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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Post 16 school transport - WTAF?

36 replies

QOFE · 20/06/2019 07:32

Just looking at the options for my 16 yr old to get to school next year, and it seems that either I have to pay £775 for a pass for the school bus, or a fiver ever day for a ticket on the normal bus 😲

I didn't realise it was going to be so much tbh, I assumed there would still be some level of subsidy! She will be staying on at her school, which is 4.5 miles away and the closest school to our home address. It's rural and the road there is absolutely not safe to cycle on (very bendy and fairly pot holey national speed limit A road) with now alternative cycle route.

I actually don't know how I am meant to afford this.... I'm a single parent with a disabled younger child, I work but only part time due to my younger child not being able to attend school full time.

This probably isn't an AIBU, more of a rant, but how the hell can this be fair? When there simply isn't any further education in walking distance?

OP posts:

Original poster

QOFE · 20/06/2019 19:37

Lol my MP is vile but I could try I suppose. He thinks it doesn't matter that the bus service got cut to 2 hourly a few years ago - there was a public meeting about it and he turned up and suggested that people now faced with a long wait could support local cafes to pass the time

OP posts:

Wasywasydoodah · 20/06/2019 19:45

Definitely try getting in touch with the council about her being a young carer and see if they have any financial support for her because of that.

Iamnotagoddess · 20/06/2019 19:46

I pay £110 a month for DS to get the train to college.

keanubelieves · 20/06/2019 20:05

@QOFE

Part time jobs aren't exactly easy to come by round here, she does do babysitting etc in the village we live in but it's irregular. And she wants to do 4 A levels, all very academic ones, so will be studying very very hard for the next couple of years. She also helps out with her sibling quite a lot which is not easy (she probably counts as a young carer tbh but she doesn't like to see herself as such) so I don't want to put the burden of paying for her transport on her!

I lived in a village, buses stopped at 6 and didn't run Sundays, had a Saturday job in a town an hour away by bus and got lifts home (when lucky from friends or family) as buses had stopped by time I finished my supermarket shift. Sundays I had to either walk or cadge a lift. I did 4 academic A levels, extra GCSEs and extra curricular activities and worked full time in holidays. I also regularly babysat two younger siblings. All the way through college! And paid all my bus fares to college and work from my wages. College was only a few miles but down a dangerous hill with no footpaths and which was notorious for deaths so walking or cycling not an option. .
It's do-able! But I agree the post 16 travel is ridiculously expensive.

CORSACORSA · 20/06/2019 20:21

My DDs college bus pass is £120 Sept -Dec. But im hoping by September she will have passed her driving test as i dont want to buy a pass.

CORSACORSA · 20/06/2019 20:23

She sometimes gets a lift too but Its a lot of money isn’t it.

AvocadosBeforeMortgages · 20/06/2019 20:24

Re part time jobs, looking after cats and other small pets when their owners go away on holiday is easy, though irregular, money for a teen and flexible. I did it at the same age - put some ads up on the village noticeboards and picked up a few regular clients that way. Avoid dogs however - there's more to go wrong, more effort and you need a licence to board them in your own home.

RavenousBabyButterfly · 20/06/2019 20:32

I realise that the idea may horrify you (it did my Mum), but when I was 16 my Dad got me to do a CBT and gave me a 100cc bike (old and cheap). I used it to get to work (very rural). It would be cheaper than the bus ticket and give much more independence and flexibility.

Trillis · 20/06/2019 21:10

We have just moved house to be closer to the school, but had/have similar. £5.40 a day, or £20 week bus pass for the school 10 miles away. I have 3 DCs, only 1 of them was eligible for a free bus pass, so that meant £40 a week in bus fares. We moved house to be closer to the school, but it is still £20 a week for each bus pass, and because we moved house, the 1 DC that was eligible for a pass no longer meets the criteria. So we would have costs of £60 a week to get the DCs to school. I drive them all in and collect them instead. it's about an hour round trip each time.

The thing about post 16 transport, is that the bus companies insist on adult fare from when they turn 16. My eldest has September birthday, so whenever he wasn't on the school bus (because of after school clubs) he had to pay adult fare while to get home he was still in his GCSE year. He looked 16 so couldn't get away with saying he was still 15.

Saracen · 20/06/2019 23:52

It is an awful situation. The families I know who are in this bind have gritted their teeth and gone for the motor scooter option. It must be scary to send your teen out on one, especially on rural roads and sometimes in the dark, but they have felt there was no choice.

ChouxBuns · 21/06/2019 08:03

I sympathise, I had a huge shock when my dc went to sixth form college. I had to buy all his textbooks and exercise books too, absolutely nothing was provided.

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