Is this school run ridiculous?

[BluePeonie]

Dd is at secondary 10 minutes drive from our house.

Two younger ones are at primary 25 minutes drive from our house (usually takes 45 minutes in morning traffic including dropping DD off on the way) . I spend 2 hours a day on school run in total with toddler in tow.

Our house is great, rural and big enough for all of us. We wouldn't be able to afford this in the city. I always visit friends or go to toddler groups/town in the city after the morning school run which works out well.

The (state) primary school is exceptional and DC are very settled and have great friends. If it wasn't for this I'd move them!!

DH doesn't want to live in the city. I wouldn't mind, love the country but had the commute!

Is this ridiculous?

That sounds excessive. Why are there no school buses? I would complain to my local councillor

Because ot’s not economical to run a school bus for the couple of kids that live miles away?

Plus it was o/p’s choice of school. Councils are only obliged to provide transport if the journey is over a certain distance and they can’t provide a place with a more reasonable journey.

I grew up with a longschool commute. Absolute pain in the arse as I grew up with more after school activities

With my two we are right in the centre of things. 7 min walk to school.

This is my for fit bit dashboard from yesterday. It does include a 11k run (but that accounts for only about 9000 steps) and walking to the shops and back.

Walked to school
Walked back
Walked pick up youngest
Walked to ballet
Walked back to school to pick up son from football
Walked to ballet to pick up dd
Walked home

The freedom not to have the car. The health benefits
The flexibility
The fact the children are not stuck in the car but running
The fact we can have last minute get together with friends and so much easier to help each other out when one of is ill / appointment etc

Sorry here it is

Even a short School run can take ages. Here the secondary is about 2 miles away and the primary just less.

If I walk it takes about 25 minutes to get there with kids in tow. If I drive by the time I've parked and walked the last bit, dropped off etc it's not much less.

Is it 45 mins just to drop off or 45 mins round trip? My school run takes 30-40 mins round trip in car and 45 walking and it's less than 2 miles.

Thanks all.

All our neighbours are families with children, all around the same age. They spend all day together in and out of the gardens most weekends in the summer.

My two primary age do one after school club a week each and also have swimming lessons at the pool in the local village a few minutes away.

The secondary school is only 10 minutes away. DD doesn't do a lot of extra curricular stuff but if she does it's not inconvenient at all.

10 minutes to secondary sounds reasonable. 25 minutes to primary school does not and I would consider moving them if it were me because it will likely bring other benefits. Closer friends, closer parents of friends who might be useful to you in future if you need to do lift-shares etc... However, are you really asking if you should sacrifice house size to live closer to the city? Will you one day want to work and will that be easier if you live closer to the city? As things stand, if you have a pre-schooler and there is no bus option for secondary, another 15ish years of being taxi-driver awaits you. Is that what you want?

We are in the US our two teenagers go to a great school in the middle of the city. We like it because it is academic challenging, diverse and the location is interesting and exciting compared to a suburban school. My husband drives 20 minutes in the morning to drop them at the stop to get the school bus at 7:10, school starts at 7:45am.
I drive my son to his school which is a combo primary/middle school it is in our old neighborhood and we didn't want to move him and it is close to dh's work so he usually picks him up. It takes about 20-30 minutes depending on traffic. We leave around 7:50 and he is at school at 8:20am. The bell rings at 8:30am and they should be in their classroom ready to learn at that time.
We do have long days because our teens have 2 hrs of sport after school but they are all doing well. We moved back to this area and property prices have exploded so we couldn't afford to be closer without a major compromise on space or garden.

Your primary commute is bad. How long has the youngest one got left?

Could you move the young one and start the toddler at a closer school?

Your primary commute is long, but secondary is handy. If you love your house and love the schools and you can spare the time I’d stick with it. I used to have 30 minute primary school run (in one direction so one hours round trip) in London - shared with another family so one did morning and one did evening. Funny thing is, when it ended I actually missed that time together in the car before or after school. Both secondary now, totally independent, the primary years were very short on reflection. You are doing stuff in town after the morning drop so that journey is not entirely wasted anyway. It sounds like it works for you.

Why would you have to move to 'the city' if you gave up your rural life? You could live in a town. My medium ish size home town (where I would love to move back too if I could) has plenty of primary schools and 3 secondaries so you can easily live in walking distance of them.

LillianGish - ooh yes, that's a good point. I couldn't wait for my youngest DC to move to Secondary school because I hated the school commute - the waiting around in the playground, the walking home along the same boring road. But now that I don't do it, I miss that time with my child.

