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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To send child to a secondary one hour away?

218 replies

hibbledibble · 22/10/2021 20:47

I'm thinking hard about secondary options currently. One option is about an hour away, and an amazing school. It would however involved a train ride and then a bus.

Other options are a bus ride away, and also good, but don't have the same amazing facilities or stellar results.

I'm torn regarding which school to pick as first choice.

Is an hour too much to travel?

OP posts:
hettol · 23/10/2021 11:51

Again, London commutes are not really comparable to other areas of the country.

It depends, some parts of London don't have the tube. I live near the tube but always got the train to school & it was every 20 mins.

Walkaround · 23/10/2021 11:53

Every 20 minutes is a very regular train service.

hettol · 23/10/2021 11:54

@Walkaround I think you are confused. I said I had a lot of energy as a teenager, I did. I don't think that was necessarily due to London tap water. Why are you talking about 2 hour journeys?

There were schools closer to me but I went to one of the top catholic ones.

hettol · 23/10/2021 11:55

Every 20 minutes is a very regular train service

Where have I claimed it wasn't. I was just highlighting I wasn't get the tube that runs every 2-3 mins.

Has the OP said how frequent the trains are?

HairyScaryMonster · 23/10/2021 11:55

I did a train journey to school and didn't get home til after 5. It was pretty gruelling especially in the winter and the last thing you want to do after an hour's commute is get stuck into homework.

tickledtiger · 23/10/2021 11:56

I didn’t ever resent my parents for sending me to the school I had to do a long commute to, they honestly thought it was my best shot at success and I did ok there.

I must say though, I didn’t do any extra curricular activities at all and I very rarely met up with any school friends outside of school. All due to the distance.

I wouldn’t send my own child to a school 1+ hour away unless there was something very wrong with the local option.

icedcoffees · 23/10/2021 11:59

@hettol

Again, London commutes are not really comparable to other areas of the country.

It depends, some parts of London don't have the tube. I live near the tube but always got the train to school & it was every 20 mins.

That's incredibly regular!

Around here, if you miss the train, the next one is at least a 90 minute wait.

hettol · 23/10/2021 12:00

@icedcoffees who said it wasn't regular? Although if I missed it I would be late.

Has the OP clarified the train timetable?

icedcoffees · 23/10/2021 12:02

@hettol

But as has been said numerous times, you can't compare London to other rural areas as the transport is so different.

Where have I compared them? I simply said it's quite normal in London as many posters have said "they would never do it". They didn't say "they would never do it unless in London". Is the OP rural?

Yes, it's normal in London because the transport makes it so easy.

2-3 minute wait for a tube
20 minute wait for a train.

Those timings mean an hour commute is relatively straightforward, whereas rurally, it's much more complex and missing your connection can easily mean you're stranded and can't get anywhere. I wouldn't want my 11 year old making a journey that relied on a connection being made - what would they do if they got stuck and couldn't get to school?

You're right that OP hasn't said where she lives, though.

hettol · 23/10/2021 12:03

Around here, if you miss the train, the next one is at least a 90 minute wait.

I would stay that statistically that would be considered not very regular. I'd be surprised if that's how frequent the OPs trains are.

Notdoingthis · 23/10/2021 12:03

No way. They would be so tired all the time. Not worth it.

icedcoffees · 23/10/2021 12:03

[quote hettol]@icedcoffees who said it wasn't regular? Although if I missed it I would be late.

Has the OP clarified the train timetable? [/quote]
My point is that a 20 minute wait may mean you're a little late for work, but it's hardly a big deal to wait 20 minutes for a train. Whereas where I am, if you miss your train, you have to wait 90 minutes or so for the next one. I wouldn't want an 11yo to have wait alone in a train station for that length of time.

hettol · 23/10/2021 12:04

You're right that OP hasn't said where she lives, though.

Thank you, so me referring to my experience in London is no less relevant to those talking about their rural experiences.

icedcoffees · 23/10/2021 12:04

@hettol

Around here, if you miss the train, the next one is at least a 90 minute wait.

I would stay that statistically that would be considered not very regular. I'd be surprised if that's how frequent the OPs trains are.

I mean, that is the reality for huge parts of the country, though.

We still have no train service on Bank Holidays and on Sundays they only run every 2-3 hours, lol.

icedcoffees · 23/10/2021 12:06

@hettol

You're right that OP hasn't said where she lives, though.

