@tthew has it on the previous page.

As this was mentioned in passing to you by a junior member of staff, probably safe to just ignore the instruction until there’s official communication from the head.

For all you know it could be one of the “you don’t even pay road tax” brigade getting ’em in early. “Oh, yeah, the head said…”

Ignore it, or query that it’s true before taking any further action. If it’s not true, then, well…

Kids being abducted by parents is a lot more common than you’d think.

Anecdotally: At the school where my OH works, the staff are very well versed as to who they can and cannot release children to. Relatives or no.

Id love to see that tested in court. Nowt do do with me as I am childfree but I think that is absurd

Rather than calling it absurd shouldn’t you be asking why they have the policy?

There are many situations where family relationships break down. Sometimes quite horribly.
In some situations a parent may be banned from their child’s school premises and will be prevented, by law, from picking their children up.
They may try to send in friends/relations to break the law for them.
The legal guardians will have code words and other measures to ensure the children only leave the school premises with the correct adults.
These children cannot be allowed to leave the premises unsupervised.
This is just one, extreme, example why primary school kids aren’t just turfed out onto the pavements at the end of the school day.
It’s not absurd. It’s the sad modern world.

Stranger danger is almost non existent

Mmmm, one of the reasons stranger danger is ‘almost non existent’ is because schools have safety procedures like the one you think is absurd.

Just out of curiosity, at what age do you think it would acceptable to let kids leave by themselves? I’m of the impression we are talking about primary schools here?

I live in Hackney, where they have taken a different approach: you are no longer allowed to drive past schools during school hours. Equally as extreme but, if it comes down to a choice between the two, it’s pretty obvious which is the better solution (clue: it’s the one with more bikes and less cars)

https://hackney.gov.uk/school-streets

I’m step-dad to two girls who would almost certainly have been kidnapped by their shitty father numerous times with less stringent procedures.

Probably in the past more people lived very locally to their primary school, people knew their neighbours better, and traffic levels (ironically) were much lower, probably making kids walking home independently much safer.

Yes people are more risk averse now but it’s a totally different world we live in – by harking back to some mythical past with rose-tinted spectacles you end up sounding like a Daily Mail reader!

I live in Hackney, where they have taken a different approach: you are no longer allowed to drive past schools during school hours.

Wow that’s a great idea 😮

I don’t think there’ a dogmatic “infants shall not cycle to school” from the Head, but I do think it’s a case of storage, especially on the infants side of the school which uses a separate entrance / playground to the juniors.

In which case no probs, just wheel the bike and park it in the juniors, or carry it home if it’s small. Or chain it outside the school.

this is what we do, no problem for my daughter to nip in the top gate and park her bike up whilst i wait outside – then we go down to the infants entrance.

Sucks OP 🙁 my daugher is in Y1 and the fact we can cycle in makes the school run bearable.

Just out of curiosity, at what age do you think it would acceptable to let kids leave by themselves? I’m of the impression we are talking about primary schools here?

I walked to school my entire school career. with my big sister the first few years. I was 5 she was 7 when we started ( or maybe 4 and 6)

I do not believe its any of the schools business to dictate this sort of policy and as you can see from the responses on here its far from universal

What we are doing is producing children with no freedom or ability to fend for themselves.

Yes people are more risk averse now but it’s a totally different world we live in – by harking back to some mythical past with rose-tinted spectacles you end up sounding like a Daily Mail reader!

Balderdash – people are much more risk averse without any reason for it. Its a much safer world we live in now but children lives are far more restricted because of the nonsense promoted in the media – with no real reason for the restictions

Are you really trying to tell me that 70s glasgow was safer that a nice leafy suuburb now?

Are you really trying to tell me that 70s glasgow was safer that a nice leafy suuburb now?

Purely in terms of traffic volume and the associated danger I reckon almost certainly yeah. Unfortunately it’s a negative feedback loop – more people drive because it’s dangerous to walk because more people drive.

Have you seen the streets near schools around school run time? It’s an absolute shit-show IME.

What we are doing is producing children with no freedom or ability to fend for themselves.

Again, spoken like a true grumpy old gammon 😛

Purely in terms of traffic volume and the associated danger I reckon almost certainly yeah. 

Not sure how many of those are non-drivers mind

I walked to school my entire school career. with my big sister the first few years. I was 5 she was 7 when we started ( or maybe 4 and 6)

I did too, my sister was a bit older, we cut across a golf course and I once got stuck up a tree on the way and was late for school.

Yes kids have lost a lot of freedoms and we are now more protective than need be at times, kids are no doubt also unhealthier and less independent as a result.

But I you are fooling yourself if you think it is now safer for kids, the world is a far more cunning place now with more complex social problems, I’m fairly sure none of the parents at your school back in the say had a coke problem they needed the kids to earn for, just as an example.

Would that graph be showing how safe kids are from traffic now…as a result of er…no longer walking home from school?

