If DC normally takes bus to school, what are your plans?

[ColouringPencils]

The bus is the main thing I am worried about.

My child has a choice of public or school bus, but either way it is packed, standing room only every day.

We live about 2.5 miles from school but it is not a nice walk along either a busy main road or a little used and slightly scary footpath. I wondered about families helping to tidy up the footpath and setting up 'walking buses' and whether these would work for secondary school or if they would be rife with bullying and bad behaviour. Has anyone any experience of walking buses?

I have a car but DH doesn't drive and we both work full time so usually share any pick up responsibilities (walking to pick up younger DC at primary and older one taking the bus to secondary).

If I had to choose Between the buses I would go with the school bus as these are the kids they’ll be with anyway rather than even more randoms on the bus.

Yes that's true. But you would be with all years on the school bus. I guess on the public one she could go early/leave late and get a quieter one (although not sure what she would do in the meantime or if that would even be safe as it starts getting darker)

Another vote for school bus. Although a student-led walking bus would be a great project.

Can they cycle? 2.5 miles is very doable on a bike, especially if they had a friend or two to go with? I’d say a group cycling together was a more likely (and appealing to secondary age) prospect than a walking bus.

@Triangularbubble they can but it's up/down a very steep hill, so I don't think they would choose to.

I do think a walking bus for secondary might seem a bit... rubbish

DD has no choice but to get a crammed double decker 45 minutes each way. I don't know what we'll do

Instead of a formally organised 'walking bus', which does sound a bit rubbish for secondary age, could she not walk along either the main road or the footpath with a smaller group of friends/classmates who live nearby? They'd be safe together.

Do you know another parent doing drop off near you that you could offer bus money to?

I’ll be giving a lift to my dc who usually gets the bus.
I would go for the public bus over school bus but that’s because the behaviour on school buses here is shocking.

I mean that the behaviour on the school bus here is crap at the best of times so I wouldn’t trust other dc to distance and wear masks. On the public buses here there is distancing and compulsory mask wearing.

I don’t think my dc at secondary age would like the idea of a walking bus, they’d probably prefer to walk by themselves or with friends.
You could ask other parents if anyone is driving and would be interested in lift sharing or offer petrol money? I would probably say yes if someone asked me, if I knew the family were being reasonably cautious generally.

I have thought about lift-sharing, I could definitely do that around my job. But isn't car-sharing very much discouraged? From what I have read I thought that was less preferable to public transport, but I may have got that wrong.
DC has one friend nearby she could walk with, but friend is very likely to get a lift. Her other friends that live in the same direction live further away from school and up another steep hill, so it would be an even less appealing walk for them! Maybe she would be happy to walk home alone if I drop her off in the morning.

I guess they could wear masks in the car and have their windows open! Is that friend in the same year group? And they’ll be bubbled together anyway!!

My ds at college only has the choice of public transport and the buses are normally so packed that sometimes the driver wont let kids on. We plan on taking him to college.

Mine normally take the school bus & will continue to do so. I’m not worried about it.
I don’t expect them to wear masks- though as a disciplinary matter they will need to do so if the coach driver tells them to, just as they need to follow all instructions from the driver.
The risk to them from CV is tiny. I suspect statistically the risk of road accident is much more substantial.

I think you do need to wear masks on buses. Can't see why school buses would be any different?

This has just been announced:
www.gov.uk/government/news/multi-million-pound-funding-package-for-school-transport?utm_source=1b5c5ed3-4f64-4c07-9c9e-483a65c85ef0&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=govuk-notifications&utm_content=daily
Not holding my breath, but maybe it will help reduce the congestion? Worth talking to the transport provider perhaps?

Interesting, thanks @theriverrunsdeep

I'm most concerned about having to fork out for a year's bus and then losing part of the money if the college closes for face to face lessons again. Lost half the year for the academic year just gone and despite the fact that the drivers must have been furloughed and they would have saved ££ on fuel, there has been no refund or credit towards next year.

That aside, my son used to occasionally use the train to get home so he didn't have to hang around in college until the end of the day. Once the covid cases in the UK started to rise he stopped and stuck to the college bus. His feeling was that the college bus was safer than the train and I suspect he was right.

I suspect statistically the risk of road accident is much more substantial I agree. If I took him and collected him it would be 2 hours driving a day - much more risky.

With Covid we now understand a little bit more weekly about the obvious widespread asymptomatic inadvertent community transmission of this highly contagious and invisible viral disease. Otherwise why is it still circulating within certain hotspots in particular and not burnt out? Many reports globally now indicate it is young adults and older children who are out and about more and therefore apparently the super spreaders. Not all but some/many from within this demographic.

The weak link for schools is of course the logistical issue of connecting the hopefully safe home Covid secure bubble to the larger school bubble. And let's hope schools are not the next care home Covid incubation and transfer hubs!

Distance, method and time required between home household bubble and mixed enlarged school bubble would be the obvious risk point ie the journey to and back from school daily. This is the non R friendly bit!

Shared mass transportation (private school bus etc) and especially public buses will naturally mean the likelihood as proven vector for Covid transmission between hop on hop off (Covid tag team click and collect incubator) travellers. In London for instance it was widely reported that TfL suffered countless Covid fatalities so much so that even now buses impose special emergency measures including limiting the number from the usual jam packed to a quarter or less of designed capacity. The big "Boris" double decker buses are limited to 30 passengers (or to up 35 if same household under driver discretion). If there are more passengers say from next week I highly doubt TfL can find the extra buses and drivers to make up the supply and demand issue.

Coming back to the original poster's issue I would personally think about car pooling possibly? Ideally you would best walk and the school group walking convoy sounds intriguing if parental supervised and retaining all possible Covid aware risk mitigation measures eg obviously masked up and social distancing (if possible to space out a bit).

This is going to be a big logistical challenge as even the bit outside school will massively impact the Covid safety at school. It only takes one child or adult teacher to pass the temperature and symptoms check at the school entrance and then after a few hours in the same indoor space spread the disease such as how chickenpox or other school "favourites" are spread.Unlike lice etc Covid is invisible.

I think apart from use of some remote digital tech "solutions" brought forward by Covid - people need to think about local home neighbourhood lifestyles including living near to your preferred school if not also work place and amenities etc.

We do public bus and school bus - will continue to do so but I'll be monitoring carefully. (School bus is a coach and no standing room and public route is generally fairly quiet). School have already said all pupils are expected to wear masks on school buses.

I don't know. Mine are secondary school age, there is no school bus so they usually get the public one.
I am not too happy about them using the public bus twice a day at the moment. I'm not sure why I'm worrying about that when they'll be going into "bubbles" of over 300 with no distancing and no masks - but it does seem like an added risk that perhaps we can avoid.
School is five miles away - too far to walk really and one of mine can't ride a bike.
So I guess I'm driving - I can do, as I wfh and can fit hours around it, but I don't want to, as I'll be adding to the traffic problem - but can't see another way really.

Perhaps I'll see how busy the buses are - pre-corona they were often packed but maybe less so now?

I guess there is a lot of watching and waiting the next few weeks. I don't really want to drive either. It feels wrong to be putting so many extra cars on the road when we are also dealing with a climate crisis. I am working from home at the moment, but I don't know how long for. I am already going to have to pop out to do my younger child's primary school run on 'my days' as there is no wrap around care. Having to drive to do the same for other DC at different times is not really popping out as there will be so much traffic around the school, which is congested in normal times. I imagine it would be 40-min away from my desk twice a day.

School is 18miles away. There's no way I'm doing the driving there and back. So yes, DC will be getting the school bus. (school says face coverings are not mandatory, but I hope the kids to wear them).