Moving house is a total PITA though - especially if it means downsizing. Liked everything in life it’s swings and roundabouts. You could move closer to a primary (assuming you can find and get both dcs into one you like), but then be farther from a secondary school. With four dcs, even in town, you’ll still probably be spending some time in a car and then might not have such a big house and garden to rattle around in when you get home. I live in the middle of a capital city at the moment - we don’t even own a car - the dcs are totally independent on public transport, but we live in an apartment and as summer comes round I always fantasise about whether life would be better in a house, out of town, with a garden. There are pros and cons to both lifetstyles (I was just thinking back fondly to pegging out my laundry in my London garden on sunny, spring mornings before doing the school run). Focus on the best bits and think about what you’d miss if you moved.

How long would it take your eldest child to walk to school? A 10 minute drive - does it equate to a 30min walk? If so the lazy bugger should walk!

There is a time limit on school drop offs though isn't there? You won't need to do it forever. And presumably (hopefully) you will have a long and joyful life in your house when they all move on to jobs and uni.

It's only you who can decide if it's ridiculous. It's sounds dreadful for you younger child and presumably they won't get sibling link as you live so far away. It's obviously an unnecesssary expense and waste of time and life and must make play dates and clubs tricky.
I've no idea why people get so weird about moving kids schools. Many are very good. My daughter changed school for yr 6 and had a great year, another moved yr 4 and although the school on paper did not look so amazing she loved it.
Personally I would move them to a local school and get some life back or move closer to the school.
We currently do similar if I have to pick up primary and secondary as a secondary bus was cut, I absolutely hate it and so do my kids so we will move them for the next school yr. life's way too short to spend all this time and money sitting in the car.

I’ve just realised you used to live right by the primary, but moved -presumably to have a bigger house. In that situation, if you want to cut the school run, I’d try and get dcs into primary near your new house. Otherwise grin and bear it - as pp said, primary school is not forever. Are you a grass is always greener person - if so you need to remind yourself why you moved away from the primary in the first place.

We could walk DD and DS to village primary but chose a 6 minute drive instead. Better school. When DD goes to secondary though she will get a bus.

I think my only consideration with the primary school would be if none of the other dc there would be going to the same secondary as your eldest that's in primary.

I would seriously consider moving them if it meant they had a year getting to know kids that they would move up with.

We recently moved a couple of miles, technically out of the LA, but kept our son at his school as he has so many lovely friends. It’s about a 10 minute drive then I drop my daughter at nursery down the road from there. Probably 40/50 minutes all in. Will be easier when they’re both at the same school next year! It’s an outstanding primary (with a Banksy to boot) so I didn’t want to move them

It's about the same as mine used to be. I did 45 minutes each way to primary school and back on the bus with the dc. Dh works from home now and he can drive so now it's 5 minutes each way to the primary, 10 minutes to the secondary and 25 minutes to the preschool. Dh is looking forward to our youngest starting school in September so the preschool run can stop.

How long would it take your eldest child to walk to school? A 10 minute drive - does it equate to a 30min walk? If so the lazy bugger should walk!

There's always one ignorant poster who has no concept that there are people who live in places where walking to school just isn't an option. How stupid to assume the DD is a lazy bugger when maybe she doesn't fancy a walk where she's pretty certain to get run over or have to cross a motorway or walk on a 60mph dual carriageway.

Have you never been out of a city Duchyduke?

A friend of mine lives somewhere villagey, with no pavements, so her children are unable to walk to school. I could be wrong, but I'm sure she mentioned that the council pay for her children to be ferried to school and back, because of this (Scotland).
So might you be eligible for some sort of assistance?

As a teenager I wouldn't want to live in a house with no bus service and no walkable roads. As you have a toddler, I guess you are looking at 15 more years of school runs to get the youngest child into 6th form/college and driving. In addition to school runs you will need to do lifts to friends/activities/work for teenagers. It sounds more limiting than I would like tbh and most peoples working hours wouldn't fit well. The primary school run wouldn't bother me so much as most people have to physically take their dcs to primary until well into juniors even if its just a short walk an there is often before and after care to accommodate working hours.

Yes, when my son was at school, the council provided transport, because the one track lane with no pavement was deemed unsafe for a child to walk. The school was only 1.5 miles away in the village.

Sounds absolutely awful!
What a waste of time,petrol and money .
My DFriend did this and it costs £400 just to get to school plus the stress of traffic jams/delays/winter weather .

Constant ferrying teens about as they get older .
Its not always rural vs town .
Are there villages that would give you best of both worlds?