School transport costs – would you support a universal school bus subsidy

[ThatFancyPeachCrow]

I'm campaigning for a universal school bus travel subsidy for all school-aged children in England.
For families whose children attend grammar schools, selective schools or other schools outside their local area, transport costs can be substantial. Private school bus services can cost thousands of pounds a year, on top of the other costs associated with education.
I believe access to education shouldn't come with an excessive transport burden simply because a child attends a school further from home. A fairer, more consistent approach to school transport support would make a real difference to families.
I've started a petition calling for a universal school bus travel subsidy and would really appreciate support from other parents who feel this is an important issue.
Please consider signing and sharing it if you agree:
https://www.change.org/p/provide-universal-school-bus-travel-subsidy-for-all-school-aged-children

I knew the people who love to bash and make up lies about disabled children would quickly turn up on this post.

@Phonicshaskilledmeoff no child gets offered a free taxi to any school they like just because they have ADHD. Have a word with yourself. Have a look into the actual eligibility criteria and maybe don’t bother coming back til you’ve transformed into someone decent enough not to make things up to attack disabled children on the internet?!

Just some facts for those frothing at the mouth over the opportunity to have a pop at the most vulnerable members of our society, and their parents:

• ALL children who live over a certain distance from their nearest suitable school are entitled to free school transport. This includes many non-SEND children who aren’t particularly close to any school because they live rurally
• The reason the “suitable” caveat is there is not purely about disability. The only school within 3 miles of a 12 year old girl’s home might be a primary school, a boys’ school or a grammar school she wasn’t able to get into.
• DLA/PIP wouldn’t come anywhere close to covering the cost of transport for those who require taxis and it’s already expensive to raise a disabled child. Many would not be able to attend school at all if their parents had to pay. And for those who clearly know nothing, PIP is for 16+ and parents already have to pay a contribution towards transport for post-16 disabled students.
• For a lot of families it’s not about getting something “free”. People cannot be in several places at the same time. Their secondary age child who would walk to their local comp if they weren’t disabled, needs driving to a special school 10 miles away, leaving their single parent unable to take their sibling to the local primary and then go to work. What happens here? Many people rely on transport due to work and/or having other children.

I have a child who attends a special school and receives council-funded transport - a taxi shared with 2 other pupils - to a special school nearly 20 miles away. I cannot take them myself because I have a more severely disabled child at home that simply cannot be taken on the school runs and the council does not properly provide for the other child.

I am sure it would be cheaper to provide more care hours for the sibling and free me up to transport my child to school, but they are totally different budgets so this isn’t an option. I’ve tried - because I hate having to send my child on transport because we have had SO many problems. Driver and PA pairs with no IDs who don’t speak a word of English, (apparently) female PAs under burqas or niqabs so you cannot check the identity of the person transport the most precious thing in your world, crashing into a parent outside the school, not turning up or turning up late all the time, and the last driver we had was suspended by the council and is subject to a police investigation due to dangerous and illegal behaviour while driving, captured on a mobile phone by a child in their care.

People who are complaining they don’t get all these freebies for their perfectly typically children - and OP who wants even more given privileged people who have made a choice knowing full well it’s up to them to transport little Penelope to the high achieving grammar that refuses all the bright EHCP kids - seriously need to get a clue!

I think we should just have universal school buses. Reduce traffic, reduce emissions and save parents hours a day.

I live fairly rurally but there is one secondary school a mile from me. I see many children walking there. At the end of my road is also a pick up point for a coach for the local Private school which is around 4 miles away. If I go past the pick up point at around 4.30pm there’s queues of parents waiting on cars to collect their DC off the coach. They’re not driving old bangers, they’re driving high end expensive cars so clearly have money! Why would we subsidise them???
Interestingly, a neighbours DC attends this school and manages to get himself there and back through a combination of bus and walking. She buys him a weekly ticket for £10 - which is less than I paid for my DD years ago!

My best friend was literally offered it for her son. I spend a lot of time with them. I don’t know what else to say to you. They were told they would receive free transportation to whichever school was deemed suitable. To be clear, I support free transport for disabled children.

Perhaps you need to stop frothing at the mouth for anyone that might have a different view to you - and to be clear I don’t think we do particularly!

No, I wouldn’t support it.

“Whichever school is deemed suitable” yes @Phonicshaskilledmeoff .

That’s not what you said, though is it?

You said WHICHEVER SCHOOL THEY LIKED.

As someone with many years of experience of this system I can promise you that those are very different things. You’re claiming that the parents could just pick one they fancied 30 miles away and even if many closer schools could meet need they’d get a taxi to the one 30 miles away because that’s the one “they liked”.

The LA will only provide transport to the NEAREST SUITABLE school. That is an entirely different thing to what you claimed. If the one the parents like most isn’t the nearest suitable - absolutely no way will they get that taxi.

Ok - in this instance it was the parents choice of which school they deemed suitable.

Once again I will reiterate that I fully support getting children to the school that meets their needs.

The vast majority of schools would have met this child’s needs - this was a parents choice.

