School children should receive free bus travel before pensioners?

[Itchthescratch]

My child is starting a school where it will cost around £2k for bus travel. This school is local and one of the closest schools to us. The other schools close to us are much worse in terms of opportunities and academic outcomes. I can afford the bus fare easily but I worry that some poorer families will really struggle to send their children to the higher achieving school because of the cost.

I understand that there isn't an endless pot of money but surely it would make sense to give school children free travel ahead of other groups like pensioners? School children are statistically much more likely to suffer from poverty (child poverty is almost double pensioner poverty)and it seems crazy that we aren't supporting social mobility whilst we let all pensioners travel for free on buses.

It should but you shouldn’t then expect the state to pay for the travel when it’s your choice!

Exactly.

I find it crazy they give it to all pensioners for free, some are incredibly well off.
Perhaps bus passes should be means-tested, available to any age group?

Only 10.4% of students in Blackpool got a grade 7 or above. Compared to 72.1% in the city of London.

Exactly! Our local school is rated as Good but the grades and value add score is awful. Most kids go backwards at that school academically

The secondary school where I live has free bus as long as youre in the catchment area. So did my village primary school for the smaller villages of the area. I thought this was normal.

our nearest school was in a different county as we live on the border of 3 counties. So we had to pay for bus passes because the school they should have gone in county is an hour away by bus. I live in the middle of England not somewhere remote and off grid. We didn’t have any actual buses that go all day we just have private buses that go to the schools. So £900 a year just for the school bus. It’s shit for anyone living on county borders so free bus passes wouldn’t work for a lot of people in rural areas. We’d just like a bus service.

I’m sure any mumsnetters in Blackpool would certainly be looking for the schools holding those 10% of students rather than the closest school.

And there aren't many areas of the country where people are eligible for a free bus pass at 60. In many places you have to be state pension age.

I don’t think that anyone is pensioner bashing. Like most other benefits, transport should be means tested. There are literal millionaires entitled to free travel meanwhile the vast majority of students are barely able to afford their rent and food these days due to cost of living increases. There is a reason the future of this country is looking bleak - why would any young talent want to stay here in a country that actively disadvantages them

Which is a great observation however I was clearly speaking about Northern Ireland, where the bus pass age is indeed 60. This year our government funded bus/rail service needed to find a way to save money. Instead of (sensibly) increasing the age limit to pension age, they’ve chosen to bash young people and pass the increase in price on to them.. Anything to keep the OAP voters happy!

YANBU. There is a lot that should be afforded to working people before pensioners.

My children went to the nearest secondary and we had to pay for bus it was £10 a week this was 10 years ago. 2k is ridiculous.

It’s not bashing to say that things should change.

My children went to our catchment school. Their bus travel was free at the point of use, because nothing is ever free is it? Someone is paying for it.

Nonsense. Those who can afford to will just move into the catchment of the school that does better, perpetuating the class divide.

YANBU. Students and pensioners in London are afforded free travel and this should be extended to other parts of the country.

I am also really eager to know where these £1 kids tickets are...it's almost £5 a day here for an under 16 ticket.

There are 180 school days in a year, if Bus Fares are costing £2000, that’s £11 a day.

In Greater Manchester (Bee Network), under 16s are charged £1 per journey, max of £2.50 a day.

Andy Burnham was a driving force behind the Bee Network, and hopefully he can roll this out nationally. Public Transport should be a Public Service, not a profit making exercise.

They do in London.

Surely a better way to improve social mobility would be to better fund education and ensure that all schools offer the same quality of education and opportunity then you wouldn’t feel you needed to choose the further away school. Obviously this doesn’t help with rural areas and there may be other ways in which young people benefit from free/affordable public transport.

Your choice to send your child a further distance to school.You finance it!

Pensioners in this country are treated appallingly,way lower pension than the majority of Europe.Of course they should get free bus travel!

Up here in Scotland they already do get free travel.
It needs revised. It is not limited to school hours and the amount of anti social behaviour it has caused has been awful.
In practice it seems like a good idea, in practice it allows teenagers to wreck havoc.
It saved my 2 money when they were at school but I would have happily forgone this if it meant our towns were safe.

Why?

If both schools are tax-funded, why should the better one be accessible only for those living close? (Yes, I know that parents pay more for the housing there, but it doesn't make it fair). If the poorer families are willing to commute using public transport, letting the children go for free is the least the society could do for them.

Well yes, but that is very difficult if not impossible to achieve, especially in any kind of meaningful time frame.

So now we have great schools concentrated in more affluent areas and those lucky poorer kids that do get in to them get hit with massive bus fares.

Its £625 a year for a child in Kent to travel to school! Absolutely ridiculous amount of money. The buses are seldom on time and often break down. Having grown up in London where travel was free for children it was a real shock to the system!