Would you let a ten year old walk to school by themselves?

[Inaminuteplease]

Hi all, my daughter is ten years old and has just started year five, we live half a mile walk from the school which takes us ten minutes to walk. She would have to cross two roads, one with a crossing with traffic lights and one without.

My DH thinks she will be fine and my DD is desperate for me to let her walk by herself. She has a phone so could text me when she gets to school to let me know she's arrived safely.

She is very sensible and mature for her age, but I just feel like ten is too young, especially when I work from home and am able to walk with her. If anything happened I'd never forgive myself... am I being over protective? Interested to know how others would feel?

The only thing I would say is talk through possible situations with her - some children appear perfectly sensible but make rubbish decisions when faced with something out of the ordinary DS1 I'm looking at you So ask her e.g. what would you do if there was something blocking your normal route? If you forgot your lunch? DS1 - the answer is not run back home and get it, snap key in the lock and then go back to school leaving the front door unlocked Agree solutions to each scenario.

I'll let ds who is 10 walk home after the winter so it's light. It's about 4/5 of a mile if you take the route with straightforward crossings. I'm less sure about the morning as he might decide not to go... (ASD and intermittently hates school) but he wants to be home. Also in the mornings I have his sister anyway. Other families will look out more after school than before when everyone is in a rush.

Just an update - I started off walking half way to and from school with my DD which went really well and for the last week she has been walking to and from the whole way by herself. There's been no problems so far and I can already see how much her confidence is growing! Thank you all for the advice x