How long is too long a journey to school?

[Rmk32]

Hello,

My partner and I have lived abroad for over a decade but have come back to Great Malvern in the UK for long stints in recent years and we’ve fallen in love with the place, made friends and found a community. We walk on the Malvern hills almost daily and my husband and I use it as a valuable opportunity to reconnect.

We have three young children and would like to send them to a particular independent school. Unfortunately it’s about 45 - 50 minutes drive away from Malvern. So the dilemma: do we move closer to the school and start to build a new life there (tiring and daunting) or find a way to stay in this area and do the daily long commute?

Very grateful for your thoughts!

My eldest goes to an independent prep in Worcester. It's a 35 minute journey. Like others have said, having more than 2 hours a day of drop off and pick up every day for the next 2 decades (baby will go to the same prep) feels a bit painful. But it's the right choice for us.

We won't move closer because want to continue to live in the area we're in.

Is it 45 minutes in rush hour traffic? I’m not familiar with Great Malvern but I’ve lived in suburbs where rush hour traffic can double journey times. Is there a school bus ? How will you fit in work if you are driving 3+ hours a day?

I'm in Malvern. 45 mins is longer than driving to Hereford- more like going to Monmouth!

How old are the kids? There's some really good state primaries. Most who are going private then send their kids to Kings or Worcester Grammar.

No need to go so far out.

Plenty of decent private schools in Malvern too. MSJ for girls only, Elms, Downs.

How young are your children? Timetables for different age groups, matches, concerts, trips, parents evenings etc could make for a very long day for your youngest and a lot of travel time. Would you work/stay near the school or travel twice a day? What about when one is unwell and you still need to take the others or if playdates and parties are in the opposite direction. If you can live closer or use alternatives near where you ideally want to live, do so.

Well the AND being that the poster quoted had said that amount of time was fine if doing it by themselves on the bus. And I was saying that in this situation it would be on the bus.

This is too long. I assume your ultimate reason for choosing this school is to make your children as happy as possible? This would work against that on a number of fronts as pps have suggested, and the journey will certainly frustrate you/dh eventually! Of course it's technically possible. Realistically though I think you need to choose - different area or different school.

It depends… how many miles is it? I used to spend 45 minutes on the school bus each day for 8 years of my school life and enjoyed it. However, that was 11 miles of going round the houses and the journey by car (which we did occasionally) was only about 25 minutes.

Several of my best friends lived 30-40 minutes from my home so I rarely saw friends outside school. It never bothered me because I had home friends and school friends, but it might bother some children.

Also, consider after school clubs. They didn’t seem to exist at my independent school in the 90s, so everyone left school at 4.15 on the school buses. That would never work today at the school I send my own children to. The school day finishes at different times depending on the age of the child (anywhere from 3.30 to 6.30!) and clubs at different times too. With three children at the school you might find yourself having to be at school for 2-3 hours each afternoon waiting for your different children to finish.

I think the only way you can make this work is by sharing lifts home with other families who live close to you. You need to find out how many others from the school live in your area. If there are few, this isn’t going to work.

So if you allow for a bit of traffic, it will take you an hour. How will that work when the children want play date and to be involved in school sports/music concerts/performances etc?

I know lots of children who attended my child's private school who did longer journeys than that. Where there is a will, there's a way.

Echo the sports / music / arts theme. You might end up limiting your children's options to join teams etc when it sounds like this is the last thing you'd want.
Take the short term awful daunting move, and have it over with, than the long drawn out painful death by commute. All those hours in the car could be spent walking the long and scenic way home from dropping them off at school!

Consider if there are problems, particularly that you have multiple children. My teenage dd suffers from anxiety. Her school is half an hour drive away. She has struggled with school massively lately and I have to drive there a lot to take her in late, pick her up early etc Sometimes I feel like I should just sit there all day just in case! It's a pain.
We're really happy with the school and partly chose it for it's good pastoral care but the distance has brought its own challenges.
Many of her friends live near the school too so there is also the constant lifts there too.

I wouldn’t do it. My 3 DC walk to school and have lots of local friends - it makes our lives very easy, particularly now they’re teens and get around independently.

We are in London though so very different to Malvern! Do remember though, the school years go quite quickly (my eldest will be in her final year from Sept) - you could have a 10/15 year plan to move back to the area you love most once they’re off to uni?

It is all very well when they have the same drop off & pick up times but what do you do when one finishes at 4, one has a cricket match which could finish any time between 5.30 & 7.00 and the other is in the school play, needs to be back at school for 6.30 and doesn't finish until 10.00?

When our DC was at an independent school it was 30 mins walk from here and just as long by car, bit less by bike. I’m guessing bike is not so much an option in hilly area. We were amongst a very small group of parents who lived that near to school. You may well find nearly everyone has a commute to school of circa an hour +

DCs next school was the small local school and then an academy that was 20 mins walk away. This secondary was a faith school and many children lived miles away. One family in a different county. DC’s sixth form college 20 mins walk but - again -students coming in by bus and train from surrounding counties.

It’s not unusual, parents and kids manage.

If the youngest wasn’t at school, how many hours a day would they spend in the car? Would it mean doing multiple journeys back and forward to school each day? What would happen if either of you were ill, is there public transport or nearby parents ? Have you factored into your budget your daily petrol along with school fees? When my DC did sport at county level we spent a fortune on petrol getting them to events.
Personally I would have a look at closer schools and then got back and look at the one you want to send them to. It’s a very big commitment for the whole family.

Find another school.

Think about having to make that journey multiple times a day. Think about having friends to tea. Think about long holidays with no local friends. Think about matches and performances and rehearsals. Don't do it.