How long is your kids journey to high school

[ItsTotesGodsWill]

Name changed for this

Ds is due to start high school this September. He currently at a small local primary which he gets dropped off/picked up from every day although I have been trying to I still a bit more independence by dropping him off further away.

The high school is he is going is 2.1miles away. It’s about a 6 minute drive, a 45 minute walk or he can walk to a bus stop which is 10 minutes away and the bus will drop him off 6 foot from the school gates. I also have a younger DS (with my DH) who will be doing the same journey in 4 years time. We are going to do practice runs over the holidays, DS has a phone and depending on my work schedule I could drop him a few days a week but 99% of the time he will have to make his own way home.

Well, exdp has caught wind of this plan and he has HIT THE ROOF. We do not have a good relationship, we are civil to eachother for DS’s sake but he works away (comes back at weekends and he does have DS every other weekend and sometimes a few weekends in a row depending on what DS wants to do). He has now sent me a ranting message saying he is taking me to court (for what?), how it is not fair on ds, how he’s too young, how I’m a bad mother for allowing this. He has suggested we change schools (there is one closer but it has a very bad reputation), I change my work schedule to be able to accommodate pick ups (??) or we have a pre booked taxi to collect And drop Ds daily for the next 3 years (until he’s 14 which exdp deems to be acceptable)

I feel like i am losing by my mind. We have been split up since DS was 1 so quite a long time ago, I don’t see him apart from 2 minutes at drop off/pick up and the odd school event. He was quite emotionally abusive and very much gas lighter to the point that I genuinely felt like I was losing my mind.

PLEASE can someone talk some honest sense. Is this ridiculous? Is this too much? Am I a bad mother and being cruel on DS?

aghhh what a prick. I am 6 months pregnant as well so can’t even have a fag and a glass of wine to calm myself down 🤣

ps DS is dropped off my a combination of myself, DH, or me mum/dad. I can only do drop off/pick up once a week

If it's a 45 min walk the bus journey can't be that long surely? I'm in London and nobody would bat an eye at a kid doing that trip.

Tell exDH that you don't want him cycling at 11 and he is getting the bus with the other kids and that's final. Then ignore.

It's a perfectly normal trip. If he was taking a bus in London he could easily be on it for 45 mins just due to traffic.

Sounds fine. Dd is starting year 7. She has a probably 7 minute walk across fields to a bus stop, probably 10-15 minute bus ride and the bus drops her off in front of school. And then afternoon is the reverse.

One of us will drive her to the bus stop in bad weather as it can get muddy. It’s what literally everyone from her school will be doing.

It’s not walkable. Well, you could walk it, but the route would be up over high moorland and would take probably 2 hours. No one does that. 😂

Sorry. Mine have a 15 min walk. If we still lived in London they'd be using public transport with hundreds of other school kids though.

Or you could get him a foot scooter or a bike but depends on the route and safety. 2 miles is not far and I suspect he will walk it a fair bit if he has friends going the same way

Your ex is an abusive dickhead. Ignore him. Your ds is plenty old enough to make his own way to and from school, and he won't be the only one with a long journey either. You're going to do some practice runs so he's happy with doing it by himself, and he'll have a phone if needed. Nothing wrong with that at all. Once he's been at the school a few weeks, he'll probably find that there are some after-school clubs he could join anyway.

It’s a 10-12 minute walk to the bus stop then a 9 minute bus journey to the school gates. I’m actually in tears, he’s made me feel like complete and utter shit as if my kid has to trek 30 miles through the Sahara to get to maths. Such a knob head

the walk is a main road, tarmac path then another main road and DS has said he will probably bike it in the summer

Jeez. My kid’s school was 7 miles away. A 15 minute walk to the bus stop and then a 40 minute bus ride. Two miles is nothing!!

Dd 2 starting high school but doing a journey dd1 has done since y7. Five minute walk to bus stop, bus into town, then either 20 minute walk to school or a second bus that drops them at the end of the school road - 5ish minutes walk.

Generally dd1 choses to get two busses in the morning then walk back to town with friends after school. As she wants to get two busses she leaves at 7.20 in the morning to catch the connecting bus and is at school just after 8 - they start at 8.30.

The bus ride sounds totally fine!
My DD will walk 5 minutes to school when she starts reception in September and then when she eventually gets to high school she'll walk 5 minutes in the other direction

Primary school was about 2.5 miles so they got the bus. Fortunately bus stop was just round the corner.

High school is about a 10 minute walk.

My dc did that distance from age 10, dd1 took the public bus and dd2 cycled

5 minute walk...
But lots of children walk from the surrounding villages (proper pavements) or catch the local buses. Only the children furthest away get a school bus (the villages over 3 miles away.

A minority get dropped off by parents.

40 minute walk

There is one secondary school in our town and it's the opposite side from us. It's very normal for the teens on this side of town to walk the 45 minutes (and very hilly) walk to school! There's no school bus though there is a very unreliable and expensive public bus that can shorten the route a bit if really needed.

If there was a bus doing that route they'd have taken that but unfortunately there isn't

Ps my relatives school is 6 miles away for primary and 40 miles away for secondary, many board (state boarding) as some kids are 2.5 hours away from secondary

12 miles away on the bus. Your ex is a dickhead.

He is being absolutely RIDICULOUS.
mine walk about 30 mins to
school (different schools, different directions), but heaps of kids come in on the bus then walk or train then walk.
I think in the whole 7 years my eldest dd was at secondary school I dropped her off maybe once of twice if I was around and it was pouring with rain. Collected her only if she had an appointment to get to.

My son was walking 1 mile to train station catching 2 trains and then walking another mile up to school ( and then the same journey in reverse) for 5 years. Left the house at 7.15 am and got back at 4.45. It’s been the making of him

My youngest will be taking a bus when he starts year 7 in Sept. That’ll be a 7 min walk to the bus stop, leaving the house at 7.20, and an hour long bus journey, dropped off at school.

It’s perfectly normal at their ages and your Ex is being a knob.

@ItsTotesGodsWill I think it's brilliant you've got a school with a short and easy bus option and it's still walkable. Don't let your ex get to you on this, he's being a dick.

45 minute walk each way. It does them good. I only ever drive them if there's torrential rain or gales.

20 minute walk away but a handful of kids go to school in another town miles away(over half an hour in the bus). It's absolutely fine. It's good for their independence.

My secondary school was 5 miles away. I had a walk of half an hour to get to the bus stop, and then a ten minute walk from the bus stop to the school at the other end. The cold in winter was okay as walking keeps you warm, but I didn't much like the journey in the pissing rain.