The school run is one of my precious times.  I’m not going to romanticise the school run as I have just returned from a damp school run where both children fell off their scooters despite my words of caution and I was chief bag carrier, but it is a special time with the children, 10 minutes of walk and talk twice a day.  Sometimes we walk with friends, sometimes its just the three of us. sometimes its just 2 school bags, other days we are balanced with guitars, lunch boxes, PE kits and any ‘art’ work returning home.  Over the past 5 years, I’ve learnt that umbrellas are useless, best to stick to hoods, likewise I never take a handbag, pockets are good for keys and a phone so I can hold something else, whether it be a hand or junk model.  Its also the school run law that the day when you are 30 seconds late that it will be the first day in months when the children come out of school on time.

I think one of the reasons that the school run is so important to me is that I never had a parent doing a school run with my when I was a child.  We were bussed to our primary school and we walked ourselves to and from the stop.  I was always slightly envious of those friends who met their mums in the school playground.  I have been incredibly fortunate that I have been able to negotiate my work hours around the children’s school day, so I do the school run everyday. As one of my children has a 1:1 TA I need to do the run to be able to liaise with the school daily.  The mornings I work are pressured and I have to take the car on these mornings so I can get to work asap, I can be dropping the children at school at 8.50am and be presenting assembly at 9am! The afternoons are my favourites, I always walk and sometimes we just let the mood take us.  Last week we ended up with an impromptu play in a friend’s garden, we might have a walk along the beach or on sunnier days we might go for an ice cream.  I think the walk gives everyone the time just to de-stress from the day and reconnect.

I know when I’m an old woman it will be those simple moments I look back on, the journey mapped out by the red post box and yellow grit box, the corner where we look for friends, the old man at his window who waves to us, the lollipop lady, the goodbye and greeting hug in the playground, this is what makes the school run special and one of my favourite parts of the day.