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.

Ok so you get off your backside and make the best of what you’re given instead. Good grades take effort and hard work. Online resources are easily accessible. What you don’t do is expect grades to be handed on a plate and request others to sort them and also pay for transport when you’ve been offered alternatives. Why should people who have worked all their lives and never had benefits have the only perks and benefits they’re given taken away?

Cut back on expensive tech, designer trainers, holidays, cars, fast food, seasonal tat and the many other ways money is frittered now. Your kids, you get them to school like we all had to. You’re lucky you’re offered free travel as it is!

It doesn’t take 75 minutes to walk 3 miles, op.
Presumably you refused a closer school place, so it’s up to you to either stump up the bus fare, drive him or encourage him to up his walking speed 🤷🏻‍♀️

With my LA you put 6 schools down. The LA offers one of them schools . Its not always the closest. Sometimes you get given a school you didn't list.

Exactly. Realistically most parents aren't going to sacrifice their children on the alter of trying to equalise schools. Would your children thank you if you did this? "Sorry I sent you to the local crap school that barely anybody passes at but it forwarded the cause of equality".

If it’s the school offered by the council they’ll fund the transport if it’s a certain distance away?

With school appeals, you can't just tell the LA that you want your child to go to a particular school because it is better, as they have to take the view that all of their schools offer an adequate education, and so quoting the results, OFSTED etc. is not an argument they will consider. They would take exactly the same view if you choose to send your child to a school that requires a bus journey, but is not your nearest school, just because you think it is better.

Pensioners and children get free travel in London. Love it.

If you applied to your nearest schools and were refused places due to them being full, and the council then allocated a school further away as the next available option, that allocated school may be treated as your qualifying nearest available school for transport

Yep. So the only access to the local “good schools” is if you can afford the £2k bus pass (often x2 or x3 children).

It’s the same with our local grammar school. It’s not technically the closest school (but is the closest grammar), and bus tickets are £2k—due in full before the September start.

It is 3.5 miles for me to walk to my local town centre and a Google Maps suggests this will take me 1hr 20 minutes. This is assumed adult walking pace.

In our LA it's two miles for under 7s and over 3 miles for 8+ so not much help to many students and those who fall below these distances would be expected to pay for transport.

If it’s rated good it isn’t crap. You support your child and encourage them to work hard if you want good grades . Good grades aren’t handed out on a plate.

My DS went to the underperforming state school closest to us, it was less than a 10 minute walk. He got all top grades. People spin out about schools and grades but unless a school is actually dangerous I don’t see the issue with closest school, it’s all about confidence in your own child.

Blackpool is the most deprived local authority in the UK. London is a difficult example as it has some very deprived areas and also some of the richest areas in the country. So to just say London, it’s a lot more nuanced than that. Plus London is huge with 9 million residents while Blackpool has less that 150k residents. It really is comparing apples and pears.

I think finances should be focused on bringing all schools up to standard rather than allowing a few dc to "escape" from a poor local school.

Even if transport was funded, it would remain an issue of privilege, because parents in financial difficulties, struggling with adults problems, who may have had poor school experiences themselves, will not the the ones reading Ofsted reports and working out how to complete transport forms for our if area schools.

Lots of ifs and buts. Why should kids have to take the place at the nearest school that could be a terrible fit for them and be poor achieving otherwise their families are hit with a £2k bill?

Why is this better than making pensioners pay concession rates for buses?

Also that doesn’t help if you’ve had to move house due to no fault of your own or in a case a few years back the school shut down and merged with a new one you got two choices go to the new one the other side of the city or go to the failing school a few streets away. No transport offered.

Yes I often look on Google maps and i was thinking 75 minutes doesn't sound out of place for 3 miles. This is going by what I see often on Google maps when we go places walking

They did that here in Scotland - free buses for DCs -backfired as the kids took the bus to the better schools -local people couldn’t get on to go to work - bus co. refused to put on second buses - typical Scottish Gov not to think thins through

If my dd went to school by bus in the morning it would take around an hour.
By train 10 mins

When was this? I was born in 1958 and remember having to pay bus fare from day 1 of Infants school until I finished Education altogether!

I remember it was a halfpenny each way to infants.

We are in England. DS goes to the nearest secondary school - 15 miles and 45 minutes by public bus. It is not free but buses are capped to £3 adult fare here so we only pay £15 a week (half fare for children). For the kids who have to use school buses because they live in villages with no public bus service it is more expensive though as school-only buses are not subject to the cap.

We did apply to the council for funding as I also believed that school transport was paid for over 3 miles but it transpires that is not enough, you also need a second qualifying condition on the list such as an EHCP or be on free school meals.

Someone that can make a choice to send their children to a school that is going to cost £2000 a year to get too is hardly in poverty so it seems off to call for others to miss out because of their choices!

I went to a school that had poor results myself and was allegedly OFSTED good. Nobody got a top grade in maths or English out of 1000 kids. This wasn't because we didn't try hard or were all thick.

I can tell you that the difference between this and my children's Good OFSTED school is night and day.

Because they’re your children!!!!!

And pensioners need and have warned their bus passes after paying a lifetime full of taxes.

What are you talking about? They wouldn't choose to pay the £2k but this is premium they have to pay to access a great education. The same great education that their counterparts that live in nicer parts of town get for free.