Travelling to school? How?

I won a scholarship to a school some distance away. Aged 11 I was dropped off at the station at 7.55 by my dad. About half hour on train then a local bus got me to school for 9 am. 3.30pm out of school and bus to train station, train home then walk through town to get a local bus home. Usually home by 5.15 if no delays. Then 2 hrs homework. Doable yes, not really enjoyable, except when traingirls got sent home early due to problems with trains

I would say let her go by train. You could go with her the first few times to get used to it.
london trains are safe enough, I use them a lot and often see school children on them.
don’t worry about her having to stand some days. She won’t get tired. I have to stand sometimes and I am a lot older than her and I don’t get tired😉

Tons of people round here do similar to the train option you mentioned.

This isn’t an unusual commute for a London school at all. They’ll all end up meeting up in the middle.

Just remember that whatever choice you make, it’s not set in stone. She doesn’t have to do that for the whole 5 years.
Once she makes friends she may decide she’d rather get the bus than the train or vice versa to travel with them. I think sometimes we get inside our heads about these things and think we’re making irreversible decisions.

As someone who drove 25 minutes each way to take my son to school, I wouldn’t recommend you do the drive. I wouldn’t have been able to cope without a lift share. There was no train and the bus option (which we used occasionally on the way home) was 2 hours.

We also occasionally used a taxi. With the 3 lift share kids all splitting the cost it wasn’t horrendous.

We had the same dilemma, ds was accepted at a top 10 school, commute was a similar length. We found during the introduction days before term started that there were a few boys travelling from the same area so they got together and travelled together for the first few years. They grow up so fast and I think that independence really helped my son. I could drop him in the middle of nowhere and he’d make it home now, in contrast my daughter goes to a school 10 mins walk away and she’s never taken public transport on her own and frankly I despair!
it paid off for my son because he’s on track for 3 As and he’s got a scholarship to a top post school education programme.

Being a top 10 school isn't the be all and end all
We have one by us, but there's a terrible culture of bullying which the school denies. There's a complete lack of safeguarding or mental health concern from the school leadership. There's protests at the school about their excessively strict policies around uniform and their SEN provision is so lacking that it forces most children with additional needs to seek alternative schools.

How is your daughter supposed to maintain friendship or any extracurricular activities through the school when you live that far away?

We had the same issue with Peter Symonds in Hampshire.

In your situation, I'd choose the train. I went to school by train from 11 and it was easy.

We leave the house at 7 for the school bus so I think these start times are absolutely fine. I wouldn’t drive her yourself though

And if you live in London get her a 11-15 Zip Oyster card. Free bus and tube travel and reduce train fares. You just top it up online for her and she uses it to tap in/out.

@Animalover is she used to travelling on train or tube? With you even?

If not I would definitely start doing that now. And get her to make some independent journeys, perhaps with a friend, before the start of secondary. I am sure she will be fine.

I'm guessing the school coach has to be booked and paid for termly in advance, so can't just be used in the event of a train cancellation.
This is when I am in favour of a smart phone - a quick check on Google maps before leaving school will tell your DD when and if the trains are running and offer alternatives. Teach her how to use this - to work out what her best options are etc. It can show you bus routes etc you didn't know where available, how to get to the right bus stop etc. It means she doesn't have to go all the way to the station to be told trains are cancelled, but can have already worked out where to go.

Train is fine and kids do it all the time. Although do think about whether the benefits of this school vs other schools are still there given the long journey and how far away her friends may live.

I’d be doing the train option. Practice with her over the summer holidays, go with her once then let her do the journey alone but be on hand to help if there are problems.
The first week see how she goes, plan to go with her the first day and then working towards being independent after the first day or two.
This is what we did when my DD had to start getting a bus to school. I was prepared to drive her for a couple of days but after day one she said she was fine alone.

My son takes a bus to the train station in order to get to school very morning so uses both. He has done since year 7. He leaves at 0710 in the morning and gets home at 1610. My husband made the journeys with him on the first day so that he was confident to travel along the route independently. We make sure he has some reflective tags or bands on to improve visibility in the darker months as I think this is generally sensible.

Train best but I think bus option is reasonable if you can give her a lift to the bus stop.

You driving all the way to school doesn’t sound sustainable at all.

The nearest private school to me some kids get buses/coaches and some public transport. That’s partly because it’s not that near a train station, it’s a good 10-15 mins walk. I suppose you have to endure you’re on time for the bus.

The one thing I would be more careful about is darker evenings. Ensuring she knows what to do if by herself and maybe someone picking her up from the station.

Train sounds great. Def do that. She doesn’t need a seat

I don’t think dc ever did homework on the bus. Way too noisy and space limited. Often got alerts that they had missed registration too.

I agree with train. It sounds a very simple journey and presumably the train will be full of other students and commuters.

My daughters took the train to school from the start of year 7. The older one had a summer birthday so was only just 11 when term started in September. They had to walk to the station (about 8 minutes) catch a train (15-30 minutes, depending on whether it was a fast one or not), change onto another train (5 minutes) and then walk to school (less than 5 minutes).

We practised the journey, and in particular the change of train, in advance and it was never a problem.

Your daughter will probably make friends with other pupils before long and they will travel at least some of the way together.

I agree re plans for cancellations as there are options from my local train station to use buses but you’d have to know which ones and where to go.

I got the train by myself to a ballet class on Saturday mornings when I was 12, it was a 15 minute journey max and I was fine. I bought the old chocolate you could buy in vending machines on platforms which I thought was great!