Does this sound ok? School run…

[Mrsupanddown]

I tried to get all the kids in to one school which is 5 minutes from us but the appeal was rejected. So I have left oldest DS at the school and DD is joining him. Youngest DS is at the school nearest to home.

I plan to drop DS (9) at school with DD (8) at 8:35. There school gates don’t open until 8:40.

So they will queue up outside with the other kids and parents. DS will wait until DD goes into her class then he will go to his.

I will be able to drop youngest off then in time for his gates opening at 8:45.

Does this sound ok and safe enough?

Would their friends’ parents be able to keep an eye on them at the gate? I wouldn’t mind doing that for my daughter’s friends :)

Gates opening time is not school start time. So if you can do the journey in ten mins I would just drop the older 2 off at 8:40 and then younger at 8:50.

School near us has a 'flexible' drop off time between 8.55 and 9.00

I kid you not.

I did not choose that school for a number of reasons but that was one.

A fire?

What's going to catch fire, they are waiting outside for 5 minutes for the gate to open.

Its fair enough if you don't think an 8 year old is capable of doing this without running off our whatever, but don't muddy the water with silly made up 'risks'.

Completely depends where you live. Our two are at a small village school. Kids walk to school from Year 3. I have dropped and dashed mine since then.
In a city or town I wouldn't.

I drive to work past my local primary school and see children waiting outside before the doors open with no adults around. Sometimes if I'm a bit early I see two I assume siblings calling for a 3rd child

When my children were there it was also fine so certainly not universally forbidden

Making sure your kids are safe isn't a luxury, it's the bare minimum.

I’ve only felt comfortable doing this with mine now he is year 6. Our breakfast club opens at 8 and I drop him off at 7.50. I think if he had a sibling in year 6, we might have started from year 5.

Having said that, I’d have let him walk to school from year 5 if we lived close enough.

"In the care"
They are stood at the school gate, ready to go in.
She isn't planning to leave them at home whilst she buggers off to the pub!

Do you know any of the other parents?

There’s a girl in DD’s class who is dropped off early as her brother needs to be dropped off somewhere else (he has SEN so has different arrangements) and a few of us will look out for her and make sure she gets in in the mornings. One of us is usually about.

Sounds fine from a safety point of view, but you need to check whether school allows it. The school are perfectly reasonable to have an age before which children cannot be on the premises without an adult before school opens. In fact they should have to make their own safe guarding responsibility clear. If that age is 9/year 5, then you would either need to stay with your 8 year old until the bell rings or pay for before school care.

Perfectly fine. There are no teachers at our gate or any staff kids come and go as they please. Mines have walked to school themselves since they were younger than that. As long as you trust them not to go on the road etc then go for it.

My daughter spent a year walking my son to school when she was p7 (so 10/11) and he was in p2 (so 6/7). We are the furthest house in the catchment so it’s a mile. In a city. Plenty of roads to cross. They were on their own the first few minutes but as they got closer to the school there were loads of kids and adults around. The last 5 minutes of the walk they’d see maybe 100 kids on their way in. Their school actually did burn down a few years ago but it never occurred to me to be worried about what would happen if it burned down again while they weren’t inside yet.

All this to say that really id think they could just walk themselves in so the OP isn’t rushing around. And waiting a few minutes is nothing. If the school doesn’t actually allow this than that’s a different problem but I can’t see a safety issue here at all.

An 8 year old shouldn’t be running off - if there’s behavioural issues or additional needs of course that is different but by 8 a child should be able to walk to school or just stand and wait a few minutes with loads of other children doing the same thing.

Why not?

I really don’t get all the ructions on this thread! There is an another thread about a baby being left on its own in car for 30 minutes today! And people are popping on to that thread to say obviously that’s different to running in to Tesco Express or the petrol station to pay for petrol. I actually think both of those are dangerous with an infant left on its own in a car! These children are 8 and 9, and won’t be on their own. In sight of the school where loads of other children and parents, childminders etc. will be appearing unless they are all always late for school!

Why can't your drop the first 2 at 8.40 as gates open and youngest at 8.50?

Is there a breakfast club at either of the schools? If so I’d use that. If not id probably feel ok with this if they had a phone on them.

They would be absolutely fine. My 5yo walks to school alone, it’s normal where we live. However it sounds like you’re going to run into issues with either the school or other parents so it’s not going to work. I’d look for another parent you can drop them off with and they could walk them in.

So kids can’t walk to school anymore in these schools where it’s not allowed to be outside the gate on your own for five minutes? Madness!

If you trust them I don't see an issue but I think we don't give kids anywhere near enough freedom in this country.

It seems like our primary is quite relaxed with the rules compared to others. From year 3 ours are allowed with permission to leave school at the end of the day unaccompanied and obviously walk to school alone so this wouldn’t be an issue. My child’s birthday is at the end of August so technically would have been allowed to leave school alone a week after he turned 7. Which honestly seems wild to me and I haven’t given permission for this! But I wouldn’t see an issue with leaving siblings at the gate for 5 mins.

From the age of 8 I walked (half a mile +) to school on my own. Yes, I know there were fewer cars around then (1960s), but the OP doesn't intend to make her children cross a road. I'm not sure what else she could do, to be honest.

It's terrible when parents cant get all kids in one school, i voted you're not unreasonable meaning if the older 2 are dropped off together it will be fine. I remember being in infants and waiting for my older sister in juniors (separate building over a mediocre road with bridge) and walking home together. This was the 90s. It will teach your older 2 a bit independence.

We started doing this when our childminder started charging full hours - DH used to drop at her house at 8:30 and she would send the junior kids up to walk to school at 8:35 for their gates opening at 8:40 and she followed after with the infants. She used to charge 30 mins for each child then decided to charge a full hour each. So DH started dropping them at school at 8:30 and they waited together until the gates opened at 8:40. They would have been either 8 and 9 or 9 and 10. They were fine and loved the independence. There was always other parents around at that time so they weren’t alone.

6/7 is the normal age children start walking to school alone where I live and in many other places. They're not a different species and there are cars on the roads and everything. Children just tend to live up to expectations imo. They do really tend to start behaving much more sensibly when you give them the trust and responsibility, compared to how they behave when an adult is in charge of them.

Mine started getting about by themselves at 7, start of their second year of primary school, and took it in their strides. They have about 1 km to go to school with a few zebra crossings with crossing lights.

Not saying I'd necessarily want to try and be a cultural outlier in England and get myself reported to social services, but the general opinion there of what children are capable of is pretty skewed.