10 minutes longer on the bus / 30 minutes earlier out the door. Crazy or ok?

Is School A an indie, or a faith school? Otherwise, I'm not sure how you can be certain of a place at a school so far away which isn't your local school? (Also presumably your DC has qualified for the grammar school?).

Assuming that both the grammar and School A are actually realistic preferences, wrt the journey I would also consider whether either of the buses is a fixed school bus (one journey am, one home pm), or a public service, since the latter would make it easier to take part in after school activities etc

A less-than-one-hour journey for a grammar school is a compromise many families are willing to make, whereas a 40 minute commute to an ordinary state school feels much harder to justify.

You will likely find that children at the grammar school travel at least that far, some up to an hour/hour and a half as they tend to have quite large catchments (the ones by us certainly do).
if you live in a rural area, 30-45 minutes on a bus is quite normal too, so I am sure both options will be fine for your dc.

I do think 35 mins or 45 mins on a bus (if that’s the actual bus journey) is a long time. But I agree it is more likely that grammar school DC will be doing this, unless the other school has a very wide catchment too – are you very rural? What kind of walk is there at either end?

If there is (say) a 10-min walk to the bus stop and then a 5-min walk to the school at the other end, for your “nice” nearer school that’s a 50-min commute, longer if time is allowed to wait at the bus stop (tho when I was a teen I frequently raced from a certain point about 300m away when I saw my bus coming round the corner!); for the grammar that’s an hour each way at least. I think that’s a lot but as I say, I am assuming that you live rurally (where I live, in a small city, a commute of an hour on foot and by bus would take you way past <tallies quickly> at least 10 secondary schools).

How far away is your most local school? Why is it not an option? In general I am very much in favour of students attending their local school as long as it is suitable but even then for sure I can think of schools I might live locally to which I would not be super happy about my DC attending.

To answer your actual question (!) my school commute (rural area) was about 45 mins door to door (including the run haha) and IMHO it was too far. I rarely saw school friends outside school which put a big limit to my social life and social skills later I think. But it may be that a longish commute is unavoidable in which case adding 10 mins (if it is only 10 mins) may be acceptable. I would say tho that the fact that lots of others also do a long commute to the grammar (which for sure is likely especially if you are not in a city) is not helpful on the social point. That was also my situation. I had a friend, almost a good friend, who lived 15 miles from school in a different direction from me (I lived about 8 miles away). So 23 miles, with no buses, the other end of the world tbh. But then my parents were not willing to drive me here and there in the evenings and at weekends and I suspect today's parents are more willing to facilitate (I know I was when my DC were younger).

Does School B start 20 minutes earlier than School A? If so, do they end earlier as well?

Will your DC take the bus home most days as well? If so, what's the difference in when they would get home?

So what's the actual daily schedule for school B? How does it compare?

Is school B a much much better fit? If so I kind of agree with the PP who says 45 mins for an OK school vs 55 mins for a much much better school feels like a no-brainer (as in, worth the extra time for the much better fit).

Did you consider the grammar for your eldest? If you didn’t give your eldest the grammar possibility (unless they are clearly not academic enough) then might be hard to justify giving the younger one that option.

For us we have set a 45 minute (door to door) max journey time for secondary school options. As a family we have a low tolerance for long commutes (DH and I are able to walk or cycle to work in 15 mins) and find that it improves our quality of life and reduces daily stress. Ten extra minutes may not seem a lot but from our pov it's more about total time taken over the week/year, and the opportunity cost it has (dcs do lots of extracurriculars outside of school, other friends have stopped going because of long school journey times) as well as more time for seeing friends, family and relaxing at home.
But then we are in London so we still have loads of good secondary options and it doesn't limit us that much. Probably I would thiink differently (or move) if the only local option was dire.

Left-field question: is a bus the only option? I ask because DD can get the bus or cycle to school. The bus allegedly takes 37 minutes, but the timetable has no adjustments for it being the rush hour. It always takes longer than that. So she cycles instead - which means leaving the house 30 minutes later (and arriving home commensurately earlier). Any other options for your DS? I should say that DD goes to a school on the other side of the city rather than in a different town, so it's reasonably safe cycling (all lit, definitely no rural A-roads)

You also need to consider snow or icy conditions. In the city where I live that has 4 Grammar schools, the buses do not always run if the roads are particularly bad on any one part of the journey. Friends have had to do rescue missions on more than one occasion and recently with the diesel price hike one coach firm has decided to end their contract. So after Christmas there will be no coach service on at least one of the routes. Parents are up in arms but ultimately they have decided to have their child educated outside the county/borough and have responsibility for getting their children to school.

