To think the 3 mile rule for school transport is unfair and not fit for the current time?

[WellThatsMeScrewed]

My eldest does not get transport to her secondary school because we live 2.89 miles away from her secondary school. Supposedly she can walk this.

It would involve crossing 3 lots of dual carriageways, walking along a unlit busy road.

It’s just not fair.

The 3 mile rule is from some archaic time where there was hardly any traffic.

“Three miles on a bike is more reasonable”

I live 2.6 miles from work so cycle it regularly, but not in conditions below about 7°C as it becomes really too uncomfortable, even in my winter cycling gear. OP’s DC will, I presume, be cycling (if they were to do it) in school uniform. Even without tootling along on two wheels, school uniform is crap at keeping you warm. Please do not rely on cycling to school/work during GMT times of year. I love cycling and I don’t do it.

It really isn't, though the route needs to be safe.

For a healthy child over the age of 7 that distance should not be a problem.

@lljkk

I sometimes cycle 2 HOURS to work.

Do you want a medal?

What a poster said further back is true.... Some mumsnetters on here would have little kids down the mines 12 hours a day if they could get away with it. Like fucking bollocks would I have my kids walking a 6 mile round trip to school.

I also don't believe anyone on here would walk 6 miles either. (For work.) Not for a fleeting moment.

This. ^ I can't believe some of the posts I am reading on here. They can NOT be serious.

My village is similar. 2.8 miles
to nearest catchment secondary. To those saying ‘well, didn’t you know when you moved’, no I didn’t because there was free
transport then. A random crossing got put in and the council declared the formerly unsafe route to be safe and took away the bus. It was challenged but the parents lost. The parents then had to organise their own bus costing £800 per school year, as there is no public transport to the school. And I mean none, not just awkward times etc. Those at home and able choose to drive and there is chaos in the street by the school at pick up time.

A six mile walk is fine as a one off. Everyday carrying kit, I think it’s too much. Not many adults do it. The school starts at 8.30 so with a 50-55 minute walk, that would be in the dark for a good number of days including an almost one mile stretch down a public footpath. quite frankly, I’d rather my child spent that time doing homework/music practice or something else. Many people try to present this as children/parents being precious but the funding in my day, in my area, was there for school buses. In fact there was a choice of times.

You can appeal the decision over it being unsafe to walk. This is one of the criteria for school transport

The child cannot reasonably be expected to walk the route to school because the nature of the route is unsafe to walk

The local authority will consider whether the child could reasonably be expected to walk if accompanied and whether the child’s parent can reasonably be expected to accompany the child.

i presume you’ve already looked into paid school bus services and public transport options.

This might be useful childlawadvice.org.uk/information-pages/transport/

Surely if it's unsafe you can appeal against the 'computer says no'.

I also don’t think we should make it hard for children to access education. I value education therefore I see getting children there safely and in a good state to learn as important.

No surely about it - lots of places simply don't have many public buses (as distinct from school buses) running. This is not at all unusual in rural areas.
Buses from my local village leave for the nearest town at 11am and return at 2pm ONE day a week only. And many people live too far from the bus stop for this to be a realistic mode of transport anyway.

I went to school with two girls who lived next door to each other. One got the free bus pass the other didn't because she was just in the cut off. The real kicker was they stood at the same bus stop every fucking morning to catch the school bus! To every fucktard staying OP is being unreasonable... Where is the sense/fairness in this?

I just looked up what my county deems ‘safe’. This includes footpaths and roads with no paths, they just need verges or a
space to step away from the road or a good line of sight for approaching vehicles. Constant vigilance would be needed however, As a pp said, the parent is expected to supervise, potentially notching up 12 miles a day! Crazy.

What choice do you presently have.
Possibly if you don’t send them to school, you may be prosecuted.
Let them walk to school and you’ll be worried till they come home again,
Home education?
Walk with them.
State boarding school?
it’s a dilemm!

Share transport with another child?
What do you think Mum? Hello

That's not good, and is a bit of an outlier.

Have you raised it with your councillor? Did it come up last time there were local elections?

Bottom line is that councils are trying to save money by providing only the bare legal requirement, but sometimes they do go too far, and a walking route that does nor include proper made surfaces sounds like one of those cases.

@WhileMyGuitarGentlyWeeps Even if there was a crossing?

I don’t think the situation In my village is an outlier. There are constantly items in the news about school bus access where comments seen in this thread are thrown back (stops them being obese/I walked 20 miles in my day/your child your responsibility/tough there’s no money and other people need it more). My child is primary at the moment so isn’t at the school yet. When the bus was withdrawn the parents formed an action group etc etc etc . My point is that the definition of a ‘safe route’ is open to debate and the clause about parental supervision is a coverall for many very unsafe situations and utterly impractical. What happens is that parents find a way to drive, the road to the next village is even busier and the residents around the school have their lives made a misery. There’s then angry Facebook posts about how today’s children are too precious to go by bus (the one that doesn’t exist). Core for me are a couple of things. First, education is critical. To get educated you need to be there in a good state to learn. Second, the goal posts have moved based on the interpretation of ‘safe’ routes and the application of the rule that where high vigilance is required (ie the route IS actually risky), the parent must supervise.

People are crazy.

It is unreasonable to expect anyone let alone a child walk 1 hr + to their place of education.

Two hours of walking a day to commute to and from school?? Wise up. OP YANBU

I don’t think the situation In my village is an outlier

I didn't mean the situation was an outlier.

I meant a policy that includes verges (rather than made surfaces) as a safe route is an outlier.

And you need to make this an electoral issue when council elections come round, and keep the pressure on at all times. Local independent candidates (rather than parties) might be more worth support when matters such as this are key issues. And spread the word that council elections matter - too often they have really low turn out, but councils really affect your day-to-day life

Teenagers shouldn’t need to cross dual carriageways. It’s unsafe. If that’s the only route the council should put safe crossings in - they have here.

The three mile limit applies only to older children, who probably don't need to be supervised, so 12 miles a day is unlikely.

An hours walking commute to school (two hours in total per day) isn’t unreasonable at all! It’s definitely at the harder end of the scale but it’s not unrealistic, unusual or unachievable. That’s with caveat of a safe route being available.

peoples expectations are really incredibly low on this thread.

In winter it would be dark even if the school finished at normal time. Really this is a year 6 child walking 3 miles. Just because they have had a 6 week holiday in between the terms doesn't mean they are suddenly more street savvy.

It's interesting that when threads are posted about applying for schools where the journey will take an hour each way by car or public transport the answers are usually that it would be too long, too tiring, take too much time out of the day but some posters on here seem to think it would be fine for a child to be walking that journey each day!