To insist my 12-yr old collects nine-yr old from school

[Bigroundpear]

My nine-year-old is in year 5 at a small inner-city state primary a five minute walk from home. School policy is for children to only be able to walk home alone from year 6 which I fully accept (though I don't particularly agree with it).

Last week I let the school know that my 12-year old (who is in secondary school and travelled alone from year 5 for 40 mins each way - different school) would be collecting nine-year-old from school today. School emailed back to refuse because their policy is siblings who collect must be over 14.

I emailed back to say I will be exercising my parental responsibility, that it's up to me what happens to my child outside of school and I will not be there to collect, but my oldest child will. My kids have done this same journey alone together often (school is next to a supermarket they visit together frequently), I have risk-assessed this and feel confident that though of course there are risks, everything that needs to be is in place to prevent them coming to harm. I have prepared both kids for all eventualities with the school today, including that they may call social services (not bothered about this, know SS won't do anything).

I think the school is over stepping the mark, and should release my nine-year-old, however I'm sad I have put office staff in this position.

AIBU?

The point was about how the school decide who is a responsible person for a handover. Nobody questioned whether or not you had PR
You seemed to be arguing that parents should get to choose. But not all parents can be trusted to choose responsibly so schools need to have their own guidelines.

YANBU. Mine are 13 and 9 and if I get the job I just applied for DD13 will be "collecting" DD9 from school and walking home with her. It's a 7 minute walk. That said I've never heard about these kinds of rules north of the border (assuming it's because here everyone goes to their local catchment school) and both of mine have been walking home themselves since P4 (age 8) which is about the standard age for kids to walk themselves. In infant school I definitely saw kids from the high school walking up to collect infant siblings. Technically elder DD will be meeting rather than collecting as she has the house key, and they'll be home for about 30-45 mins before I get there.

This was absolutely standard in the 00s when I was growing up and that was before mobile phones and air tags and all the stuff now to make them even safer. I stayed with my grandparents a lot as mum worked shifts and on those days, even in primary school, I'd take my younger brother on the bus then a five minute walk to school. Nobody batted an eyelid, no harm came to us, and it built up independence and resilience that's rarer to see these days. Even when I got to high school you could notice the difference in the kids who'd been chauffeured everywhere by parents. Just a lot more clueless when it came to stuff like buses being late or even simple things like bad weather.

Your kids, your choice how you raise them.

@Drfosters

Maybe I don't know the older sibling is sensible. Maybe the younger one misbehaves at school and I am concerned he will run off or not cross the road safely without an authoritative adult to stop him. Whatever the reason, and even if I did know and trust both siblings to be sensible, if I let a child go with a sibling only 3 years older than them without clear written instructions from the parent that they understand and accept the level of risk and anything went wrong (even freak accidents) my job would be at risk. I'm worried for my own job as much as the child's safety.

But my point was that under s3 of the children act 1989 I and I alone (the father too) have the responsibility to make this decision. As in, even if a school deems a parent unable to make that decision, if the parent holds PR they have the right to make the decision regardless. In the case that the school did think the parent was unable to make the decision, that is where social services should come in.

In year 5 my daughter would have been able to leave without being picked up anyway.

It also wasn't unusual for those that had moved up to comp to pkck siblings up on the way home ( the older ones would walk through one gate of the school grounds and out of the other to do the pick up, instead of walking around the outside).

Here is a page from the NSPCC briefing for schools on this subject.

I agree with all this

Sorry but you are putting too much responsibility on a 12 year old , including let them babysit all day when not in school . I would be in your side on occasionally walking home from school but all day ? What if something happens to your youngest , can you imagine the burden you will leave on your older child .
I agree this is a safeguard concern and they are right to contact SS . 12 year olds should not be responsible for 9 year olds . It’s your job as a parent to find suitable childcare

Whilst I'm with you, I'm thinking the school will not want liability if anything happens on the way home, I'm assuming they have a policy to follow when handing over a child.
Whilst you want to exercise your parental responsibility they are also exercising their responsibility to not hand over to a child below 14

i don't know what you mean about babysitting all day, I didn't say that, they'll be home alone for 45 minutes.

School actually threatened that social services WILL come to collect them and take them elsewhere

I think social services have got rather a lot on their plate and aren't going to be too interested in someone going home with an older sibling a few months before they'd be "allowed" to by the school anyway.

Yes - this policy says children under the age of eight should likely not walk home alone. The 14-year-old sibling advice is presumably there for children under the age of eight given their clear statement above.

In other countries kids go to school on their own from 6. Why do we think our kids are so incapable?

And I'd take what the NSPCC says with a pinch of salt. Their guidance is not law, and they think everyone is a child abuser.

Agree! I was a manager in a referral team for two different boroughs - we'd not have touched this with a barge pole. We had actual risk to manage.

I was posting it as intimately it states it’s parents responsibility.
It wasn’t posted as a criticism .

I'm very confused why you keep quoting me as though you're arguing with me. Nothing I said was contentious or inaccurate. You were implying school should trust your judgement but school don't have to trust a parent's judgement if they think there is a safeguarding concern. The school decide who they will accept as appropriate for a handover and yy if the person or child isn't acceptable to them, then they contact SS and escalate through safeguarding channels. It makes no difference whether you have PR; whether you have risk assessed; they can still escalate through safeguarding and refuse to let a DC leave the premises.

I suppose it's setting a precedent, isn't it. You've risk assessed, you know they will be sensible and safe. Other parents and kids may not be. It's a pain in the neck for you, but I can see why the school has rules about this.

Did you know, when you make a referral to the NSPCC they refer it to the local authority immediately so that actual work can begin? I agree with you about the NSPCC, though they have their uses in training and research, they are not the final say - the law is.

My kid's school wouldn't let children walk home alone before Year 5 - but once in Year 5 they were allowed to collect siblings in Year 3 & 4 to walk home together.

My Year 7 child regularly collected his sibling in Year 3 and they went home together. They also (aged 9 and 12) stayed home alone together for more than 45 minutes at a time and have been absolutely fine.

Our school doesn't allow siblings under 16 to pick up

So what you would want is a def no at our school

I see MN comprehension skills are as good as ever!

YANBU, OP. I think that some posters have misunderstood. What they would personally do or whether they approve or your decision is not the point. The whole point is that you have the right to make that judgement call yourself.

I understood that, sorry if my tone was off, i was following on with your point as it appears the school has interpreted this piece of guidance in a way I wouldn't have done

@Blondeshavemorefun that isn’t the schools decision. That’s the whole premise of the thread. The school can no more dictate that than they can say ‘you aren’t allowed to give your child chicken nuggets for dinner tonight.’ It isn’t their decision.

No problem.