Leaving 40 minutes earlier and getting home 40 minutes later is a lot of time out of their day, particularly if School A is already a 40 minute bus ride away. I'll ask my DC to make sacrifices for a better school, but School B would have to be a lot better for them than School A for me to ask that. Combined with your older DC attending School A and I can see that it's a tough choice.

You mentioned earlier that it's fixed school buses for both schools. Do these schools ever have before school or after school sports practice or clubs? What would the timings look like for that? Would you have to drive your DC?

You raise good points. Also there has recently been a little of talk of coach firms withdrawing from school bus contracts due to rising diesel and other costs. For Grammar schools, it is usually a private arrangement between parents and the company. Are you sure that if the school bus stopped running that you would be able to get your child to or from the school by another means.

But from the sounds of it school A is a bit closer so possibly easier to find an alternative. I did not attend the 2 schools closest to my home but the one I attended was syill only about 35 minute walk home as worst case scenario.

Having to get up & leave 40 minutes earlier + an extra 10 minutes on the commute sounds very unappealing to me. It is just an extra stress & eats into the day. If he can do well at school A, I would choose that. Plenty of academic children do very well at non-selective schools. You must know it well if your older child attends. Have you found it a good school? Is there a specific reason why you think he wont thrive there? Do high attaining student achieve well there? Are there stretching academic curriculum options at GCSE? Is he particularly keen to attend the grammar?

My eldest did the grammar commute with a similar commute time. It was hard. We look back and wonder how we all managed for those 7 years! Dc was exhausted. It got better as he got older and he got more used to it. But the tiniest bit of snow or any other reason for travel disruption meant we had to take him and it was a massive pain as the round trip was at least an hour and a half. Twice a day is 3 hours in the car and a whole load of hours to make up at work. Plus any days when you have to be there, it's a trek. Sports fixtures, parents evening, charity days, information evenings for parents. There were a good few of these sorts of things a year too.

My youngest chose not to even take the test as he was really keen to go to the more local school. He is happy and likely to get similar gcse results to his grammar educated brother.

So, no, I wouldnt recommend it at all.

DD has done a 90 minute commute each way since Y1 of Primary - now in Y13

Commuting is made harder by:
Long walks at either end
Long waits at any stage
Lack of alternative routes
Lack of later transport that restricts extra curriculars etc
Buses are more annoying than trains

Ours for secondary was:
5 min walk
Train to London
change platform
Train to school
5 min walk

Now:
5 min walk
Train to London
change platform
Tube to college
5 min walk

Our nearest (as the crow flies) secondary was:
5 min walk
20 min train
30 min walk

Suddenly the wonders of heating, seats, free WIFI trumped the extra 35 minutes.

100% agree. My older one had a 45 min London commute. But it always took more. If nothing else the transport was over crowded with school kids and wouldn’t stop. So many many stressful mornings and evenings. So many events at school we never made it to. So many social events DC didnt go to. So many hours wasted when it could’ve been spent on extra curricular/ study/ family.
Don’t know how we coped and spent a fortune on Ubers - parent & child sometimes and in later years just child when old enough.

Younger DC goes to comprehensive 10 mins away. Can’t have another 7 years of that commute - it was soul destroying.

100% agree. My older one had a 45 min London commute. But it always took more. If nothing else the transport was over crowded with school kids and wouldn’t stop. So many many stressful mornings and evenings. So many events at school we never made it to. So many social events DC didnt go to. So many hours wasted when it could’ve been spent on extra curricular/ study/ family.
Don’t know how we coped and spent a fortune on Ubers - parent & child sometimes and in later years just child when old enough.

Younger DC goes to comprehensive 10 mins away. Can’t have another 7 years of that commute - it was soul destroying.

100% agree. My older one had a 45 min London commute. But it always took more. If nothing else the transport was over crowded with school kids and wouldn’t stop. So many many stressful mornings and evenings. So many events at school we never made it to. So many social events DC didnt go to. So many hours wasted when it could’ve been spent on extra curricular/ study/ family.
Don’t know how we coped and spent a fortune on Ubers - parent & child sometimes and in later years just child when old enough.

Younger DC goes to comprehensive 10 mins away. Can’t have another 7 years of that commute - it was soul destroying.