How long is your secondary age child's journey to school?

[LorenzoCalzone]

My 11yo will start secondary in September. He'll have to leave the house around 7.35, walk 5 mins to bus stop, 15 minutes on bus, which arrives near school at 8. School starts at 8.20.

I feel a bit guilty cos I didn't pick the closest school (5 minute walk) as it gets awful results. When i was a kid I could walk to school in under 20 minutes so his commute feels long to me.

I've been looking at houses nearer but it's a pricier area and would mean a smaller house but a 20 minute walk - and probably nearer to friends.

Interested to hear how far your kids travel to see if I'm overthinking this.

40 mins on a school bus, bus stop less than five minutes walk, big double decker not for public and he loves the bus journey. I offer lifts so he can have a lie in when I’m WFH but he wants to go on the bus. There’s a secondary ten minutes walk but the one further away is much better.

We are in a grammar school area so loads of kids travel to the next town or city for school as there's no grammar school in our town. Very normal here.

Mine leave the house at 7.20, 15-20 min walk to station, 10 min train ride to next town, 10-15 min walk to school. Just under an hour door to door. They've done this along with loads of other kids since year 7. Loads more kids from our town take a bus to the nearest city, at least 30-40 minutes with traffic plus whatever their walk to the bus stop is (ours is about 10 mins). The local secondary is about a 10-15 min walk from our house but very poor results (partly due to the grammar schools but that's another discussion).

My children always travelled quite far to secondary school. The longest journey was 90 mins each way.

I wouldn't consider your child's journey long or an early time to leave home.

Mine leave at ten to 8 and get to school at 8.30. Their bus collects them from the top of our track (rural Scotland). They enjoy it tbh. They have friends on the bus. They sit together and share sweets sometimes and chat.

10 minute walk to the bus stop, then a 20-25 min trip on the school bus.

There’s quite a lot of kids at their school get bussed in as the school intake covers a large area, so it’s not an unusually long commute for their school.

I would have gone with the closer school. For me that would have been priority over anything else and would save years of getting up extra early to catch a bus to school every morning.

Both mine leave the house at 8am and I take them to school by car as the alternative would have been 2 different buses to get there.

My dd has about an hour of walk/bus. My son has a 20 min walk. They both quite like the freedom. Dd is in her gcse year and has never complained about the journey.

Leave at 7.20 walk to bus stop a few minutes away catch bus into local town. Then they have the choice of 15/20 minute walk or catch a second bus to school. The leave at 7.20 so they can catch the second but in the morning. Arrive at school approx 8. School starts 8.35. In the afternoon they walk back to town as waiting for the bus takes longer as they are every 30 minutes. Then catch the bus home. On birthdays they get a lift it's about 15-20 mins there but in the wrong direction to work and traffic is terrible.

I think it actually really benefits them getting the bus. They learn some problem solving skills. Sometimes it hasn't turned up or they've decided to get a slightly different bus because of roadworks or delays. So DC have had to make a decision on what to do. They know how to use the bus app to check the timetable and are quote comfortable making their own way into town at the weekend or during the holidays if they need to.

DD Y9 - 10 min bus ride, she chooses to get the 7.40 bus, but DS used to get the 8.20 bus which rolled in bang on time.

DS Y12 sixth form college - 45 min bus journey if he get 7.10 bus. Over an hour if he gets the next one.

My kids school was a 40 minute walk away. I never saw any problem with this, it's not that long. It wasn't the catchment school, but even that was 25 minutes walk. They'd been walking 30 minutes for primary anyway, so I knew they'd be OK.

5 min walk to bus and a 40 min bus ride. My DD chose the school and is happy with her choice, but does hate the bus journey! Mainly because of the idiotic boy behaviour on board. Whichever school we chose would have had at least a 25 min ride (rural area), so it's not a big deal overall.

20 mins walk by themselves walking fast, 25-30 mins walk with friends. It’s a big school, 8 form entry, so of course it covers a large area - kids come from further away too.

It has no sixth form and the sixth form colleges near us are even larger per year, so it’s a 45 min walk to the closest one.

15 mins walk. Doesn't start till 9 either. So they dont need to leave till 8.40ish.

About 2 minute drive to the bus stop (otherwise only route there is across a muddy field and down a busy A road with no pavement) and then about 15 minutes on the bus. She is the last one to be collected so straight to school after and first stop at the end of the day.

For 6th form, it will be a 15 minute drive to the station, 40 minutes on train, 5 minute walk. That’s the closest one!

Socialising - I think apart from dropping DD off once in a while on a weekend, she often took the bus to meet a friend a bit further away. They often met in town or hang around after school in a park until 6pm-ish.

They will be independent very fast.

The secondary schools here have a huge intake (180-270 pupils per year) so there is always a larger distance they come from, you can't compare that to a primary school with 60 per year.

Some of the reasons we pay the extortionate school bus fee is for independence and socialising.

I live in a semi-rural environment, and that would be considered a short commute to school.

They socialise and make friends on the bus journey.

Mine has a 25 minute bus journey. And a 10 minute walk both sides of it.
There's a scheduled service that goes past the school, which picks up from our area at 7.40.
School starts at 9.
If they miss the 7.40 bus there's a public bus service which runs at around 7.45 and again around 8.15. However its not unusual for those ones to be up to 45 minutes late, or to just not turn up.
My child consequently spends a lot of time in the school library before lessons start.

Less than 10 minutes.

Dd1 has 5 min walk, 40mins on bus (it’s a 20 minute drive but school bus stops at lots of stops) and gets there by 8.20.

dd2&3 have a 20 minute walk.

15min walk.
We liked a school that was further, but never really considered it as it is 5min walk, 45min bus.
I feel there are so many advantages to going to school near where you live, in terms of independence, having friends you can see outside of school easily, not relying on lifts, availability for after school clubs, being spontaneous, and saving money on the commute.
I teach in a school where some students have very long commutes. I really feel.for them.

Leave home at 7.40am. 30 minute bus ride. 3 minute walk. School starts at 8.40am. All local schools are a similar distance/time.

It's worse coming home - school finishes 3.40pm. 10 minute walk to bus stop and 20 minute wait. 40 minute bus drive. 5 minute walk.

Yours sounds fine.

30 minute walk or two buses which can take an hour as no direct bus or route.

Most kids spend about 45-60 minutes on a bus if they can get on to it. My journey is 7 minutes by car or anything up to an hour and a half to cover a distance/route that takes around 25 minutes when schools are off, as the buses are stuck in single lane traffic due to empty hard cycle/Deliveroo bike lanes and one way/pedestrianised areas into the town centre - those who come from other directions or via train might be able to get on it if they're at the hub by 7.05am and shove their way to the front with 300 other kids.

There is no point in them even trying by 7.15am (or 6.40 am if they're trying to get on the single decker hopper bus that takes in 10 other secondaries on the way). I used to have to be at the bus stop by 6.15am to have any chance of guaranteeing getting on the bus and into work if it came at all - and they often decide to stop 25 minutes walk away if they're running late.

It's the joys of condensing bus routes into hubs, rather than going by the most logical/efficient routes.

I think that’s fine. My ds is at his closest school and has a 1 min (that just auto corrected to 1 month which made me giggle!) walk to bus stop, 15 or so mins to school (10 mins by car without traffic). School starts at 8.30 but he has been put on the early bus that leaves at 7.40 so gets to school around 8. I think 7.35 is a fairly normal time to leave for secondary school. My friends son has to leave at 6.30 to get a public bus for 30 mins.