I used to live in Scotland. In Glasgow to be precise. 99% of pupils went to their local school, hence the majority walked to school. It was a very simple process where you just went to the school, filled out a two page form and you were almost guaranteed a place.
Then I moved back to Dorset, where I'm from, and the shock I've had over the education system, I'm still struggling to understand it three years later.
I had a 6 year old and a 13 year old when I moved here. There were no school places for them at all in this catchment. I was rather stunned to find that, even after appealing, I would not be able to get my youngest into the school in our street, the one that is literally one minute walk door to door. Instead I have, for three years, fought through cars dumped everywhere by parents driving kids to that school to get out of my street to drive 3.5 miles to take her to a school in a different catchment. Where I see kids coming out of houses opposite her school wearing the uniform of the school in our street.
My teen, instead of going to the local high school does an 11 mile round trip on public transport daily which costs me £60 a month. On top of the petrol for driving my youngest.
It's an insane system. Absolutely fucking mental. They need to abolish the choices system and go back to kids going to local schools. I've seen threads on here where people are in tears because they didn't get first choice schools and the one they've been offered isn't as good or their kids friends are going elsewhere or some other stuff. Really? Crying?
Just imagine your kids didn't need an hour in the car each day, you could use that time to do something constructive with them instead.