To think the Headmaster should realise that rural schools don't run like a town school (transport related).

[Sunnymeg]

I'm not personally affected by this, as we drive DS to school. DS goes to a rural secondary school, three quarters of the children travel to school on transport provided by county.

The school buses are all times to arrive by at least 8.45am. In previous years, GCSE students have caught the bus as normal and gone straight to the exam rooms. However we have now been told that GCSE students have to be in school by 8am. No reason has been given. I can only assume that it is to give school time to do their admin etc and make sure everyone has turned up.

We received an email about this over the weekend. The secondary school is in a village location and I would imagine that lots of parents already have their own work commitments and probably work in one of the two nearest town's, both some 20 miles away from the school.

The more I think about this, the more unreasonable it sounds. The Head has only been in city schools, previously. Some children have a journey in excess of 20 miles , due to the rural location.

I cannot understand why he is doing this and why he has only given a few days notice, what does he expect people to do. The majority of them will probably continue with their existing routine and put their children on the bus.

However the kicker to all this, is that the email says that if children don't arrive by 8am their names will be taken and repeat offenders will not be allowed to attend prom!!

I would hazard a guess that the school wants to put on some last minute revision/warm up sessions before key exams. Our school do this sometimes, even providing breakfast on occasion. However they do this by starting the exams later. You can start exam until 9.30am, so kids come in at normal time, have revision session, then exam starts at 9.30. Also means kids don't stress when the buses are late.

Downside is if a kid is missing, school don't know until 9.30 by which time it's too late to call home and get them in to sit the exam. If exam starts at 8.30, or even 9, there is a bit of time to find missing students and still get them to school before the 9.30 cut off time.

I'm not sure what the head is up to. I work in a similar school (where unlike the rural area Gilly imagines, many children come from a very long, uncyclable, un walkable, way away) most of these kids live on farms, so parents can't drop everything to drive in early. Exams start at 9.00 all over the country. There is plenty of time for experienced exams officers to get the students in, registered, in place, read instructions and away. I can only think they are doing an hours cram before. All the parents affected need to make their concerns known.

Are the GCSE students only required to attend at 8am on exam days? Or every day for classes? If it's for normal classes then it's unreasonable. But if it's for exams starting at 9am then it's reasonable. The school will have no choice about the start times of exams (which will be set by the exam board) and they need to make sure that all students are present and registered to start the exam at 9am. Surely each student will only have to make arrangements to attend early on the few days they have 9am exams?

Possibly the HT is well intentioned but seems to have missed out understanding the practicalities. Also I dont think this is the first year the school has had to cope with being rural and having GCSE exams.

Sounds like a HT bustling in full of 'good' ideas but hasnt properly consulted first.

The short notice and the lack of school transport makes this unreasonable. As for the non-attending of prom, whilst I detest them and think they are something no school should have, tell the Head you think this amounts to bullying and I am sure this will be changed.

If it is an LEA school copy the LEA in, and perhaps your local councillors.

gillybeanz - your post is bonkers and doesn’t make sense at all. 😂

OP, I don’t think the headmaster gave this much thought either.

This is ridulous and I hope parents tell the head this.

Our local Secondary is also rural, with pupils travelling anything from ten miles away on narrow steep roads full of potholes. There is no way they could walk or cycle. Anyone over 3 mikes gets a free bus.

It seems very unfair to suddenly expect parents to bring them in.

Why would parents of GCSE students, be putting them on busses?

Cos some live 5- 10-20 miles away in the middle of nowhere or along busy A roads? No way my kid is cycling 10 miles along our local very busy A road to school.

What a daft question.

None of our school have to be in any quicker than normal reg time during exams.

So many HT's seem to have little idea of the realities of rural life where there is very little public transport and where the nearest high school might be 10-20 miles away.

We are not even in the UK but this lack of consideration exists everywhere, DD's school ( a free school) made a unilateral decision to change its start time from 8.30 to 8.20. Not a big problem you might think however there was a county wide agreement on the 8.30 start time and all school busses/public transport was timed for an 8.30 start. DD had a longish commute: first a 1½ mile walk to the nearest bus stop and then 20 miles by bus. Only 4-5 busses in each direction per day. Her bus was timed to arrive at 8.25 to get her in school for 8.30. Got very irritated with the constant stream of "late arrival" texts.

Maybe only go to a rural school if you live close by

In rural locations a school 20 miles away might be the closest school.

DS is in a school 9 miles away and takes school bus (before anyone says why did you pick a school so far away this is one of our closest the closest is 8.5 miles away) and is sitting his GCSE's this year The boys are expected to come in on school bus as normal.

dd is in a school in the same town and so far they have done similar just using school bus..

The schools are in a large town but serves a lot of rural communities and it is not uncommon for students to have 1 hour travel to school. Both schools are able to accommodate this. So it is not even a town school issue.. I think this HT has simply not considered it all the way through.

Flutist what is this alternative arrangement students are supposed to make? If there arent other buses and parents arent able to drive their DCs in then there isnt an alternative.

If the school has been managing its GCSE exams in previous years why the need to change?

