Travel to Secondary School

My DD’s journey is similar. She loves the time on school coach. They have bus friends beyond year groups and even boys from next door school as two schools share bus service. 1 hour journey is common for her school and I don’t see the problem.

We live in a city (not London) and DC go to local bog standard comp about 15 mins walk away. An hour's commute does sound pretty full on.

Depends on the journey and the local alternatives. Mine have a 45 minute journey on one private bus. Just enough time to read, watch something on their phone or chat to friends. The destination is worth the journey but they don’t have local friends. Plenty of contact on phones or over WiFi though.

I think it depends on the alternatives. If there is a reasonable school nearby where all the local kids go to then that would be the better option. Think about what you will do when they want to start meeting up with friends at the weekend. Will you just say no it’s too far? So they miss out?

I agree with the person upthread who said that it depends on what the journey is. A single, reliable train ride where the child will always get a seat might be okay but two tubes and a bus will be hard work.

Depending on where you are, an hour travelling may mean the school is really far away. If all the tubes break, that could mean that an eleven year old is stuck on the wrong side of London (for instance).

From memory, one of the girls’ schools (St Paul’s) has brought in a policy where they won’t offer a place to girls who will have to travel for more than 50 minutes. Presumably they have a large enough pool of candidates that they can do that.

I have both perspectives- DD14 goes to a school that’s three tube rides away (takes about an hour) because she chose to change to a specialist school. She’s super organised and independent though so will always be up in time and I don’t have to worry about her leaving late. It does mean some of her other activities are a bit of a rush to get to and we dropped a couple but overall she’s fine. Friends being far away is the only downside but she also keeping up with local friends.

DD12 is at a school that 20 mins away by tube and all her friends are local. This is better for her as she’s not a morning person so can cut it quite fine and still make it in time!

I think you need to think of your son is going to find it easy to get up in time to get the bus (presumably if he misses it then there’s no other way to get there in time?) or are you going to spend 7 years yelling at him to get up in time? The struggles I’ve had with DD12 have been quite traumatic!

DS in now in Y10. He leaves the house at 7.10am to get the school bus and gets to school around 8.15. School finishes at 3.30 and he is home around 4.30. TBH, he adapted to the commute pretty well after going to a primary school 5 minutes walk away! He still manages to attend swim training 6 nights a week as well as music lessons. He just has to be extremely organised in terms of doing his homework and revision as soon as he's home. The only downside of attending a school so far away is that his friends are spread out over a huge area, so everything has to be planned in advance. However, the alternative was to go to one of two failing schools close to home!

My dd travels 45 minutes (leaves an hour in case of tube issues) to her school. All the selective schools she got offers for were that travel time or more, and being at an academically selective school was important to her and to us. She uses the time to do revision on her phone at the moment, though it’s usually reading (in the mornings) and chatting with friends (in the afternoons).

It hasn’t prevented her from doing hours of extra-curricular activities (four nights a week) as these tend to start later for older DC, so she can get home first, change and then go out again.

She is now very confident about navigating around London on public transport, and takes herself off to visit friends or meet them in the park happily. So it doesn’t limit her social life, and I don’t have to taxi her around.

In an ideal world, I’d prefer to be a bit closer to school, but it’s such a good fit for her that the journey is definitely worth it.

I know of a few kids who do this. I live rurally and the the only private schools are in the nearest city. It takes them at least an hour to get to school.

Yes, I'd say so. I travelled almost this distance (that was the closest school) and it was really wearying. Also in winter we never saw the daylight except at the weekend. Went to school in the dark, came home in the dark. I'm Highlands though, so maybe if you're right in the south of England you'd get enough sunlight so they got maybe fifteen minutes of daylight after school?

I wouldn't want my DCs commuting such long distances. If the local school is that bad I'd have considered moving to be near better schools.
No chance to hang around with friends, having to give up extra curricular activities, the exhaustion, early mornings, possibly no downtime after factoring in home work and revision....sounds miserable.
DS is at the perfectly fine local grammar school in Y7 and DD will be joining this Sept too and it takes them half an hour to walk or 10mins to cycle. They both qualified for highly sought after grammars an hour away, but we chose the local option and I think it's the right decision. They do so many after school activities, and all that would have had to be given up and that would not be good for their wellbeing.

My DS gets picked up by the school bus at 7.45 and is at school for 8.10 for an 8.30 start. He gets home at varying times but if he comes straight home he's back anytime between 4.30 and 4.45. We're in SW London and he gets public transport home.

Definitely worth it for a brilliant (private) school.

My 2 DS do it. It's worth it as the school is way better than the ones available to them locally. They love the school and are both very happy there. After school stuff is not affected as they can come on regular buses although it does take a bit longer. They enjoy the bus journeys as they are "sociable"

However the downside is their friends. DS1 has friends local to school so has to plan in extra time to see them outside of school. DS2's best friend lives even further away.

However, I will repeat they are both happy there, doing well and would not want to be in the local alternative.

