What Age Let Daughter Walks Home From School?

[MustangLady]

My niece is 11yrs old (her birthday was August) and in the new term just gone up to 1st year senior school. My sister in law called me tonight to try resolve a dispute between her and my brother. Currently, my SIL still takes/collects my niece from school, involves 15 minute walks both ways, the route of which crosses over an unmanned open railway line/public footpath between houses. This route is a popular route with everyone travelling to/from school. The alternative is a 45 minute journey. When collecting her daughter, she said she doesn't actually walk with her instead follows about 20 paces behind her, allowing her to walk with group of 3-4 mates, who gradually disperse to their own homes, my niece being the furthest to travel. Once her friends have left my SIL then continues final stage of journey with daughter.
Basically, my SIL feels like a 'spare-part' and feels she is not needed to take/collect daughter much longer, feels at 11yrs old, walking with friends, her daughter is safe enough to go to/from school on her own but suggests meeting her before railway crossing as that's them only part of journey she wants

[Peter Pedant]

God we were doing this at 5 - taking the local bus at 8 to the next village.
I made my first unaccompanied bus journey at 4 - my mother did look at me. And I ha\sten to assure readers it was to home and not away from it

It is remarkable that most of the olds on this thread would have spent their childhood playing unsupervised up to 90%of the time, and now parents are insisting on supervising play 90% of the time. And no one has looked at the effect on the child.

My own view is that anyone serving in Europe 1940-45 saw hordes of marauding child refugees doing OK by and large so knew children could look after themselves. So when they had children ( 'us') just let us get on with it.

[whiskeryron]

As I type this I have recently seen in the news that the police are still searching for a missing schoolgirl & I can't help feeling the anguish of her parents & thinking if only she had been accompanied by someone things may be very different now. I am saddened that I feel that unaccompanied children in this day & age are very vunerable & I would personally want to accompany her at all times.