Travelling to school question.

horse76

I drive my dd to primary which is 10 miles away, so takes me approximately 15 minutes to get into town. I try to be out the house by 8:35am, to give us time to get parked and walk dd to her classroom. Although I'm back at work this week after Maternity and I'll need to leave at 7:45 to get dd to breakfast club for 8am, find a free parking space and get into work for 8:20am. Only for 2 weeks though as they break off for summer hols soon.

msb5262

Hello OP,

My children all attended the village primary school which is close enough to home for me to hear the whistle blowing in the playground!

In contrast, secondary was as follows:

DS1 went to school 3 miles away, so walked 2 mins to bus stop, got school bus which went a very roundabout route and took about 25 minutes.

DD goes to school in a city 11 miles away so walks 1 min to bus stop, gets shuttle bus to train station which takes 15 mins to go about a mile because it goes all round the village, then gets train (15 mins). She then has a 5 min walk to school. Due to the way the timetables work, she usually leaves home at 7.24 to get to school for 8.15.

DS2 is at school in the same city so does the same as DD but his school is a 20 minute walk from the station at the other end. As a result he is usually quite tired - he has a big rucksack full of books etc and often gets a lot of homework, but then he is only in Year 8 so isn't that used to it yet!

I must add that my DD and DS2 have gained a lot from travelling like this to school - DD did it alone for 3 years, and I think they have both become much more confident about going out by themselves. It has also helped them to be better organised and more independent.
My DS1 has been quite tentative about going into the city and I think this is partly because his whole life was in villages and small towns until the age of 16 - not necessarily an advantage.

HTH - and good luck

MsB

Spendless

aliasojo wrote: »

I'm not ignoring your question Spendless but I'm not answering it either. I've soooo learned my lesson about only posting factual type things here now and staying away from the thoughts/feelings/emotional side of things. Whatever answer I gave to a question that involved my own or my daughter's personal feelings, it would no doubt attract people who held a negative opinion about it/me/my thoughts/my family's thoughts and I can do without the grief these days tbh.

Suffice to say the travelling situation will be one that has to be adapted to. I just wasn't sure if the distance involved was normal for a busier town type school or not as it is so far removed from what we are used to normally. This thread has been useful in clarifying that, so again, thanks to all who replied. :beer:

And that's fair enough.:) I was on hol last week, yes a term-time one. I didn't bother asking anyone's opinions on here over whether I should take it! so wasn't aware till recently that there'd been an issue elsewhere.

I suppose I was thinking about what my own 11yo is doing today and next week, and in my case it's me thinking of 'what if' situations. I then related it back to yourself, and was thinking you can't have ever gone thru the Secondary school a distance away before despite having 2 older kids, and of course with moving, the options available to me, aren't currently available to you. I had actually added a line to this effect, that once you are settled with home and school and term's started an your dd has made friends, the travelling issue will just become second nature, but I deleted it partly cos I couldn't think how to phrase it and partly because I thought it irrelevant to the thread.

I recently started a factual thread in the motoring board, where I really thought I wouldn't get the type of replies you see elsewhere on this site, and was proved wrong. I do however recommend a large pinch of salt and 2 bottles of lager and a mini bottle of wine before answering those type of threads.:p Worked for me. :rotfl:

anniemf2508

Primary school is about a 10 min walk from home but my son is too young to walk on his own....his dad walks him there in the morning and i pick him up by car in the afternoon.
My daughters secondary school is just under 2 miles away, she walks it everyday, it takes her about 30 mins through the town centre and over some quite busy roads. I sometimes pick her up in the afternoon, depending on how many bags shes got to carry and if she has a after school club.
(i don't do morning school runs as start work at 6am)

Spendless

And if you are wondering about length of walking time. DS has just done his trial walk to and it took 30 minutes. I'm expecting the trip home longer, since he was nattering about going and looking at the wild rabbits that live around there!

Savvy_Sue

deannatrois wrote: »

Where I live, there is a bad shortage of primary school places so I could only get my five year old to a school that is just under 2 miles away. Too far for him to walk at that age,

you say that, but when mine were at primary I used to see one family walk past our door in the opposite direction to school, heading off towards a school which was about the same distance as you mention, and then come back after dropping the children off. She must have had to do that 40 minute walk 4 times a day, from reception onwards.

DS3 was a lazy boy, and would have stayed in a push chair until he was a Junior if I'd let him! However, I got a bike so I could head straight off to work, he used to sit on the saddle while I pushed him to and from school, at least until he realised it was more fun to walk with his little friends.

msb5262 wrote: »

DD goes to school in a city 11 miles away so walks 1 min to bus stop, gets shuttle bus to train station which takes 15 mins to go about a mile

Just wondering if it wouldn't be quicker for them to walk that mile to the station? I know a lot of the pupils at the school the boys went to would get off the bus about 4 stops early, because it was quicker to walk across to school rather than stay on the bus while it went round all the houses to get closer.

Edinburghlass_2

Primary school I drove my daughter to as she wasn't in the catchment school so no school bus.

Secondary school was catchment school 3/4 miles away but no direct bus so the mini bus picked her up at the door. She started secondary school the year that Hollie and Jessica were murdered so it was quite a worry to hand her over to a stranger early in the morning.

However the bus driver came round all the families, rural and farms, to introduce himself and let us know what time exactly they would be picked up and dropped off, we were first at 7.30. He gave me his mobile number, the company phone number and appreciated my concerns at that particular time.

As someone else said, for my daughter, it worked quite well introducing her to kids of all ages that she had never met before heading into a big school with 900 odd pupils. I remember my own feelings when moving from primary school where you were top dog to secondary school where you were the smallest fish in a very big ocean, pretty scary.

We were also very lucky with the bus companies that we had over this time, all the drivers were very good with the kids, gave them an egg at Easter and a selection box at Christmas but most of all were kind to the kids and very tolerant with worried mothers