Can a school really stop you letting your child independently walk to school?

[Duv]

My child is no where near old enough yet for this to be an immediate consideration, but in principle I'm a big believer in giving children independence where possible, and walking to school independently is something I think can be highly beneficial for children (dependent on their maturity and how close they live to school/how many roads they cross etc).

I walked a mile to school from Yr5 by myself, and whilst I remember this raising a few eyebrows amongst other parents at the time, it was ultimately my parents decision and i was soooo thrilled to be able to do it and go so much out of it.

Ive been faintly aware that the dial has been shifting the other way steadily over the last few decades, so much so that many secondary schools kids are driven to school, but what's surprised me is many primary schools claim they won't permit children to walk to school alone at all of until year 6. This seems like it's really not something that should be their business (at best they can advise on, but not enforce).

Can you just override their policy and say this is what our family are doing? Has anyone had any experience of being so bold? I see lots of people say 'if you don't like it pick another school' but that's obviously wildly impractical. I'm not looking to open a conversation about whether it is right in principle for a 10 year old to walk to school alone, as I know where I stand, I'm just interested in people's experience of school push-back.

Schools local to us allow children to walk alone from y5. Usually the parent signs a permission form and the children have an extra personal development class about what to do in an emergency.

They carry a little laminated card with the school's number and their parents number on it that they can take to any local shop if they need help.

I'm not even sure they can stop them walking home... surely all they can do is refuse to release them unless there's an adult to collect them. You could ask a fellow class mum to "collect" them and then send them off to walk home alone couldn't you?

I didn't walk to school aged five as it was a car journey away, but I certainly walked to my nana's who was about a five/ten minute walk away, in 1980. I think she did used to phone my mum when I got there though, because one time I stopped to chat to a kid in a front garden on the way and was told off for being late. It was a quiet estate, very little traffic - I wasn't able to give my children that freedom as we lived in/near the city centre.

Yes same here in north Scotland. Lots of parents doing school run at the start of P1, mostly older siblings by the end of the year.

Actually did you know there were 12,000 serious or fatal road accidents involving children in 1979?

Compare 2013, when only 1500 such accidents occurred.

The age you are most likely to be killed crossing a road is 11 or 12. You are still MUCH more likely to be killed at age 15 than at age 5.

About 70% of accidents are related to children walking home from school, and of those 68% were because a child didn’t look both ways before crossing.

So maybe we have just forgotten how many kids used to be mown down - I certainly do remember a near miss or two…

I was in charge of 3 younger siblings walking home a mile after school aged 10.

Dd walked home from afterschool club in Y5 equivalent as we built up to it over a few months (she left while I talked to the minder, we had 2 points to stop for each other as she walked and I drove, building up to her walking home alone to be there the same time as I got in). So when a major bullying problem emerged in afterschool and she had to walk home alone straight after her ECAs, principal had a major problem with it but couldn't argue this afternoons but she had to drop 2 ECAs to be collected by a new afterschool club immediately after school ended - in Y6, as principal still hadn't dealt with bullying issue, I told her DD was no longer going to the new afterschool she hated, was going back to all her ECAs and was walking home alone as she was more than capable.... )

Nowadays, it seems no one at all walks.

Which is just fabulous for working women.

I am old, and started school in 1977, aged 5. My mum did take me for the first couple of weeks, at that time the new P1 children only went part time until the end of September. After that, a group of us in the same class would meet, with the mums, at the bottom of the hill about one third of the way to school, and walk the rest of the way up the hill and into school, about half a mile. Then at the end of the day the same thing, we'd all leave together, the lollipop lady would see us across the road, we'd all walk down to where our mums were waiting. Aged 5. In fact, some of my friends who were young for the year were 4.

Dd who was walking home aged 11 is now 18 and loving living in an EU capital for uni and looking after herself, travelling home frequently and even organising solutions for her mid-40s Uncle when travel issues happened recently. and she taught many of her privately schooled classmates how to use the bus after school when they got to secondary and wanted to go shopping on a Friday afternoon. (Dd wasn't in private for primary but many of her classmates had been, and were very sheltered).

In case anyone wants to take a look, this is the data from gov.Uk regarding casualties on roads up to 2023.

UK is the 3rd lowest road casualties out of 33 countries they compares us too. So maybe it’s worth not letting our kids walk. I take back my previous post!

