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

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.

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！

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.

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.

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’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!