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!

@Comedycook sorry I don't know why you keep going on about "the law" to me. I never said anything about the law and neither did the OP in the first post.

Meh. I can't get upset about this. DD's school say not until yr6, which I agree with - otherwise where else do you draw the line? They could technically let kids of 4/5 walk home alone (there will always be that parent who is ok with this), and then where would they be if something happened?

Yes I know... You said that if it's the school rules then basically you have to abide by it and it's tough luck. I'm saying it's not necessarily the case. You don't actually have to always abide by any rules that any organisation puts in place.

Similar experience here with swimming. They make the children walk out to the corridor instead of via the changing rooms because they need to hand the children over to the parents. DC1 is in Year 7 and she often disappears into the changing rooms and not follow. She said the corridor is freezing. It's ridiculous because some of the older children actually leaves the premise themselves and walk home. It's the pool in the local secondary, and those children must be students at the school and lives nearby. It's just a ridiculous rule that shouldn't apply to those year 7 and above.

I was once locked in the house (so couldn't have gone to collect anyone anyway). My son was 13 and had a key, as he walked home (a five minute walk) and let himself in. I rang the school to ask them to get him to come home to let me out. Obviously I was expecting to wait until break or lunchtime. But no. They point blank refused to let him - 'not policy to let the children out of the school during school hours'. Ridiculous. I know it was a long time ago, but I used to take my sister to school when I was seven. I wouldn't recommend that nowadays with more traffic, but if a 13 year old can't take a 5 minute walk to his own home in broad daylight I despair. We live in a small market town too, and the way home is down the High Street - populated with people who on the whole had known or seen him around since he was born.

@Comedycook what about uniform, homework, no nuts in packed lunches, no swearing at teachers.... etc?
Can you ignore those rules?

This was the case in my son's infant school,teachers weren't supposed to let them go until their parent/grandparent/whoever usually collected them arrived.

Parents who couldn't be bothered would tell their kids to pretend they'd spotted them in the crowd and nine times out of ten the teachers would let them go.

I think this discussion is wasted on you to be fair as I'm talking in a theoretical sense

The school are acting in loco parentis. A child can walk home against guidance of the school absolutely, however if they feel that child is at risk they can equally engage social services. If the parent is happy with their decision they can equally push that decision.

Social work aren’t going to be remotely interested in a child walking home with their parents permission. The school would need to evidence why that particular child in these particular circumstances was at risk if they walked home alone, rather than a general children are at risk under X age.

“In loco parentis” doesn’t trump parents with actual parental rights and responsibilities

If you don't like the school rules send your kid somewhere else.

@Comedycook ok... I'm lost at what you are saying.
Oh well. Never mind. Have a good day.

'not policy to let the children out of the school during school hours'.

They acted well outside their powers, in the absence of a court order schools can’t refuse to return a child to their parents at the parents request.

They can't do this. At the school where I worked the Head and I both wanted to prevent a Yr 5 with mild SEN taking the Reception sibling home on his own. The Head took legal advice from the LA and we were told we had to go along with the parents' wishes. If somebody actually challenged the school on this they would have to back down (even if they had the children's best interests at heart).

Oh give it a rest!! Don't you think that schools apply such rules in the context of national guidance, experience and judgement on a holistic basis? Why would you wish to override this? Just because you think you know better... You sound like such a bore with your 'you as a parent' sctick. I am sure you are down the school like a shot at every opportunity to impart your 'wisdom' 😂

The school has a legal duty in respect of safeguarding, though. In the SEN Year 5 + Reception sibling case, the appropriate route would gave been Safeguarding Lead posing the question to the LA safeguarding team.

It might well by itself not be enough to meet the threshold for action, but in combination with other evidence that might be recorded over the years could eventually do so (or this might be the evidence that tipped the case overall across the threshold - as a reporting member of school staff, you never know).

Here it’s silly.
When the council run events or sports on the school site you can sign they can go alone form age 8
The school don’t allow it below year 6
The school you can see across the road allow it from year 5.
I did put my foot down in year 5. I live 5 doors down and it was in the middle of younger siblings naps, one who had SEN. He was a really sensible child and there were no roads to cross. Realistically also he was never alone, with most the year group walking past the door.
I think they brushed it over by always saying he’d left with the parents of someone else, as they always walked out chatting anyway.

I was furious. I was already stressed because of the situation, and I knew he was perfectly capable of coming to rescue me. It was 15 years ago, and I'm getting angry just thinking about it😂.

There were quite a few issues with that family but I can assure you neither the Head or I thought it was safe but the LA said there was nothing we could do to stop it.

I say this on threads all the time.

And in 20 years of working in schools I’ve only ever seen a school not back down (usually instantly because they know they can’t do it so just rely on people not challenging it) on one occasion and that was because it was part of wider safeguarding issues.

Walking to and from school is a parenting decision.

Parents know better than school how their child behaves out of school. And generally parents know the area their child is walking in far better.

Having a set age where everyone can do something isn’t actually a good way of safeguarding children. letting children do things when they are capable, as they’ll all hit that at different points, is much better.

Yes, that’s always so frustrating- when all you can do us report and report and report (daily in some cases) and there is nothing you can do to directly to stop the potentially neglectful / abusive behaviour. It is worse now, because SS is so overwhelmed that the threshold for action is astronomically high.

@febrezeme , same at Gdcs’ school, where we’ve often collected them. I don’t know when it’s allowed - they are currently in years 2 and 3.

I do find it a bit funny all these schools 'not allowing' children to walk home alone. In my country its only in preschool (6 years old) that they ask for written permission from the parents because preschool falls under childcare rather than school so there's different rules about supervision but from 1st grade there's no talk about it, its expected that they come and go by themselves, and indeed let themselves out of their home in the mornings and lock up because if both parents work they will usually be gone before their child as school sometimes doesn't start until 10 and not all schools have a breakfast club (mine doesn't) and if it does its only for 1st and 2nd graders and children with additional needs.

I answered that in my next sentence.

By that age we were big enough to run away and confident enough to point and laugh

If use the walk to school as an opportunity to walk the dogs too.
Stupid rule

Not the point. I’m sorry that happened to you but the thread isn’t ‘what age is OK.’