In law the suitability has to be agreed by the LA. It’s not just something the parent decides. In fact, LAs frequently claim schools are suitable when they aren’t, leaving parents fighting at tribunals which they nearly always win because the LAs are making unlawful decisions that are not in the child’s interests.

It may well be that the LA has come to some kind of arrangement in this situation but they are not under any obligation; it’s not something ADHD children just get given (for a start they must have an EHCP), it’s bizarre behaviour from one particular LA. It could be some kind of trade-off - if we’re talking mainstream schools here, maybe they’ve dangled the transport to any mainstream as a carrot to try and deter the parent fighting from fighting for an expensive independent school. If we’re talking specialist schools, well I have absolutely no idea what they’re playing at. Maybe they’ve done something very very naughty and are trying to keep her happy to keep it hushed up, who knows. There is bad practice all over the country and most people wouldn’t believe some of what goes on behind closed doors.

I apologise for the snap if you and I are broadly on the same page, but disabled children are under continuous attack online and in other media at the moment so that the government can justify taking our children’s rights and educations away and comments such as the one you made really do not help the situation 😞

I won’t go into all the details but if the “reforms” go through as the government plans I genuinely fear for my most disabled child’s life. Handing more power to our atrocious LA could kill my child - they nearly achieved this a few years ago and I’d rather not go round 2 but with even fewer rights and ability to fight the harm they try to cause children like mine.

People need to look beyond the headlines and look into the reality of the situation. I’d happily give up everything we have provided for my children to be typical children who don’t have the needs that they do. As would the vast majority of parent carers.

Sorry but no. I do, however, support trying to make all schools better so that people don’t feel their children need to go to schools outside their area.

That is not how transport for disabled children works. The child would only get free transport to the their nearest suitable school.

My son's DLA wouldn't even have touched the cost of a taxi travelling to a special school 30 miles away with a driver and PA. We didn't have motability car either. Most children at special school don't. People who object to funding transport to special schools should be a bit more grateful that their child can attend a local school.

Not my top priority, sorry.

My son goes to a state grammar school, it’s 12 miles from our home. It was our choice to send him there (and he wanted to go). There are local comprehensives within walking distance but they wouldn’t have suited him at all. We pay £90 per month for school bus service. DS also has an allowance to come home by train if he wants to do an afterschool activity. That’s 2 trains and 1 mile walk either end of the journey.

DS school has a bursary system for pupils needing assistance with travel costs.

No, around where I live in England transport to the actual nearest /feasible schools isn’t even free. For example the nearest school to us because it’s technically in walking distance there is no school bus, the walk has no actual footpaths at points, is cutting through the back of an industrial estate, there is a known traveller camp often set up on the way with loose not particularly nice dogs. The public transport first arrive in time for the start of the school day. The next the closest school “as the crow flies is” is actually 5 miles to drive to, or a 2.5 walk through the woods and across fields and in no was is this even passable in the winter let alone safe to walk. The term dates don’t match other schools and so it’s a complete pain. There are 2 other schools that are a closer drive, still not safe or feasible to walk to and there is an actual school bus to, but as they are not our closest schools as the crow flies we have to pay for the bus which is £1000 per year. We get a small UC top up but unless you have no job at all you have to pay. There’s no taper and no payment plan.
So until school transport for those who are actually trying to use their local state schools is sorted anyone choosing different schools can make their own way/pay for themselves.

This is the kind of cost that is covered by countries doing financially well. The UK is in serious decline.

I think school transport should be expanded. But not a free for all. Id include

• transport for children whose family had to move (eviction etc) in certain year groups (yr6, 10, 11)

• sixth form transport

• lowering all Primary school to 2 miles not 3 miles for KS2

• Grammar school in full 11+ areas (over 3 miles)

• a better understanding of safe walking routes

Hi, OP. We've moved your thread to our Petitions and Activism topic now, as that's the only board on which we allow petitions to be posted.

Fair point, but like with moability cars, the cost could be subsidised with the portion of PIP that is allocated for mobility. Councils are being broken by the cost of providing specialist transport to special schools which only leads to fewer L accessible local resources in the community. Parents would still recieve the daily living portion of DLA/PIP to cover living costs and transport to medical appointments is already available.

I’d rather see investment in improving schools, so that no one feels the need to go anywhere not-local, except in very particularly circumstances.

Where do you think we should redirect budget from to fund this?

If parents choose to send their children to a school miles from home, either state or fee paying then they need to pay what it costs.

If a DC is at a specialised school because of disability then the local council should pay, as it does now.

We got bus passes if we lived more than 4 miles from the grammar school we attended but used normal buses , no school busses for us.

Exactly my point. I’d love to see some modelling, I think it’s possible that a reduction in the tax payer funded childcare needed and increased taxes from more parents working would pay for it. Plus the reduced pollution would have benefits for the NHS in the medium to long term.

Surely you are joking OP?

If you choose a school that is not local to you it is a choice. The getting there is part of the decision process in making that choice. Buses are free for children where I live - they just need to get a pass, but I'm sure it isn't just a local thing.

Wouldn't reducing funded childcare mean that many parents would need to work fewer hours thus paying less tax? (and probably also receiving more UC?)

And if you also increased taxes at the same then even more families would struggle to make ends meet.