Not sure how many of those are non-drivers mind

Are those just absolute figures (ie not adjusted for population)? I mean, what you’d really need to settle it would be some kind of modelling of how many accidents you’d have if kids still walked to school in the proportions they used to back in 1920 or whenever it was TJ went to school 🙂

It is nuts that a lot of the traffic making it feel dangerous to walk are people doing the school run.

It’s not absurd. It’s the sad modern world.

The modern world is no sadder than the old world. We’re just much better at safeguarding these days.

Probably in the past more people lived very locally to their primary school, people knew their neighbours better, and traffic levels (ironically) were much lower, probably making kids walking home independently much safer.

This is all by design. You only have to look across the water to the Netherlands where they take a very different attitude, to see it doesn’t need to be this way.

It’s not the modern world. It’s the modern world in the UK. The one we’ve chosen to create and continue to build on.

Would that graph be showing how safe kids are from traffic now…as a result of er…no longer walking home from school?

Nail head interface

Just an update, I mailed the head to ask for a face to face to discuss. Was obviously very courteous and couched it in terms of wanting to understand the issues and work with her to resolve whatever they may be etc. Thought I might catch her at pick-up yesterday, but no joy.

Just to clarify to somebody who asked the question earlier, yes of course I collect them from school. As is fairly standard (and others have outlined) the school policy is for only year 6 to walk to and from school unaccompanied. Although my kids are very competent at handling their bikes (the 4 y/o can smash out blue runs at Coed y Brenin), they are still small children with the general road-sense of nit-wits. (although less so the eldest now.) For the youngest, even in a few short weeks, biking to school is improving that though, and long may it continue.

Stranger danger is almost non existent

Statistically yes, but my 14 year old still only walks home from school with a friends as there was a series of attempts to lure secondary school age kids last year. Incidents pretty much annually round there.

But as others have, its not usually strangers that are the risk. The week Sarah Payne was abducted and murdered with all the sensationalist headlines, two kids died at the gands of family members.

Society rarely sees this.

Stranger danger is almost non existent

Three weeks ago at my kids’ primary there was an attempt by a complete stranger to lure a child into a car at 3.15pm, 50m from the school gate: prime busy-time outside school, loads of people milling about. It happens. Whether it happens more or less than when I grew up (80s – stranger-danger messages were rife!) who knows?

As a former Governor of a primary that was both on a busy road, and with little space for playgrounds, let alone bike storage, I can understand where sc-xc is coming from.  It wasn’t that we actively didn’t want to have those facilities, but while the capital financing may be available (in theory) schools are often limited by (for instance) roll numbers, building size and condition (if some of the windows need replacing, no LA is going to let you build a bike shelter), and prior applications about what they can apply for, it’s not just free money handed out, it becomes part of the school budget that has to be paid for.

We spent and wasted huge amounts of effort trying to get a shelter built for bikes (we let kids chain bikes against the fence, which was a hazard) and it came to naught because the LA will insist of specifying their own size, position, accessibility rules around these sorts of additions. That’s nothing to say for the need to get three quotes from busy companies that specialize in school programmes that have only holiday time to be able to schedule works…Eventually it just became a waste of time, and we just let kids chain their bikes to the fence and endured the comments from parents about why there weren’t any shelters.

Have you seen the streets near schools around school run time? It’s an absolute shit-show IME.

Whilst that might mean it’s more likely to have a car v bike or car v ped incident it’s also likely that 1. It’s low speed, 2. All the fancy sensors alert the driver or even stop the car, 3. The car crumples better for the pedestrian than the 70s/80s boxes that TJ and I contended with growing up in Glasgow.

Statistically yes, but my 14 year old still only walks home from school with a friends as there was a series of attempts to lure secondary school age kids last year. Incidents pretty much annually round there.

Seems odd. Whilst I know it still happens, public awareness is high, every kid has a phone that makes anonymous abduction (and some of the stories used to try it harder), and if you were the type inclined to abduct kids you’d find it far easier to groom them online.

When was the last abduction of primary school children by a stranger? I can’t recall one locally since 2005. That might even be the last one anywhere in Scotland. Plenty of kids still go missing but not usually abducted and even less common to be abducted by a stranger.

Seems odd

Seems to be common and an incident reported today as if by magic

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/man-police-officer-kidnaps-girl-b1939052.html

Just because you aren’t aware doesn’t mean it isn’t happening

MY point merely was I think this sort of policy is a huge overreach by the schools. It should be up to the parents

IMO its the usual inability to apply risk assessment and mitigation measures properly instead using blanket bans where there is no need

Whilst that might mean it’s more likely to have a car v bike or car v ped incident it’s also likely that 1. It’s low speed, 2. All the fancy sensors alert the driver or even stop the car, 3. The car crumples better for the pedestrian than the 70s/80s boxes that TJ and I contended with growing up in Glasgow.

1. Why low speed, it isn’t, traffic dashes to the next hold up
2. Most cars don’t have sensors
3. Speed still matters more

4. Mobile phone distraction
5. Number of uninsured/ banned/ pissed/ off their tits drivers
6. Reduction in road space due to all the extra parked cars
7. What about the HGV and delivery van traffic
Etc etc

MY point merely was I think this sort of policy is a huge overreach by the schools. It should be up to the parents

Your point was supported by a load of histrionic nonsense on a subject you have little knowledge or experience of.