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-great-britain-annual-report-2023/reported-road-casualties-great-britain-annual-report-2023

From year 5 in our london (zone 2) primary. My 8yr old is more than ready, it's only a few minutes' walk, but has another school year to go. There are kids who come via bus etc from just-turned-9. It's good for them all imo

Schools are in loco parentis while they are within the premises. I would say they are more likely to be able to stop them leaving unaccompanied than police how they arrive in the morning. But I would try to work with them on this one.

DD's' school had no policy on it but common practice was that kids walked home from Y6. For most this would mean busy or tricky roads to cross so I get it. For us it was a ten minute walk and no roads to cross, with tons of people all walking the same way. I wrote school a letter saying that DDs had my permission to walk home from school, explaining that we lived nearby and the walk home involved no road crossings. They did this occasionally in Y4 and regularly from Y5- at their behest, they enjoyed the independence. In practice I often did go to meet them from school or walk them there as I enjoyed our chats on the way home.

I don't see how they can stop them really. My DDs school allows them to walk home alone from year 5 (as in they don't check someone is there to collect them from year 5, they just let them out)

I live in an area where children walk to school right from the start. We were also told that the school has no responsibility or, presumably, control over what happens outwith the school gates.

Mine walked to school from Y5. The more worrying thing is the general trend to not building more independence in our young people. So many cannot use buses and trains, which I feel they should be able to do independently by age 15. We don't have long to help them learn to navigate the world so best not to try to cram it all in to Y13 before setting them off alone.

Can't see sny school allowing - or parent - allowing a 5 year old to do a 15 minute walk twice a day unaccompanied. Ss would have been informed surely as it's a huge safeguarding issue/neglect.

I mean they can't physically force you or refuse the child access, they could probably report and make life awkward.

I saw a story not long ago, can't remember where but a little child (only like reception age) showed up at the gates of her school alone in mismatched shoes. Teachers realized something was off and got someone to cover the class as the followed her back to her house. Her mam had had a seizure caused by sepsis and was unconscious. The kid just got herself dressed and went to school. The teachers going to the house rather than ignoring it ended up saving the mams life.

My friends in Oz sent their children to school on public transport, sometimes with changes, from the equivalent of about yr 3. Because everyone does it, no one considers this strange.

When I was at junior school so yr 3 up, we were let out of the classroom to meet our parents outside the gates/off site - the expectation was that you would return to school and alert them if you were not collected rather than the other way round.

We have definitely become much more careful societally about giving dc independence at a young age - not sure when/why/what the impacts are. It's definitely not with out negative consequences.

Under 7 is unreasonable because children have been proven to have insufficient road sense under that age (and some for longer, let's be honest).

Can't see sny school allowing - or parent - allowing a 5 year old to do a 15 minute walk twice a day unaccompanied. Ss would have been informed surely as it's a huge safeguarding issue/neglect.

My daughter (Scotland) did this in 1995 as a 5yo and local children still do it. Nobody would ever consider this neglect or think of phoning Social Services,. It's a way of life here.

Surely the key thing is what year is the child in. Most schools allow Y5 and Y6 to walk home. Anything below Y5 is too young.

This seems odd. You have to sign a letter to say your child can walk home or to school in Y5 at my child's school.

When my elder DD was in Yr4, she had a school taxi for a while. All the other children had to be collected from a teacher... but the taxi children had to walk down the road and find their taxi driver. I did find it a strange contradiction.

As I've said, I'm in Scotland so maybe different rules. Nobody thinks it's odd and as a teacher I got to know which children were picked up and which walked home. Certainly no letters to be signed.

It's bonkers isn't it! I took a bus into town, and changed buses, and got myself to and from school from 8 years old.

Fast forward to my kids, they wouldn't be released from the door unless a parent there to collect them. Only one parent managed to put her foot down, and get permission, and she lived next door to the school!

This seems odd. You have to sign a letter to say your child can walk home or to school in Y5 at my child's school.

You don't have to sign a letter to let your child walk to school alone. How can they possibly prevent this? What will they do if your child arrives alone but you haven't signed it?

Not that I'd refuse or anything, but the school is being a bit ridiculous to say "your child cannot walk to school alone unless you've signed this letter because we don't allow it".