How long is your teenagers commute to college / 6th form?

[NanaStrikesAgain]

My son has a 1hr commute now to 6th form, he’s exhausted, but hopefully he’ll get used to it after a few weeks.

Im just curious how long other kids are travelling at 16-18yrs?

In Stockport 30+ years ago (leafy but definitely not rural) I'd still allow an hour to get to college four miles away as the traffic was so bad.

My school was 2 miles away and the bus would take 30-50 minutes depending on which one/which way I went. There was a rural way to walk but my mum said it was too lonely and unsafe (probably right).

We are too bloody close to college. It takes 10-15 minutes for the DC to walk there so DD1 is backwards and forwards during the day. DD2 not so much but she is doing 4 A levels so has a busier timetable.

We did pick our house partly for it's location, it's 10 minutes walk to the DC's old primary school, 25 minutes to their secondary and 15 minutes walk into town so a great location.

Ds had a walk of 25 minutes, then a bus journey of an hour and then a 5 minute walk, so 90 minutes each way. In the car it was only a 20 minute drive door to door so we drove him to sixth form during his exams as the buses can be unreliable on that route. He used the bus time to listen to podcasts related to his A levels but he did find the commute tiring and is looking forward to starting uni in a couple of weeks where he’ll have a 10 minute walk from halls to lectures

Thank you.

We aren’t a grammar school area so I didn’t even think to factor that in as a reason.

I guess we are really lucky that we have so many options for secondary that travel isn’t really something many have to do for long periods for secondary.

The nearest (new) town does a school bus to our catchment as the town doesn’t have a school yet but it’s being built for next September - our council provides transport (or offers free bus pass) if they can’t offer a school place within 3 miles.

Same. Post-16 the council doesn’t take responsibility. They only took responsibility for the younger ones (and even then, it is only to your “closest school”, so if you choose otherwise, that’s on you). We have a private coach company who we buy a pass from, but because it makes 16 stops after DC gets on (including at two other schools), there is a lot of faff and the bus has to fight through the school drop off traffic at 3 schools. 1:35 each way, including the walk from our house to the bus stop. @DeafLeppard

My kid has walked 40-50 minutes to school and the same back since Yr7 . walk to school involves a hill. She has done it everyday and now in Yr10 -rain or shine. Lots cycle which cuts it to 15-20 mins. Will be the same for 6th form.

20 mins bike ride. I am so glad she can walk or bike. I think it’s great that she has to get that exercise in today’s world.

The short commute was definitely a factor in her choosing this one over the two that are further away. Neither of her parents would be able to drive her as we are at work ourselves

There's a sixth form at his old school (half hr walk/10 min drive) but they don't do the same range of subjects as the large sixth form he's chosen in a nearby town. He had the choice of two large campus style sixth forms and chose the one that's a bit further away but close to a town centre and park for when there's a substantial break between classes.

It’s not just grammar school areas. Where I am in Surrey, almost none of the secondary schools (unless you’re paying for them or you’re Catholic) have sixth forms - there are a few v large sixth form colleges that everyone goes to instead. So plenty of people can get to a few decent secondaries up to gcse, but there’s just a small number of sixth form colleges, each taking between 750-2000 students per year. So of course not everyone can live nearby to them.

My son does the long commute 5 days per week. Our city doesn't have school sixth forms. There are two nearer colleges - one doesn't have a good academic reputation and the other is still a train journey away. The college we chose (my son loved it at open evening) is huge and like a mini university campus with great facilities. He was home educated all the way up to GCSEs and is autistic and this college has been brilliant for him and has really looked after him and helped him grow up. It was the right place for him, so he just has to 'grin and bear' the travelling. On the plus side, he won't have a problem getting up for university lectures - it'll be like a lie-in for him!

This thread is a real eye opener and does drive home the point that education provision is better in London. Most schools have a sixth form (or sometimes two schools share a sixth form). There are actually very few sixth form colleges and they are almost entirely vocational and STEM. You could of course choose to go to a sixth form that’s still a schlep in the borough but that would be choice not necessity.

I have foster children and they often continue to go to the school/college they were previously at. So 16 year old has 90mins journey, 12 year old 75 mins one, 11 year old one hour and 17 year old gets up at 5am as she has a 3 hour journey and 3 hours back but that is only 3 days a week. All have been given the chance to move schools but all wanted to stay with their friends which become more important to them now they are apart from their families. We are very rural btw.

I appreciate for 6th form. We have 1 6th form attached to a school within a 30 mile radius and kids use colleges.

It was because come parents said their children were travelling 1.5 hrs to secondary school on public transport.

35 mins by car or one hour if he uses the college mini bus.

Interesting. I was rather anxious about how sixth form would work when we moved here with babies years ago - I thought probably the schools would have got their acts together and added sixth forms by then. Ha!!

However, I definitely wouldn’t say that what we have here is worse than eg in London or other areas where most schools have sixth forms. In many ways the provision is much better - the teachers all teach exclusively a levels / btech etc. They can offer a much much bigger selection of courses, and you’re not at so much risk of courses not being able to run. There were eg three different history syllabus a level options that we could pick from, amazing drama facilities, massively impressive DT blocks, available all the time to students. Timetabling is way more flexible, none of this “can’t do chemistry alongside geography” type things that smaller sixth forms have to be constrained by. And the more independent college type atmosphere has been brilliant for my teen maturing and being more independent.

There are pluses and minuses to each system. I guess I’m saying that my initial assumptions that school sixth forms - like the great one I was at - were better, has been seriously challenged and I can see a lot of good in both ways.

We leave at 7.40, I drive my eldest daughter 10 mins to town, she then gets the college bus that leaves at 8am and takes around 50 minutes. So just over an hour door to door. My youngest chose to go to 6th form in the nearest town, she gets the school bus from our village, door to door it’s about 25 mins.

On the plus side the chance of my kid being mugged or stabbed or sold drugs is non-existent. Swings and roundabouts.

My comment was expressing shock that other parts of the country aren’t as well served as London and they should be. Kids shouldn’t be travelling for over an hour to access their education.

Yours in return is just nasty.

About 45 mins: 10 to the train station, 15 on the train, 15 on the shuttle bus to 6th form (with about a 5 minute wait for it)

TBH, your original post came off as goady.

I don’t know how you could expect any different when you live in a city with 5850 residents per square km. Where I live, it’s 308, so of course we don’t have a school within walking distance and don’t have a tube station or an extensive bus network to get there.

I didn’t mean it goadily - maybe it was naive but I was genuinely astonished at the length of some of these commutes.

Of course, logically you’re right but sometimes it takes something like an MN thread to ram a point home.

Here it’s a 10min walk. DD still manages to be late!

Mine could have gone to one 40 mins walk away instead of an hour walk/bus but the further one suited her far better (SENs) and has proved to be an excellent choice, whereas the nearer one’s reputation has plummeted in the last few years and I’m really glad she didn’t go there.

90 minutes each way... although last week was 2 hours each way due to tube strikes.

She had a similar commute for secondary, only that was 2 trains rather than train and tube.

Never found it a problem - watches Netflix on her iPad, or did homework on the trains.