Ugh. This sounds like my secondary school. Stand-out memories include an idiot teacher trying to have me suspended for regularly arriving 5 minutes late - she thought I should 'take an earlier bus' and didn't understand there was only the one bus per day. Also a sports teacher who ticked off those of us in the class who said we couldn't participate in a 'bike to school' challenge. No, because it was 15 miles each way!

OP, I think you're perfectly placed to say something, since you drive your children in so it won't come across as if you're asking for special pleading. The headteacher is clearly very naive and hasn't thought this one through at all.

Many schools now do a pre-exam booster where there's a summary of the course/ exam and chance to quieten down and enter the exam room in a calm state. Great if there is the practical transport arrangements to get them there, but the head doesn't seem to have considered the needs of their catchment.

Rural schools I've worked in have been accessed by most of their catchment on busy A roads and by-roads. No pavements. 50 mph traffic except on the many blind bends where it's not safe to pass. Hilly.

While excercise is good for brain power and studying, a stuffy swealtering exam hall full of post strenuous cycle 15-16 year olds would be enough to destroy any olfactory system

I think a deluge of letters from many parents explaining the umpracticalities of the plan and unfairness of associated consequences is perfectly reasonable.

HT is BU and will no doubt learn as much when he arrives at work tomorrow to a very full inbox.

They are probably planning to give the kids some breakfast and run a last minute cram session with their subject teachers. We do it, and it works well, but it sounds like he hasn’t appreciated the logistics in a rural setting.

Incidentally, an 8.45 arrival is cutting it pretty fine for a 9am exam and doesn’t leave any wiggle room for traffic etc. It would make me nervous in the HT’s position but short of laying on extra buses or taxis I don’t see what could be done.

gillybeanz what a strange post!

Have you no concept of what rural truly means

You need to send meditrina’s response. If the head wants pupils in early, he should arrange transport.

Even if you can get round it, send anyway if you currently have the free transport. Or get your DS friends parents to send.

Flutist But as others have said, if a student is slightly late, they can have a slightly later start time- the start times are a bit flexible. If a whole bus was held up, the school would be able to deal with this.

If your child's school is 10 miles in one direction, and you work 5 miles in the other direction (on slow country roads, so 15 miles is a 30 minute journey or more), how do you get them to school? Or if you only have one car and one parent needs the car to get to work on a farm with an early start?

School buses are often the only bus that serves some of these villages.

If the head really wants the pupils in at an earlier time, I'd say it's his duty to liaise with the LA and arrange special transport for the y11 pupils.

If it is an LEA maintained school the head teacher doesn't have the authority to demand an earlier start, as the LEA has a duty to get the children to school (if they live over 3miles away) on time- it's a unilateral decision, not an in house one.

It's less straightforward if it is a free school/academy, as they do have a bit more flexibility than LEA schools however, there should have been a consultation, the head teacher doesn't have overall authority (some think they do!).

Personally, I'd reply to the email apologizing for obviously missing the notification of the consultation to discuss the change of terms for the child attending school there, and would they be kind enough to send you a copy of the minutes from any consultations and governors meetings that the issues were discussed in, along with the dates and times they were carried out. You don't want to make a complaint that they haven't thought all of the issues through unnecessarily now would you.......

Surely the school governors will see the idiocy of the head's diktat!

Sorry, apologies.
I had no idea kids lived 20 miles from their nearest schools.
I've never witnessed or heard of it before.
Where are these places?, they must be remote not just rural.

Are last minute cramming sessions really a thing, and has anyone assessed whether they are actually helpful? I'd have thought there is a substantial danger of them simply stressing pupils out and possibly confusing them at a time when they are better off having a calm start to the day.

gillybeanz no plenty of kids live in a rural area and live 20 miles from their nearest secondary. Remote would be even further in my experience. Often quite a bit further.

OP - my son sort of has this problem too. He is doing exams at a private exam centre - for two he has to leave at 6 15 in order to be there for 8 30 (for 9am start) even though that will mean arriving at 7 30.
If he leaves at 7 30 he will arrive at 8 40 but they have said this is too late.

Even though 'booking in' takes only 2 minutes. And for the 30 minutes prior to the exam he will just sit there twiddling his thumbs. It makes no sense but thankfully he only has two am exams.

I also live in a very rural county where our catchment school draws in from a very wide agricultural area. It's a town school, but villages up to 10 miles around have children bussed in. We are 8 miles out - my children have been bussed in to school by the county since their very first day,

The school's solution to the vagaries of transport has been to begin all exams at 9.30. To penalise 15/16 year olds who have absolutely no influence or choice in how they get to school by denying prom if they aren't in by 8am is outrageous!

Of course - this is MN where all children live within walking/cycling distance of their school. If they don't that's a matter of parental choice, so if they live 8 miles out and don't get up at 5 to cycle in down hazardous lanes and busy A roads they are lazy gits and parents are pandering fools.

I live in Suffolk. We're 50 miles out of London but schools were closed down left, right & centre back in the day so only town schools were left (and there aren't many towns) so the majority of children in the county live a significant distance from their secondary school and the county provided transport. My children have a 45 minute journey by county transport to their school - it's only 8 miles but it has to meander and pick up through a lot of villages on the way;