the parent, you are not.
you can’t refuse to let a child go because you think their mum is shit!

In theory, but how does it work in practice?

If you say - "I want my 8 year old to walk home alone" and the school says our policy is to only release to an adult, what do you do?

You could refuse to collect and demand they let your child walk home.
School would then call you at the end of the day. You'd refuse to collect.
Then they'd call the other parent.
Then they'd call the emergency contacts.
If all those people were prepped to refuse to collect then the school would call social services and/or the police.
Maybe once those agencies had got involved, school would be told they do have to release your now very distressed 8 year old at (by now) 6pm to walk themselves home.
Maybe that would be the end of it or maybe police/social workers would have concerns now about your parenting decisions.

Who honestly would put their child through all that?

I wouldn’t but it is still your choice.

So when posters say things like ‘the school don’t allow …’ what they mean is ‘the school prefer.’ Which might be pedantic but not sure how comfortable it is so many are convinced the school can make parenting choices on their behalf.

If you are saying in theory it is up to the parent, but in practice you will have to abide by school policies then I agree with you.

Well, it depends HOW shit, doesn’t it?

As I understand it, many of those who have posted here who want schools to allow children to walk home alone ion the say-so of parents do have an exception for ‘except if there are significant known safeguarding concerns around the family’.

So there is sone level of ‘shit parenting’ that people DO want schools to respond to?

Not quite. I’m saying it’s up to the parent, and that includes how far they will take it.

There is no sense of any judgement from me or what I think you ‘should’ do. I just think that many people do genuinely believe that the school makes this call and I don’t know that is a good thing.

@cantkeepawayforever it doesn’t really depend how shit, no. No volunteer or teacher can say ‘actually we don’t think your parenting is good enough, your child isn’t going home tonight!’ What they can absolutely do is escalate any safeguarding concerns and some will be a matter of urgency. But that decision won’t ultimately be the schools, or the volunteers.

@cyncope except it won't take till 6pm as when school ring you at 3.10 you would say I gave you a written permission, I have already told you and headteacher I would not be collecting John so this is not a surprise, you knew already that we want John to walk home, if you ring his father he will confirm this as we both signed the letter, so please let him leave now. the school say we won't we are ringing SS unless you come in next 20 minutes, if you then say I have given permission for him to leave you have no good reason to continue keeping him at school but if you ring social services we will tell them what we have told you that John is perfectly capable of walking 400 metre son his own when there are no busy roads to cross, Social servives are really not going to back school up on a 8-9 year old walking 400 metres

In practice, what happens is the school doesn’t let the child leave until they get further guidance from social work. The school isn’t keeping a child on their own say so, they are acting on social work instructions. It’s not the schools fault if it takes a while to get a decision from social work.

There is no social work instruction to keep children at school without an accompanying adult.

As confirmed by at least two social workers here!

Do I, for example, let the 8 year old child go home alone when I know that the lone parent has been in court, and may have been imprisoned but the school have heard nothing?

Do I let the 7 year old child go home to be in sole charge of 3 younger siblings for a couple of hours, where the whole family has been referred to SS but there’s wrangling over whether they meet threshold?

Do I let the child go home when they may find their parent passed out from drugs or drink, as has happened 3 times in the past fortnight but again has not yet met threshold?

Teachers are surprisingly familiar with the seamier side even of the nicest communities (all the above are from my personal experience: luckily the one where the question was ‘do I let the child go home to the adult who may have inflicted those bruises’ DID meet SS threshold). Of course, being collected from school is no guarantee against abuse at home, but it generally means they do get home.

Turn it round the other way - 7 year old child dies or is horrendously hurt on the way home alone or after returning hone to a locked door and thus wandered off or a younger child us hurt when in the 7 year old’s care. Doe society say ‘oh, school is blameless, the parents gave permission?’. No. They say ‘the school was irresponsible to let the child go home alone, especially as they were aware of the family circumstances’.

As a teacher, yes there is. I’m in Scotland and the child would remain with whoever the lead in child protection is until such time that social work make a decision, providing the schools concerns meet the criteria for a child protection issue. Which would depend on the individual circumstances of the child, the local area, etc.

the child would remain at school until SS replied but if SS agreed that it was reasonable for John to walk home alone 400 metres and there were no other concerns then the school would need to let him go home alone, they could not repeat the process the next day at 3pm when John's parents did not collect him
I am not talking about cases like @cantkeepawayforever mentioned but a simple case of parents deciding that John can perfectly easily walk home 400 metres now he is 8 as Dad works from home but can't leave work to pick up John due to being on conference calls, he will be in when John arrives home. John's parents have decided that John is old enough now to be at home with a parent in home office not lounge so he doesn't need childcare This is not a safeguarding concern and the fact the headteacher prefers this year group to be collected is irrelevant