11 year olds travelling to school - London

[TeddyIEI]

Hoping some London parents can put my mind to rest or something.
My brother his wife snd 3 children live in south west London. My eldest nieces (twins) turned 11 at the end of July, they are due to start senior school. I've just learnt they will be going to school in central/west London and taking the tube there alone!!
On the first day my brother is going to make sure they get off at the right stop and they have done the walk from their stop to the school before with their mum before. They have to be there for 08:10 and will leave at 16:50ish, so will almost definitely be caught in the rush.
My sons are 13 and 15, we live rurally and right now they can do whatever in our village, walk to the bus stop for school (school provided bus), my 15 year old has been allowed into the nearest town to go for food with friends and I wouldn't mind dropping to the cinema/picking them up or similar. But the thought of them going into central London alone, at peak times at 11 makes me feel a little ill. They will be on the tube for nearly 30 min (no changes) and a 5 or so minute walk either end.

Is this normal? Do lots of kids in London do this? AIBU to think this can't possibly be safe ?

All three of my older children started travelling on there own when starting secondary school in London. Most of the local children do so, tend to meet lots of kids from there school on the way so ends up with many of them heading to the same place

I went to school in London alone on the tube from year 7. It was fine. My parents went with me for the first week though. Londoner kids know how London works and know how to avoid the weirdos. They will also probably make friends that do at least some of the route with them.

What are you worried that will happen?

Also we Londoners are public transport ninjas - if one part of our journey is cancelled or delayed we will be rapidly working out the alternatives.

Millions of us travel around London on the tube every single day. MILLIONS.

My DD starting getting the tube into town for school when she started Y7, greeting her friends that get on on the way with shrieks and glee as if she hasn't seen them for 15 years, not 15 hours. It's the best, the girls love it, and it makes them independent, and gain excellent problem solving skills.

My biggest challenge with the whole thing tbh is working out how to stop DD ducking into Urban Outfitters on the way home, or buying endless bubble teas from the never ending places she passes en route!

You’re nieces will grow to be resilient young women who can navigate the tube system and be able to think for them selves.

Your sons so far it would seem have not yet had to think for themselves.

bad things happen in the country/rural settings too you know! London isn’t quite the scary bed of sin that some might have portrayed it to be.

At that age I got a bus and then a tube and then walked for 25 minutes every day. Often with friends but often alone. It was great fun as I got older and my friends and I hung out with boys at the tube station.

Always was very independent and confident about travelling around London as a consequence.

Safety in numbers too. With so many other people doing the same thing and commuting. I don't recall the tube ever going wrong then - as they are so frequent. And of course in my day, without mobile phones (though I had money in a money belt to use a phone box in an emergency).

I've seen kids in rural areas on mainline trains and been surprised that was a school journey. But not with public transport in London.

OP you sound a bit parochial. I thought rural kids walked 10 miles a day in bare feet and considered themselves lucky for the luxury!

I’m actually wondering if this thread is a bit of a wind up. I shouldn’t think the OP will be back

Actually I would guess that most kids in London walk to school because the catchments are so small. Everyone at my Dc comp walked and most kids I know who went to other schools. Short bus ride maybe.

It’s a choice to send your kid to a private school or get them into a super selective grammar miles away, so easily avoided if you hate the idea.

Are you usually very over-anxious? You seem hugely invested in a decision that these childrens' parents have presumably made with due thought to the safety, and in a journey that is completely normal for children who live in London.

Disingenuous hand wringing: first time poster asks if someone could only put their poor mind at rest…after 100 posts doing just that.

You can always tell the ones who don't go to London. As a rule Londoners are on the whole friendly and helpful to anyone who's lost or in need of help, esp if those people are children. We'll carry buggies, help with bags, bus routes and the best route home when your tube line has a problem because we recognise that it's big, busy place and some people get a bit overwhelmed by it.

Unless like us you don't live in catchment. In our area children are allocated by the council to schools quite ling journeys away and it's pretty stressful.

I think WhataPlaice was being funny

Didn't work.

Totally normal. I took public transport alone in London from 11 too. I remember going up to Oxford st shopping with friends from 12

Your kids are used to country life, your nieces are city gals. They'll be fine!

I did this from the age of 11

It's just different. Many city kids would not know how to walk down a country lane with no pavement or street lighting safely

It's a bit further than normal but my DS will be walking/taking the (public) bus alone when he starts year 7 in two weeks. I've done the walk with him a few times and the bus once each way with me sitting behind him to make sure he knew where to get off, but he's fairly confident as he's been getting buses (with us obviously) practically since he was born.

At age 11 I was doing a 10 mile trip on 2 buses, best time took an hour 😪

In ye olden days London Transport sold a bus ticket called a Red Rover. Red because you could use it for one day on any red bus, getting on and off when and where you pleased. At age 11 upwards we kids used to rove around London for whole days getting buses from one end of town to the other. Even venturing to the other side of the river! Eek! It was great and helped to make us capable and confident. OP would have had a heart attack if we’d been her nieces.

I teach in a rural secondary school, OP, and I have to say I'm surprised by how little freedom your students have. Most of our students come into the town independently (or dropped in by parents if no public transport) from age 11. By 15, most of them will be going independently to the nearby small cities, usually by train, although there's also a bus to one of them that they can get.

Our sixth formers are allowed offsite when they have frees- we assume at 16 they can definitely manage to navigate town on their own!

I think perhaps you're a bit overprotective, and that's why this seems so strange to you.

In our London school it’s yr 9 upwards allowed out at lunch

I suspect your unfamiliarity with the tube is contributing to your disproportionate fear about this.

Tubes aren't typically delayed or cancelled. They don't run to a published timetable, instead they run about every 1-2 minutes the busiest lines eg the Victoria Line, and even lines that are less frequent, 10 minutes would be a long time to wait for a tube. You simply wait for the next one to come along. If there was a gap as one in between had been cancelled, you wouldn't know, other than you might notice you're waiting longer than normal.

Of course things do go wrong sometimes and an entire tube line might get suspended for some reason. In that case, they'd need to find another route. This is something their parents should go through with them. Familiarity with the tube map helps.

My sibling and I knew the tube map well before we used it by ourselves, partly as we had a board game that used the tube map at home. Maybe a nice present for your nieces, or, indeed your own DC?