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 🤣

Children in rural areas travel considerably further than that. My high school was something like 15 miles away and that was considered close! Don't English admissions expect children to walk up to 3 miles?

Mine walked 5 mins to the bus stop, then bus 20 mins to city centre, then changed buses another 15 min bus ride and 5 min walk to school. In reverse to come home. Sometimes dh would drop them off further into town if he was leaving at the same time.

They were 12,12 and 11 when they started doing the trip, though the youngest had older siblings to follow. Youngest often got a different bus into town as her best friend got that one 2 stops further along though.

Your ds's father is being ridiculous. Most secondary school pupils get themselves to/from school!

Well my DC walked two minutes to secondary school, but a 10 min walk plus a bus (? 10-15 mins max?) is totally fine. Or walk - 45 mins probs not that long. Ds2 had a mate who lived 3 miles away and he would often walk home if the bus was full (which it often was)

Plenty of kids my way walk 20 mins to the bus which then takes about 15mins to the desirable school in the next village.

That commute is fine. FWIW my dc we’re getting the bus into town with a friend at the end of year 6. And walking to the local shops and to school on their own in yr 5.

Dd13 has a 12 minute walk to train station, then 8 minute train then a school bus picks up the kids at the train station.

I think it's pretty healthy for a secondary school kids to walk a couple of miles each way. Particularly if those are hilly miles. And if they collect their mates along the way and have a good natter to and from school. They might find it hard initially but it'll give them good basic fitness. Maybe your exdp could consider the harm the sedentary lifestyle he apparently wants for your son would do to him?

Are there any reasons at all why a reasonable person might think an average 11 year old couldn't walk that route daily and expect to be safe? Are there regular stabbings on the route? Is your 11 year old an averagely competent person?

Maybe your exdp's response arises from your son not being expected to make his way to his current school, but being expected in a few weeks' time to make his way independently to the high school. That does seem a rather abrupt change. Perhaps it's worth getting your son's view on this: would he prefer to have the abrupt change and make his own way to school as many of his peers will be doing, or would he be content to stick out by getting dropped off at and collected from school by a parent every day?

DS’s high school was about 1.5 miles away, no bus and about a 35 minute walk. We usually dropped him close by and he walked the rest of the way with a friend and then he walked home by himself. If it was really bad weather then he would wait at friends house and we’d collect him.

I walked 10 minutes then got a train and walked another 10 minutes for my first high school. for my second I did 2 buses initially then we moved and I walked for 30 minutes instead.

DD has a 1.5 mile walk to school that should take 33 minutes but takes 40 though tends to catch a bus that goes by the end of the road and only takes about 8 minutes to get there!

You DC's commute to school is really not a long walk or a long time.

Your ex is being completely unreasonable. So many secondary school students do this sort of journey. Our DD is just finishing year 8 and since starting year 7 has been getting a public bus to school & home, never had any problems. The bus always has other school kids on it. It's too far to walk, a few mornings a week she gets a lift from DH but we can't get her in the afternoon.
My youngest will probably be going to a different secondary school which will mean about a 15 minute walk there and back. She is just finishing year 4 and has been walking home alone (5 minutes no busy roads) since half term. Will probably let her start walking to school alone in the mornings next Easter (when it's light at 8am for breakfast club)

Two schools here - DS14 is 3 miles and 2 bus rides away, DS13 is a 40 min walk but he invariably gets bus /train 1 stop/ another bus. I drop them both when am wfh.

Thank you everyone, you have made me feel a lot better and a lot less like a shit, heartless mum. He has SUCH a knack for getting into my head and making me feel horrendous, even after all these years apart. This just firmly reiterates what a heartless, manipulative, gas lighting, abusive wanker he is. Dh is due home any minute now and I’ll have a cry to him but thank you, genuinely you have made me feel a millions times better

My Ds will walk for 15 min. My nephew walks for 25min. He could get the bus but prefers to walk.Me (a long time ago!) walked 20mins. My dh walked 45mins but normally rode his bike. He could have walked 15 min and then got a bus.

