Would you allow an 11yo to pick up 8yo from school?

[cadburyegg]

My 11yo starts secondary in September and is excited about the prospect of being able to pick up his 8yo brother (who will be in y4) from school once a week when he would normally go to after school club.

I had agreed to this in theory but I am suddenly unsure. My 11yo is responsible but 8yo is quite young for his age and can be silly.

Primary school is about 20 min walk from our house / 10 minute cycle ride. We live in a quiet village but drivers can drive too fast on the road to our estate.

thoughts? When did you allow siblings to pick up from school?

I would say no for a combination of circumstances mostly the 8yr olds behaviour and the length of the walk home
A sensible 8yr old fine or a shorter walk with a more silly 8yr old
I would also factor that.some days they can come out of school like little whirlwinds (mostly wind and rain affected!!) And that's too much for an 11yr old
Plus it would stop your 11yr old joining any after school clubs that run or hanging out with friends etc as they need to pick up.

thanks for the replies. I think I’ve decided that it’s too much of a risk and I’ll tell the kids I’ll reassess in a year or two.

to answer some questions

Our primary school definitely allows secondary kids collecting because I’ve seen them doing so although I don’t know if there is a specific age.

It’s not about the money for after school club, I’m aware ds1 may not be able to pick up every week anyway so I’d still pay for it.

I wfh that day but I have meetings all afternoon so I’d be at home.

i think it may come to it that ds1 won’t want to pick ds2 up anyway because if he is going from secondary school he’d go past our house to get to the primary school, the secondary is closer to our house than the primary.
Ds2 also looks much younger than he is so they’d probably get a few raised eyebrows walking home together.

I'm absolutely not saying you're not entitled to your opinion - but you are stating it as a fact, and it's really not. The NSPCC is actually quite clear about this. As they point out, children vary. They are always going to recommend leaving a child with another responsible person, because their job is to make sure people don't think 'woo hoo, I can leave the baby at home for three hours while I go down the pub and it's ok, NSPCC said so!'

But if there were a real concern, I think in a country that is as risk-averse as the UK, there would be fixed rules. And there aren't, for the very good reasons the NSPCC gives.

That sounds really fair, OP. There's a ton of growing up the 8 year old will do in two years!

I think a lot of primary schools allow Y5 and Y6 to walk home. A previous primary school my child was in allowed Y4s to walk home as well. But I guess each school sets their own rule.

My daughter walked my son back and forth to school when she was in p7 and he was in p3 - so 10 and 7 I think. But she’s super responsible and has been walking to school herself for a long while and he is a good listener. I also bumped up their pocket money in appreciation so they had an incentive to behave. Was quite an adjustment for me to walk my son in the next year when she was in high school - didn’t miss that part of the day at all!

if the little one is irresponsible though then absolutely not. Too much pressure on the older one and would be devastating if something happened. Maybe work towards this more slowly (meet them partway, follow a bit behind, etc)

Technically they set their own guidance.
Rules are enforceable and that one absolutely isn’t.

they just hope it’s a rule parents don’t challenge.

Yes, I have a 10 year old (11 in July) and an 8 year old (9 in September) and my eldest goes to collect his brother from the classroom and they walk to meet me a third of the way home and we walk the rest of the way together.

In the morning we all walk 2/3 of the way then I leave and they get themselves to school.

They've been doing this journey for years with me and then last year I had to start driving so I would let them walk the much shorter distance.

It works well, they get some independence and I still get my daily walk. If my eldest has something on then it makes no difference, I'll just walk a bit further and collect the youngest from his classroom.

If we lived closer I would let them both do it alone, they are both capable but it's quite far and a lot for them every day.

Yes it’s the same here. My 11yo started coming home by himself sometimes in the summer term of Y5, so a year ago. Someone is there anyway though picking up the youngest.

Not allowed by dc school. Once I asked 15 yo sister to go ahead and let school know I was 2 mins behind (walking on crutches, and had got delayed) and they wouldn’t even let my dd in the gate even though da saw her and called out “that’s my sister!”

You have to be 18 and authorised by school

I would practise them doing the route together when tired and checking that they can behave

Our school wouldn't allow it. They are not allowed to leave alone before year 5, and before that they must be picked up by someone older than 18.

If that was not the case, I might consider letting my 13yo pick up my 8yo but it's a very safe, short route.

Not sure I would have at 11.

Lots of families do this at our school.
If your kids are sensible and won't fight then it's fine.

This happens a lot at our school because the secondary school is right next door.

It definitely depends on the kids though. My daughter at 8 would have been safer on her own than with her 11 year old brother.