Thank you, so me referring to my experience in London is no less relevant to those talking about their rural experiences.

Nobody said it was irrelevant, though.

You said that it was fine (and normal) in London and that you don't find it tiring - people were just pointing out why it may be difficult and tiring in their area.

hettol · 23/10/2021 12:06

I wouldn't want an 11yo to have wait alone in a train station for that length of time.

I wouldn't want an 11 yr old or a 21 yr old waiting that long so would never live anywhere like that.

I think there is a middle ground though between trains every 20 mins & every 90 minutes.

hettol · 23/10/2021 12:08

You said that it was fine (and normal) in London and that you don't find it tiring - people were just pointing out why it may be difficult and tiring in their area.

But it is fine & normal in London hence why I said it because lots of posters said it was out of the question.

You & another poster then replied to my posts saying not everyone lives in London. I never claimed they did but not everyone lives rurally & we don't even know where the OP lives.

icedcoffees · 23/10/2021 12:09

@hettol

I wouldn't want an 11yo to have wait alone in a train station for that length of time.

I wouldn't want an 11 yr old or a 21 yr old waiting that long so would never live anywhere like that.

I think there is a middle ground though between trains every 20 mins & every 90 minutes.

Lots of people don't have a choice but to live rurally, though. We can't all afford to live in areas with excellent public transport links.

Which is why people have asked about the location and frequency of transport. If OP lives in London, it will be vastly different to if she lives in a village in Lincolnshire.

TheUndeadLovelinessOfDemons · 23/10/2021 12:11

In London some DC travel for longer than that. DS 14 is lucky that his school's a 6 minute walk away.

Whatwouldscullydo · 23/10/2021 12:11

I think it depends on the journey nore than the time tbh.

Dd1 spends half an hour/40 mins walking to school. Dd1 is at a primary a 15 min drive away.

With the way the traffic goes sometimes and the extra effort I have to put in to ensure she can go to discos or to the park after school with her friends, the 40 min walk is actually the preferable option.

Equally I can easily see an easy 1 hour journey being preferable to a shorter one , IF the shorter one has a less reliable bus service, the traffic in that area is particularly bad, and u frequently miss tbe connection or end up walking the last part if the journey as a result.

Nearer doesn't always mean easier tbh. Obviously In secondary school socialisation is a bit more of a factor, so being beholden to one bus or one train would ve be definite no.

I wouldn't get hung up on distances as round here if there's road works you could spend 45/1hr going 10 mins.down the road, an hour away on the train would actually probably be less stressful .

Do the journeys yourself and see how it goes.distances on paper is one thing the journey is another. Nearer would be no good if its a public bus and they are always late or they change the times so you have to chose between being 45 mins early or 5 mins late. The time u save on the bus is jus spent hanging around the other end.

gogohm · 23/10/2021 12:12

Word of advice, some schools do sneaky things to massage their results like encouraging children to leave or not putting them in for exams. Other schools put all kids in for GCSEs and thus have lower results, oh and some schools have kids whose parents pay for tutoring

hettol · 23/10/2021 12:14

Again, I haven't claimed London is cheap or that everyone wants to or can afford to live there. Or any other city. I just said it's normal for kids to journey a hour in London.

Oldenoughtobedead · 23/10/2021 12:15

A few friends have put their kids in schools about an hour from where they lived. Without exception they have all either moved closer to the school or changed moved their kids to a closer school.

BeStillNowColin · 23/10/2021 12:16

My Mother sent us to the "local" Catholic school. I used to leave the house in the morning at 7.25am and would get back around 4.30pm.

As the Catholic primary catchment is very wide friends didn't live close to me so it wasn't like we were all in this together. Saw a couple of children in the same uniform as me but it was 2 buses to school. Awful if the first one got stuck in traffic. I do remember getting off the bus early to leg it to enable me to catch the next one.

Doing that commute in the dark in winter was not fun. I hated it, felt very vulnerable and wished I could attend one of the other 2 normal secondaries I passed to get to mine.

We moved house to enable our children to walk to an incredible secondary. 20 minutes.

Branleuse · 23/10/2021 12:17

This sounds like a logistical nightmare to put that sort of commute onto an 11 year old. Two hours travel a day??