How far is too far to travel for prep

[jamcreams]

Is 40 mins minimum drive (on a motorway) too far?
We currently do 30 minutes but on country lanes so not really comparable. School does usually have flexi boarding so that's an option but it's currently cancelled due to covid.
We want to buy a house that far away but not sure if it's too far. School friends come from a very wide area so play dates not an issue. Dc will go into year 4 in September.

For me it would work if flexi boarding was firmly on the table. Hopefully flexi boarding will be back to normal next year all being well, but is your DC happy doing it? Otherwise it would be a tad far for me. Does 40 mins include traffic? Would you be doing drop and pick up every day they don't board or is there a school bus? It is a lot of driving there and back twice a day if not.

I do know quite a few people who did this to get to the prep where DD went. However it was a girls' prep dedicated to getting DC into Wycombe Abbey, CLC, etc. So few other local schools compared. It has a USP certain parents wanted. Hardly anyone walked to school! We were a 35 minutes drive via country lanes but the traffic around 1/2 mile from the school was the issue. Slooooow! Should have been 20-25 minutes max!

40 mins on a motorway is a long way. I wouldn’t do it. We moved prep schools last September the distance changed 2 miles away to 7 miles away, takes us 15mins to drive to school. I wouldn’t want to drive much further.

40 mins one way yes. 40 mins round trip ok.
Bound to be a crash some days and when everyone gets back to normal it’s going to take longer than 40 mins.....
plus you are going to be so bored driving unless you can share driving with someone / the nanny does it!
Friends might be 40 mins on the opposite side of school that could be a 1.5hr drive for a play date / party 🤪

@PresentingPercy it's very similar to that school I know the one. I don't know anyone who lives less than a 20 minute drive away. But saying that yes the motorway will definitely add a barrier to what is currently an ok journey despite the time.

40 minutes on a motorway around here could easily stretch to 90. What about seeing friends who live the opposite way, parents' evenings, matches, concerts ?

Thanks @LIZS yes I think you're right. The journey could well stretch to be too far. I think it's back to house hunting then.

20 min drive. Consider where their friends will be. By Yr6 they'll be wanting to hang out with mates

We've just moved from 45mins each way to 35 mins each way. New school offers flexi boarding so we will do 1 night a week if only for the sleepover. Flexi boarding restarts on Monday and the children are v excited. 35 mins feels much easier than 45 mins. I wouldnt move 40mins away including a motorway unless you are v remote the the motorway is always empty. We travel about 20 miles. Typically our children's friends all seem to live the other way so it's at least 30-60 mins to anyone's house!

I had friends with similar commutes to my school - if traffic was bad they were late in, they couldn’t do after school activities or join the sports teams, plus they wasted at least an hour and a half and often more sitting in a car, which as we got higher up the school cut into their homework and revising time. Really don’t recommend it.