I think there is a difference between "it's normal here" and "my DC doesn't find it a problem" (unless you are rural and it's that sort of distance to get to any school) and it being something you should actively choose. Same way as all the adults doing commutes into London have put up with it but are now saying they don't want to go back to the office after a year wfh. Why is work(school)/life balance not important for children too?

I did a similar commute as a child. I got on with it. Do I think the school was worth it. No I don't. Would I wish it on my own children if there was any choice at all - no. Do I think it's a good thing that this sort of commute is still, after lockdown experiences, normalised - equally no.

I wouldn't but that because mine do tons outside of school every night. They have a ten min walk to school. I don't think a school is worth sitting on a bus ten hours a week for.

My journey to upper school (year 9 onwards) was an hour with a bus into town, wait at bus station then a second bus to the other side of town. Generally not a problem but a bit of a miserable experience when it snowed and everything was late. Thankfully I was fairly south so snow wasn't frequent but I still remember my longest journey home was 2 1/2 hours after freak heavy snow started at 3pm. It sounds like it might be more of a door to door service in which case, he might enjoy the hour long ride home with other kids.

My DS catches the school bus at 7.45 and gets to school at about 8.30. On the bus at 4.05 and home by 4.50.

He was pretty tired for the first term, Y7. With homework as well, it doesn't leave time for much else.

It has to be a really good school to make it worthwhile.

If the school day is 8.30 - 4.30, then does that include the time when they would do homework / extra curricular activities, or are you expecting your dc to be able to do that outside of those times ?

I agree with pp who suggested that it depends on all the other factors.
It's not unusual to have to leave home an hour before school starts, although it is more unusual to have such a long school day.
But it depends on what the benefits of this school are, compared with what you think might be the negatives of nearer schools.
Also, if the hour on the bus is because it goes via various pick up points and winds it's way to school, or, if it would take you that long on the occasions you needed to pick them up, or go in for concerts / Parents evenings / every night over a week they were performing in a play / sports fixtures / times when they were late back after a trip or something that meant the missed the bus / etc etc

My dds would often not arrive home until an hour after school finished, but they were walking, so on all the occasions I needed to drive there, it was a fraction of the time.

I'm in SW London and so pleased we chose a (state) secondary school within 20 mins cycle/30 mins bus. My DD (now in Y9) has seen so many friends who attend schools further away have to give up extra-curricular activities outside of school because they get home so late. Clearly less of a problem if the school has a good extra-curricular offering but, even then, I think it is limiting/overly insular because I know my DD has benefitted from activities outside of school, with different friends etc. I would also suggest it is worth thinking about the social side - giving your teenagers the opportunity for a bit of independence and hanging out after school with their friends is, I think, really important. And that is - practically - much harder to do if everyone is travelling in from an hour away (in different directions). As ever, I think the decision comes down to the specific options for schools that you have near you.

That’s completely normal for this part of London. Decide on what you think is your max commute time and then look at schools within this frame. Ironically we have schools that are in Surrey that are quicker to get to then some nearer schools as the school buses offer a ‘fast’ service form this part of London. Also check there is no Saturday school, take in to account whether you want your child to have local friends in holidays and are prepared to be mum cabs during the holidays and be prepared for the Saturday sports pick ups - but you can usually get a car share thing going for those

I think you’re completely mad. Mine do just short of half hour (40 mins if the bus is late or they decide to walk). It’s long enough. But they don’t go to private school so I don’t know about average journeys to those.

DD (Y7) does 80 minutes each way and doesn't find it a problem.

Her commute is two trains and a platform change in between. One of the trains is nearly 50 minutes. There's also a very short walk at each end.

What makes a huge difference is how 'bitty' a commute is. A decent chunk of time spent on a train can be used for reading/homework. If there is lots of hanging about waiting for buses/trains or lots of small chunks of journey then you can't do anything useful and it's potentially a lot more stressful and tiring.

DD has been commuting since Y1 of Primary so she was already used to it - and this is an easier journey. She does three after-school activities a week at the moment so stays late at school or goes to classes elsewhere.

Most people thought we were mad to do it initially, but it has worked fine for us (and our local options were still going to be 40-60 minutes so worth the extra 20 for a school we really wanted). She's always a bit tired for the first couple of days of term, but that's pretty normal even with a small journey.

It's worth checking where other children live - and you will need to be up for being flexible on being a taxi service/facilitating. DD's secondary has lottery entry so the catchment is vast and it's not a case of her being the only one not being able to easily socialise at evenings and weekends. She has weekend activities and a close circle of friends at those so she would miss out on school stuff anyway.

My DD is in year 13 and we chose a school which was 30/35 mins drive but 50 mins on the school minibus. Timings varied every year, depending on where the pupils lived, but around 7:20am pick up in our village and return at 6:50pm. Generally homework and clubs all done at school and you had to get permission to pick up early, for outside swimming club etc. The year 7's adjust pretty well my DD found year 9 the toughest, I think they just need more sleep at this age.

God I think that sounds bloody awful

When lockdown started adults all over the country announced how great it was to wfh and not have a long commute.

Yes, he will get on with it and cope if you go ahead with that school but why would you make him? Is the benefit the school provides really that much better that additional time and not being so tired wouldn't balance out?