have we already looked att he "kid not allowed to walk to shchool" thing?

[FluffyMummy123]

Message withdrawn

year 6

God how bizarre. When I was living in Germany children that age were going to school on the train on their own.

I think the school should have phoned up my neighbour and said 'Why is your 10 year old son not walking the 200 yards to school by himself given that he clearly needs the exercise?'

They simply CANNOT have it all fking ways! Schools seem to want:

ALL puplils to walk
BUT! None alone
BUT all parent should work, thereby contributing to the economy
BUT also be aroudn for school plays!
And PTA!
But be careful: emplyers will want to tell you off for it
Hmm. Collect them from school and that's good. Except oh no, you;re not at work now! Berate you!
Don't collect them. You bitch how could you leave your child there ALL DAY?

You can't win. Not really.

I wouldn't let a six year old walk to school on his own, but i don't think others should be banned from doing it. I walk ds1 to school and will continue till he's about 8. I started walking to school with my younger sisters (without mum) when i was about 8 or 9.

Oh god, shite post, sorry. But my point is you cannot have it ALL ways.

When should they walk alone to school depends on WAY too many factors to put a general age on it.

Another non-story.

GREAT post www

I don't actually know of any school that says parents should work www

It's not a non-story IMO, it's another health-and-safety-gone-mad story.
This issue isn't how old the kid was and whether it was right for him to walk, it was the fact that the school is seeing it as legally their responsibility and hence up to them to tell the parents what to do, which will have other schools running scared and thinking they have to start issuing directives, etc etc.

It is very easy to freak out local authorities about the fear of getting sued for various things even when legally they're actually pretty safe.

I think that six is a bit young unless it is really straight down the road (less than a mile - how far is that anyway - in terms of the time it would take for a six year old?). I don't see why the chil in question couldn't go with an older child or another parent if it's the way that eveyone walks. But I was a bit peeved that my children's school said that they shouldn't walk to school on their own until they are 10, having just moved to within walking distance (and I'm talking about under 5 mins, and only I road with a lollypop lady). I think my ds at 8 ought be be able to manage that (he might be tempted to stop and play on the way home, but the way in shouldn't be a problem).

aTILLA
sorry caps locked
but the govt wants us all to work
it doesn't like singel parents/sahps/anything not contributing

well, stop expecting us all to fking well walk to fking school then!

We can't do IT ALL.

Oh is it normal for schools to tell them to not then?

Nooka, that's mad.

you know, they need to decide:

Are SAHPs a VERY GOOD THING?
Are SAHPS a VERY BAD THING?

Would you prefer
a) more parents at home and therefore walking to school but NOT contributing economically etc
b) them WORKING OTH but kids at clubs/bussed to school

Seems to me the school transpoert stuff perfectly sums up the govt dichotemy about how it wants parents to be

Yes,the government may want parents to work - I don't think you can blame the school for that.

I'm with the Head on this one. Six is much too young (IMO) to allow a child to walk to school alone, however short or 'well-used' the route. What is the Mother thinking? I read the first half of the link, but just scanned the second half, but what is the deal here? Is she a working Mum? Even so, surely she could arrange her hours so that she could see her child to school safely?

not allowed to go home alone here

no walking unsupervised until 8 I think

6 is too young.

this was discussed on a thread a few months ago (obviously not this news story, the topic) and we all had massively diferent ideas. I walked to school alone from what would now be Yr 1 having been walked to school by bigger sister for Reception and then I in turn walked my littler sister to school when I was Yr 3 and she was in reception. This was up the road less than a mile crossing 3 roads one big enough for a bus to travel along the others tiny ones. At 7 (so year 3) I walked with my bigger sister to my junior school which was much further probably 1 and a half miles maybe? About 5 roads, one of which was a main road, really busy. But this was in the 1960s and life was so different then, fewer cars definitely and we lived somewhere where everybody looked out for you. Not many mums worked of course then (my mum secretly cleaned people's houses to get extra dosh and LOCKED the 4 of us in a small bedroom when she went to work in the holidays, leaving the biggest sister in charge, oh those were the days indeed!!).

Now I would love to send my 8 year old (yr 3) alone to school but it's too far (1.5 miles) along unpaved country road and big roads very busy at the bottom of the hill into the village. The school doesn't have a policy but won't allow kids under yr 6 to cycle alone to school even so guess they would take a dim view of me sending her alone! Having said that , loads of kids do walk within the village and sometimes I raise an eyebrow at the little ones on the crossing alone. But we all have to look out for them, it takes a village to raise a child and all that?

It's each to their own, like a lot of things. I personally wouldn't let my child walk alone at 8 (I have an 8 year old) but that's just me, I just wouldn't do it at that age. DD is starting secondary school in September and I'm even fretting a bit about her going to the bus stop and getting a bus on her own.

Six is much to young to walk to school on their own. When my children were at primary school, the school did not allow any child under 8 to walk to or from school on their own. My children wer 10 when they started going to school on ther own as this is what thier friends did.

Yes we have. More or less.