To not understand why so many people drive their dc to and from secondary school?

[Dancergirl]

Surely once at secondary school dc should get themselves to and from unless it's really not possible to get there by public transport?

Someone I know - her dd has started Year 7 at a local secondary. There is an easy and convenient school bus. But she's driving her and picking up every day even though she also has younger dc at primary!

At dd1's school (she's currently Year 8), it seems lots of her friends are driven to and from. Some live locally and there are very good public transport links.

Why?? Am I missing something?

My father drove me to school as it was on his way to work. I walked 3 miles home, often with PE kit, cookery basket etc. My mother didn't drive and there weren't any viable buses. I can fully understand why people would drive their children long distances in rural areas and help them with really difficult journeys but I was amazed at the poster up thread who drove her daughter a short distance to school as it's not cool to wear a coat, she needs to blow dry her hair and it's her job as a mother to run around after her. Words fail me on that. No wonder there are some (note some) appallingly selfish, demanding and entitled teens around if their parents enable them like this.

YANBU. Im a. school escort, I know I've mentioned that on here before lol. I take accompany children with SEN's to and from school in taxis.

Last year my regular "run" finished and I was asked to provide sickness cover for a secondary school run.

It was a nightmare. Far worse than at the primary schools I've done. Despite being a mainstream school it has a unit for children who are on the autistic spectrum, and all of them have taxis to and from school (for obvious reasons). There was a large taxi bay at the front of the car park, it even said " TAXIS ONLY ON IT". But every single day we'd get there and the taxi bay was was full of parents cars, meaning taxis couldn't park. This caused chaos, my driver used to block the parents in lol

Then as you left the car park there would be cars parked everywhere on the road, causing a dangerous obstruction.

It's pathetic. I don't ever remember getting a lift to secondary school, I always got the school bus. If I missed that I got the service bus. It's not biggie!

Bus fares. I pay £30 a week on the bus to get my children's school. If you are on the way to work By car anyway why would you not drop your children at school rather than pay extra for bus fares?

I think they need to tackle cost and routes before people get judgy.

Unless you home ed its compulasary for kids to attend school so parents have to pay travel costs not free then is it.

Now they stay onto 18 im wondering how much longer they will charge for 6th formers?

I took tiny minibus to village primary which think was free-rural wales.
I then moved into town with only 1 comp and surrounded by villages.
I walked 40mins to and from school back occsionally mum would pick me up but had younger sis at junior , traffic around 1 school nightmare and now they buildt super primary nearby probably even worse.
I then got free bus pass until age 19-to local fe college.

I dont know when it all changed just know school bus here is £600 per year per child.

Our local comp not so good few few locals go there and they mostly walk.
Most go to other schools where there are lots school buses that stop lots of rds so more convieniant than public.
The majority of kids at local comp lie out of area but they have no school buses so mostly walk, get lifts or take public transport.

Our top few choices dd1 are city centre no school bus public buses that go round houses and some rough ones at that before get there then a walk so its either bus or lift.

I would have more worries about year 7-8 taking bus than 14-15, 16year old.

Even living it a city does not guarantee good transport links mainly because city /surrounding areas makes up 4local authorities and none of them can agree intergrated transport we hae few trains, first bus have monopoly, no trams.

I have lived in cities where buses council and yes they were better and cheaper.

I always assumed usa they pay for school buses they seem to be way of life there ahh the joy of not doing school run.

I went seniors in 90,s we had no lockers yet whenever you see oz/usa high schools they all seem to have lockers.

My old juniors was old victorian school old grammer and it had boys and girls cloakrooms would seem luxury now as so many schools short space now all primaries i seen they change in classroom, pegs in corridors. dd1s lunch boxes are keep on trolly outside the portacabin in the playground.

Do independent schools have better provisions for coats and bags?

why cant they wear coats in school? not even in break time outside classroom? reason i did welsh club was somewhere warm.

I used to judge some local primary parents for not walking even in sunshine. but understand everyone has their reasons maybe need to be somewhere after quick, younger siblings ect.

Senior schools always seem to be in random slightly off track locations and between areas and suburbs.

Dd attends a private school, there is no bus, it is 10 miles away - hence I drive her. YABU

You can't drive your kids to school because of a fear of rape/kidnap/traffic accidents. Not at secondary age anyway. Bizarre. don't they ever go out at weekends then with friends, without parents?

This is what I was getting at all along!

I would still be available to drop off and pick up. There is no way DS is going to use the city buses after what's happened on ours in recent times.

"People make non essential car journeys all the time.
But the one that always gets the spotlight of criticism is the school run.

I don't have secondary age children. Mine are still tiny.
But off the top of my head I can think of at least four entirely valid reasons why it would be a good idea to drive these children to and from school.
They've probably all been mentioned.

Another sweeping criticism of parents dressed up as genuine confusion."

realAmandaClark (great name :-)) I have to disagree with that statement - there is a problem with traffic congestion and parking problems and road safety - caused by the school run traffic. I was a transport planner in a central London borough I lived in SE London, I modelled traffic data, analysed RTA reports. Helped with campaigns relating to road safety and issues with heavy traffic flows due to the school run - and do you know how we knew it was the school run? Because in the school hols the problems were eased. You don't do traffic counts on school hols (or weekends). With everyone travelling at the same time every morning and afternoon - stands to reason that is going to create some issues.

Every individual on that school run, sitting in the traffic jam may well have a very good valid reason to be there. But noting there is a real problem caused by driving individual children to school in individual vehicles - is not parent bashing.

bigmouthstrikesagain - interesting what you say about school run causing traffic problems. Did your studies also take account of the number of people employed by schools and therefore driving to work. They arent driving students to school they are driving themselves.