I agree that the school should be supportive of kids and staff cycling or walking to school. The staff policy is only there because none of them want to cycle to school, if they did it would have been challenged and changed

big and daft – accident rates. death rates amongst the total population are all well down from the 70s

again this is the difference between perception of risk and actual risk. walking to school is safer now than in the 70s – no doubt at all

People have been conditioned by decades of hysterical media reporting to think things are much more dangerous now – they are not

Its you that has the histrionic nonsense of imaginary dangers that do not exist.

MY point merely was I think this sort of policy is a huge overreach by the schools.

OFSTED will take a dim view of a school that doesn’t have a safe travel policy. Especially if a child is injured, killed or abducted travelling to and from a school. even more so if the child is disabled or SEN

IMO its the usual inability to apply risk assessment and mitigation measures properly

Very few schools have the extra capacity or time to do anything other than the most cursory work on this sort of thing. Which regrettably ends up with overworked teachers, governors reaching for the easiest and simplest solutions. Schools are required to asses whether it’s safe for children to travel unaccompanied, and take appropriate steps especially where disabilities or SEN are a factor. What they tend to do is throw a blanket over the lot.

IMO its the usual inability to apply risk assessment and mitigation measures properly instead using blanket bans where there is no need

I can agree with the principle there, though nickc provides some valid reasoning as well.

This is all a bit of a distraction from the original point of the thread though…

Having a think about safe travel and writing down a policy is fine. Most people think that schools expecting parents to collect their young children is fine. (Ours is fine with Y5 going unaccompanied if parents have consented). What I think most people are railing against is the notion that a school can ‘ban’ students or staff from travelling to school by bike.

Sure, they may not provide bike storage, that’s up to them (in almost all cases they probably should…), but they simply cannot tell me how I can and can’t travel in my own time.

What I think most people are railing against is the notion that a school can ‘ban’ students or staff from travelling to school by bike.

No it can’t really, but the Head can say “Don’t bring a bike onto the premises” though, which if you want to send your un-accompanied child to school by bike presents some issues doesn’t it? And it could be that they’ve had kids cycle in a leave their bikes unlocked and they get knicked and the school end up dealing with irate parents all the time.

Most of these sorts of issues are easily resolved though by just engaging with the school or governors though

(in almost all cases they probably should…)

Yes, I agree, but there’s often more barriers to getting these sorts of extras than you’d first think, from the budget restraints I’ve spoken about, to space, to other parents complaining that it’s all fine and dandy having a bike shed, but what about extra music lessons, or re-painting the play features of the playground, or the heating or the leaking roof, or extra parking for disabled parents, or the million and one other things that every parent thinks is the single most pressing thing a school must do in order to satisfy their particular demands…

Its you that has the histrionic nonsense of imaginary dangers that do not exist.

Do you want a copy of the emails the school sent?

Are you saying that the UK hasn’t increased traffic and reduced road space?

Are you saying the Independent link above is made up?

Are you just trying to be a grumpy old man who thinks kids are wrapped in cotton wool these days?

No

I am stating that the real dangers to children are much lower now than 50 years ago. Its a simple fact. You have been given good data on it above.

i cannot help the fact that you cannot distinguish between real danger and imaginary ones

It sounds like the head doesn’t want an untidy school yard. So I’d ask how can we collectively address this?

What is the local authority policy on active travel? Environmental sustainability? Use these policies as tools of persuasion.

When the inevitable “it’s not safe” direct the conversation to the fact it’s not safe because of cars.

In this way you are being and acting reasonably, listening to the head and positivity responding by leading the conversation to solutions.

you are no longer allowed to drive past schools during school hours

Think that’s spot on and very reasonable.

To the op. please do persevere. My youngest persuaded a group of her friends to walk (she actually started by cycling but most of her friends don’t have a bike!). Simply by doing it herself. First one friend then another joined her. The difference really was tangible as some of those parents no longer “needed” to drive.

I agree with TJ. People are stifling their childrens lives by trying to remove every single bit of danger.

I was quite proud recently when the teacher asked my daughters class what they got up to in the school holidays. My daughter was able to answer a week travelling around the uk climbing and then a 2 weeks trip to Russia for the World Champs. When the teacher replied she was lucky to be able to go with her parents my daughter quickly replied that her parents didnt go with her, she went with her team mates, shared rooms with them and paid for everything needed. We put a few quid on her apple pay but tbh she just got on with it, including russian money.. She is 14 and is currently on the train for an hour or so with her buddy to go to another town climbing. I want a daughter who isnt afraid to embrace the world rather than someone who has been removed from it.

That’s not what this is about. TJ thinks it’s crazy that schools don’t let young primary kids leave school and wander home without a responsible adult being present.
14 year olds going on trains or to organised climbing events isn’t the same thing. It’s brill but not the same.