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

I’d look at the actual length of days and the actual times they are leaving/getting home - mine are at a grammar that is technically a 13 minute bus ride away with a 5 minute walk either end….but due to traffic and the bus timetable they leave the house about 7.20 and get home about 3.50 on a normal day without clubs/ice/snow etc!
They love everything about their school except the journey….I’d hesitate over a school that was a 45minutes bus journey and actually we opted not to go for a grammar that had this as their day would have been longer than our work day…

Good luck with your decision!

Where I live, journeys of this length or more to secondary are very normal. I can't remember the exact figure now, but I think it was over two thirds of the pupils at DC's former school travel in by bus from outlying villages and only quite a small percentage live within walking distance. It seemed like a big deal at first and my DC certainly had a longer school day than I did at the same age, but they soon got used to it. The bus journey was a novelty at first but after a while most seemed to start using the time productively and did homework etc.
However, I think it's important that a)we had no real choice - yes there are other schools but they all involve similar journeys and b) Virtually every kid in our village and the next 2 went on the same bus as my DC and most of their other friends at school were making similar journeys. From the kids' point of view that means they are normal - everyone is in the same boat. From the parents point of view it means that you have a ready made car sharing pool which makes dealing with after school activities, social events and bus breakdowns a lot easier!
I think going to school quite a long way away is very different if you are the only one or one of only a few compared to the situation where the majority travel. We were lucky in that the school we chose was both the best comprehensive in the area and the one that the majority of local children go to even though it's not actually our catchment school. I know a few parents in our area who sent their children even further to a grammar or independent but in my opinion the advantages that those schools offered didn't justify the extra travel and the social impact that it had on the children. If there had been a massive difference in the schools then yes, I would probably have done the same but I felt the differences were not that significant. I think you need to weigh up the whole "package" and think about how the two options would affect not only your DS academically but also socially, plus consider any impact on the rest of the family. A longer journey probably is a disadvantage but do the plus points of the grammar outweigh that? It's a very personal decision and a hard one - good luck.

I usually say parents should choose the schools, but on this occasion I agree with @notanothernamesurely that it is worth seeing what your DC thinks.

My DD catches two public buses to her grammar. It takes about 50 minutes to get there (she leaves very early to avoid the traffic and the college boys on the bus) and about 1h10 back. As @Breeze67 says, the journey is part of their day and there are benefits. DD has an hour at school before registration in which to do homework, music practice or chat to other 'early' friends, and she enjoys her journeys home with her bus buddies. Both her buses are very frequent (16 per hour and then 8 per hour) so travel problems are rare.

DD chose her school and we practised the route before completing the CAF to make sure she was totally on board with the commute. She's in Y11 now and wants to stay on for sixth form, even though there are several decent alternatives, including two grammars, closer.

I’d just ask the child to decide and give them all the info and let them view the schools?

My child had the choice of 3 schools. One is a 2 minute walk. One a 10 min bus journey. One a 10 min walk plus 10 min bus journey. He knew this when he made the decision.

Be careful not to fall into the common trap of viewing a child's experience through an adult's lens. A long commute may feel like a colossal waste of time or even completely unbearable to an adult, but that is largely because adults have tight schedules and clear goals, leaving us constantly feeling short on time. Children, on the other hand, are still in an exploratory stage of life.
If handled well, a longer journey to school can actually become a valuable part of a child's everyday experience. It provides space to chat with friends, listen to music or podcasts, get homework done (if they can get a seat), or simply chill out and people-watch. It can also cultivate a healthy sense of independence.
Compared to a child who goes to a local school, gets home early, and spends hours playing video games or watching TV, a child with a longer commute isn't necessarily at a disadvantage. That commute can serve as a meaningful buffer zone between the school environment and life at home.
Of course, a commute that is excessively long or tedious can certainly become harmful. But on the whole, children process and experience that journey far better than adults might assume！

My kids went to a school where I would say over half used the school bus from Kindergarten. They loved the bus journey as they got to hang out with friends so I wouldn’t worry too much about that aspect of it.

Where we live (Sydney) travelling to get to your school of choice in high school is the norm. You will see kids in all different school uniforms on the train platform or at the bus stop from around 7.30am.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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 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.

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)

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.

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.

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).