If I look at my DCs' secondary school. The staff carpark has approximately 100 spaces and is always rammed with staff cars when the school is open. The school has approximately 850 students.

I need to take issue with 'do you know how we knew it was the school run? Because in the school hols the problems were eased.'

Even with almost every child round here being bussed to school, the traffic eases in the school holidays, because many, many parents are not at work. They are on holiday.

Prepared to grant you 'we knew it was partly the school run', if you like.

WorrySighWorrySigh Inspired idea! The staff and teachers at the school could be picking up/dropping of the non local kids since they are already going to the school anyway :o

Now I wonder if any of them pass by my way.........I'd give them petrol money :)

soontobeslendergirl - that wasnt quite what I meant!

Can you imagine trying to persuade your teenage child to get a lift in with Mr Smithers from the Maths Department? I dont think there would be much witty banter in the car .

Ha ha WorrySighWorrySigh, I meant it gave me an inspired idea :o

Yes, I can imagine, though I did see some attractive young female teachers when we were at parents night so maybe there would be some teachers my boys wouldn't mind getting a lift from!

You are right of course the traffic flows in general are affected by more than just the schoolkids on hols - but before I bore you all into a coma with details about trip generation and peak time routes... I will only add that when we were looking at particular safety issues/ traffic flow problems, caused by double parking on roads near schools then yes the problem s were solved in school hols - for obvious reasons.

WOrry - in London schools a lower percentage of teachers drive in so their impact was considerably lower than the pupils on flow/ parking. Outside of London most teachers will drive in and park on school grounds so they won't contribute to the double parking and as teaching cannot be done from home v easily that won't change. Car sharing is always a good idea if possible - more likely to be sold to staff as a grown ups only deal though

I quite like the thought of the maths teacher shouting random problems to be solved at my boys on the daily commute - that'd get them up and running for the day ahead! :o

The biggest issue I would say for school pick-up traffic is the weather. I drop off/pick up every day regardless of the weather as we don't have any other options. However on dry days I get about 3 rows further forward in the car park than I do on wet/snowy days. Clearly teenagers melt in the rain and that is a major factor in school transport :)

Of course traffic eases in the school hole. As well as the scho run journeys stopping it is when most people go on holiday . DS has always walked to school. But my drive to work does 't happen when we are on holiday in school h time. In some cases this factor will take two working parents off the road.

Of course the school run affects traffic, but it is one of many causes of congestion and the one that feet picked on.

Surely in central London with the tiny catchments the majority of children walk or use their free bus pass ? Though the congestion around non catchment based schools can be significant.

All the secondary school kids I know around here would be mortified to be seen being picked up or delivered by a parent!

I used to work with a very formidable teacher who drove a Range Rover. On her way to work she would scoop up the known reluctant attenders and habitual truants from the pavements/bus stops to ensure that they made it to school even if they had other plans for the day.

Bigmouth, I've always noticed the road traffic is less during the school holidays on my way to the train station, but then there's also less people commuting into the city, school holidays are when I get a seat on the train to work, and no, there's not normally any children in the carriage during term time.

Parents take their holidays during the school holidays. School holidays, by the main, are clustered around bank holidays, and many childless adults try to maximise their annual leave by holidaying around bank holidays.

School holiday times have less commutes happening, not just less under 18 commutes.

Dd1 gets the train to school. We are not in London. She gets up at 6.30, slowly gets ready to leave at 7.30. Knocks for her friend down the road. They walk or cycle to town, nic then ges the train and her friend gets the bus (different schools). They then meet each other after school in town and walk back.

I have had to drive her in to school twice in a year, due to signal failures. I will sometimes collect her from school if I'm in that area at kicking out time before I collect the smaller children from their primary school.

It costs £28 a month.

The oyster cards and free/reduced fares in London are quite recent developments.

My 2 eldest had to pay full fare on the bus (£4 per day each) as soon as they turned 16. Both did A levels, so that was £8 per day for 2 years.

DD, fortunately, has her oyster card.

DH still drops her at school most mornings. It is on his way to work and she often has huge amounts of stuff to carry.

I always enjoyed walking two miles to school and back as it was fun to walk with my friends. Nothing in the world would ever have persuaded me onto a school bus - they were horrific. The behaviour and intimidation was terrifying and I would have walked in any weather to avoid it. If a parental lift had been available I wouldn't have taken it because those walks were the enjoyable part of my day but I don't think that being driven in would have prevented me from being independent or made me mollycoddled.

I'm now a secondary teacher. Behaviour on school buses is still terrifying and I hope when my son is older there will be an alternative to him having to go on one. Our school building is very old and can't cope with the number of pupils we now have. There isn't the money available to update it and create the space for banks of lockers/cloakrooms - we barely have enough classrooms!

On this thread I have seen tons of good reasons: cost, bullying on buses, heavy sports or musical equipment, convenience when parents are going the right way at the right time anyway, sen, complex routes in rural areas - I think desperately mollycoddling parents ferrying their kids for no good reason are in the minority. It's clear that there are plenty of very valid and sensible reasons for secondary age students to get lifts and it in no way means they will have no independence - there are plenty of opportunities to gain this aside from the journey to school.

But also - the vast majority of students at my school do walk or catch the bus or train. Very, very few students are driven there and back and when they are there is a good reason. So in response to the thread title, I would say in my experience, not many parents do this anyway and it isn't a big issue!