My DCs had a 10 minute walk along the lane to the minibus, same in the evening. If it was bad weather I would drive them to the pick-up point/pick them up.
I had a 40 minute (2 mile) walk to catch a bus and the same in the evening.
Your ex is being ridiculous. Stupid man 🤬

DD had a car run for 7 miles , train and 20 minute walk... same on the way back.
DS1 had a short walk, public bus for 7 miles and 20/25 minute walk and the same on the way home with a longer walk 10 minutes or so from the bus stop.
DS2 had car for 7 miles, train, 30 minute walk and the reverse on the way home or if I was busy bus after the train instead of the car and then 10 minute walk.
It is really important that DC travel to school under their own steam ; apart from the obvious skills that they are learning they make friends that way.

don't cry OP! He is a knob.
Loads of kids do a journey that long - my school journey was identical (45mins walk or bus and walk) and no phone!

My dd has a 35 min walk and loads of her friends do more complex journeys than your ds will. They LOVE the independence. Utter humiliation to be dropped off every day in Y7, let alone a taxi.

Laugh in his face and tell him you can’t wait to see him in court for this one. Twat.

Dd had 10 minute walk, half an hour bus ride, 10 minute walk the other end.

She could have gone to a school in our own town but preferred that one when we were doing visits.

Some of her friends chose the same school and she made new friends who caught the same bus.

It was never a problem.

Mine went to three different secondaries in total, at three, five and 17 miles from home. They did a mix of buses, cycling, shared lifts and occasionally walking (not from 17 miles away -- that was by SEN taxi).

Secondary school kids on the whole prefer to pretend they don't even have parents, so constantly being dropped off by mum is a bit of a giveaway.

I grew up rurally. My journey to school was a 20 minute walk to a bus stop, half an hour on the bus then a 10 minute walk to school from where the bus dropped me. Your ex is being utterly ridiculous.

I just looked my journey up from when I was at school as I know the local school kids still do the same.

4 miles to school but we all got the school bus, was a 5 min walk from my house and then maybe 15 mins or so on the bus. There are kids who get the school bus from further away to the school as well - so your situation with your son seems totally normal to me? Really not sure what your exes problem is!

10-15 minutes walk.

Mine had a 25 minute walk to school, 20 minutes back home as it was all downhill on the return journey.

Your child's school commute is normal, your ex is being ridiculous and he is out of touch with what 11 year olds are expected to do to get to school. School journeys are often discussed on MN, your son's is normal.

I work in a high school that sounds like a standard journey to school to me. I expect in a week or so he will have a gang of mates who he catches the bus with.
Did wonder why ex didn't offer to change his work schedule to accommodate the school run of he's that bothered tho!

My DS12 has been getting the bus since starting Y7 in Sept. It's a 10min walk to the bus stop, 15/20mins on the bus and a couple of minutes to school.

We practiced the journey through summer, I went with him on the first day and we've talked through what to do in certain circumstances. He's been fine, I actually think it's helped him feel more independent.

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

This is our exact set up...2.1 miles away, 6 min drive or 10 min walk then bus. The only difference is that dc can't walk it all as there's no safe walking route despite being so close.

Both my elder dc have walked the 10 minutes to the bus stop then got on the bus from day 1 of Year 7. Including crossing a reasonably busy road to the stop. Then the same on the way home.

Not letting him get a bus to school alone until 14? Your ex is crackers. Middle ds is 14, it's the first day of school holidays and I haven't seen him since 10am 😂, he's out and about with friends.

Just ignore his bullying. My teens, and their friends, have a 10/20 minute walk then a 30 minute ferry crossing then up to 15 min wait for bus then a 30 minute bus journey to get to school. It is what it is, and they are all fully capable of it. I had a 30 minute walk then an hour bus journey every day when I was at school. 🤷

It doesn't sound particularly far for a secondary school. My kids school is a 30 minute walk away. My oldest mostly walked, having an occasional lift from us. We give youngest a lift.