DD no longer allowed to walk from school.

[TheWonderhorse]

DD is 9 and has been walking from school to a car park just off the grounds (not the official school car park but closer). She's been really wanting to walk home but we compromised at this for now and would work up to that gradually. I signed a consent form to permit them to release her.

So this morning the school sent a letter out saying that they've had a rethink to all parents, and from Monday only Year 6 children are to be allowed to leave the classroom without a parent.

DD is Year 4 but the oldest in her class, meaning we won't be allowed to start this again for 17 months. AIBU to ask the head to reconsider? I know they can't really refuse to let her out, but I don't want to be a dick. I just feel like DD is being held back for no good reason at all. We have this covered and didn't need the school to intervene.

IABU, school know best.
IANBU it's up to the parent to judge what's safe for the child.

Mum would know within about 5 mins if something were awry

She and school potentially, wont know on the way to school. Its different, doesnt need spelling out

@TheWonderhorse do you have any school apps (some are better than others) but arbor tells me straightaway when DS attendance has been marked and had it for primary as well

We do have an app, but it doesn't do that. The school send a text instead.

Ignore anything the NSPCC says. As far as they are concerned everyone is a child abuser. They are like the RSPCA and should disappear to allow sensible charities to carry out their work.

While the child is at school, the school has responsibility for their safekeeping. A parent can demand a lot of things but the school does not have to agree. Leaving premises on their own at nine is one of them. Can a child leave at 5 years old if parents write a letter? 😒

@Bellsandthistle of course 5 year olds can and do- especially with older siblings and depending how long the walk is.
Most 4 and 5 year olds where I live in Scotland get on a school bus and are dropped off close to home- 50ft or so.
Keeping children at school after home time would only happen in an absolute emergency or in the case of child protection and it would be the head teacher who had responsibility to ensure they were safe

I demanded nothing, firstly. It was school who suggested it to us in a letter.

As for a 5 year olds being let out with a letter, nobody asks. Because, shocker, parents can parent.

I'm in Scotland too and until I came to MN I had never heard of children, other than in Primary 1, being expected to be collected at the school door. I remember one time DD2's BFF'S DM asked me to collect her P1 and P4. Her toddlers were asleep in the car outside the school gate and she asked me to walk her DDs to the car.
Had it just been the P4 to be picked up, I could have told her where to find her mum and the school would have been none the wiser.

UK. When my child was in year 5 I was ill for some time. Couldn't get in to pick him up. The school was 200 yards from my house on the same side of the road. I could see the gate from my front door; there was a road between but it was manned by a lollipop man. They would not allow my child to leave unattended even though they could see me at the front door. They would not allow him to leave with another parent either. Cue my mother-in-law walking up from her house picking up from school, depositing son and walking back. We didn't make a fuss about it though. Ultimately the rules were in place to protect ALL of the children making allowances starts to nibble away at the thin edge of the wedge.

You seem to work under the premise that

• because you are apparently a competent parent, that all parents are competent parents -they are not

• that social services will promptly remove parental control from those who are not competent parents - they won't

So, shocker - not all parents can adequately parent. Giving birth doesn't automatically confer common sense and critical thinking.

It’s been like that for years here, fair too many kids getting groomed by drug gangs whilst walking to and from school.

our school only allow year 6 to leave without a parent (or designated adult) and I completely agree. No children under that age should be leaving unsupervised.

Does that stop when they get into year 6?

So it makes perfect sense to insist that children who are capable of walking home are collected by the shit parents who they consider to be a risk to them? To ensure their safety?

They can't withhold children from those parents, and once children can walk home without a parent then I would say that it's safer for them to go alone than to go with someone who happens to be an adult but who is also incompetent or abusive.

What, 9 year olds get groomed but it's safe at age 10?

Yabu year 4 is not equipped to deal with change in circumstances. If you’re late, or an unexpected situation occurred she would be safer at school. It is silly to think you have to meet all the whims of your child. She’ll have to wait and learn to accept the world doesn’t bend and buckle because she and you think it should.

If they say yes to you, then they’d have to allow every one this option. There would be way too many lazy parents letting their kids come out alone rather than pick them up.

@TheWonderhorse OP the stupid are coming out of the woodwork now!

It's wild, isn't it. There is one of two things going on here.

Either Scotland is intrinsically more safe than England/Wales with no drugs gangs, grooming, traffic, children being abducted OR

Many English/Welsh schools have lost the plot and gaslighted parents into believing they are entirely reasonable.

You haven't read the thread. If you had you'd know that she's met just outside the school gates and up a lane, if for any reason we are late then she needs to turn around and go back down the lane into school reception and wait. As I discussed originally with her teacher.

She's 9, perfectly capable of what I am asking of her.

I have not asked anyone to bend and buckle on the whim of my daughter. She was invited to do more than this, by letter at the beginning of the school year, when she was just 8. They've now changed the policy and I disagree with that decision.

They suggested it, not me. It seems a little bit odd to send a letter out inviting parents to consent to their child walking home, and then when people take the offer up, many only doing so because the kids got excited about it, they take it back telling people it's unsafe.

Perhaps if the school is so full of problem/lazy parents and the area so dangerous then perhaps they ought not to have offered?

It's bonkers, and getting worse.

Also in Scotland and this is all so weird

Where the hell do you live that that happens? Not something I hear of here

They'll have been warned of a perv