How far do you travel for private prep?

[Account18]

Interested in getting general views from this community

1. How far do you travel for private prep school (age 3/4-11)?
2. What time to you leave in the morning?
3. What method of transport to you use? Car, walk, train?
4. What is the typical travel time radius in your private prep?

For us, it seems like a 15 min one way drive (25 mins in morning traffic) for a great school in the area. Of course a short walk would be ideal, but the school was so good which I think is of more importance. It seems like this travel time radius is pretty common for this particular school in Greater London.

I used to leave at 7.45 am for DD to be registered at 8.30. Sometimes it took 30 minutes, sometimes 40. She didn’t start there until y3 though. Quicker on the way back. Went to local school until y3 and that was 10 minutes. As we are considered an unsafe walking route both DDs could have had a taxi to state schools.

20 mins, car, totally worth it.

A 5 minute drive, but we can't walk as there are no pavements/paths for part of the route and the road is busy. We leave at 8 ish.

How did you find the 30-40 minute journey?

Sounds great - what did you typically do in the car
worth it because the school was good?

Sounds great. Walking would be nice but 5 mins in the car is nice and quick too

I’m surprised. @Stickyplasters dignified this with an answer. Such a nosy and unnecessary question!

5-10 mins drive each way for us or 20 mins walk (35 mins in winter when it's too dark to cut across the park). Most commonly we drive in the morning for speed - in the evening I'll walk if I've been WFH or else pick up by car on my way back from the office. Average among her year group (yr 2) is probably 20-30 mins drive.

@Account18 Perfectly ok but DD wasn’t Nursery or YR. We listened to music, chatted, did spellings and tables. She liked the school and her friends so it was ok. I’m also perfectly ok about driving!

20 minutes walk sounds great!

@Account18 You get used to it though and if school is great, it’s no big deal. Terms are shorter and the journey home is quicker!

30 mins (20 miles)
school starts at 8.15.
School bus leaves at 7.20
90% families live within a 30min radius

How is the 7.20 start for the family? Assume everyone just gets used to it?

We leave the house at 7.15 every day (because my kids want to do the before school extra curricular clubs) and yes you just get used to it - if we were leaving later we’d go to bed a bit later and leave a bit more to be done in the morning. As it’s an early start we get everything ready the night before and go to bed slightly earlier.

So all bags packed, uniforms laid out, breakfast things set out ready the night before and then in the morning we’re just up, eat breakfast, and out the door. Sometimes breakfast gets eaten in the car if anything has gone wrong.

We used to leave at 6.30 one morning a week for swimming training.
Now if they want to go to cricket training before school we need to get up at 6am!

Wow that’s early - but I’m sure everyone gets used to it!

At least at that time there will be no traffic - which would be 10 minutes for us (vs 25-30 at 8am!)

Eldest 2 DC both did some private prep, they went on school minibus, 25 mins on a good day, some hideous traffic days. Bus leaves 7.30, wake up 6.30
Youngest DC goes to a prep school which is a 12 min car journey away. Schools starts at 8 or 8.15, get up 7am for him.

Leave at about 7.25, back for 8.30. Drive it’s about 15 miles away.

What did 25 minutes change into on a hideous traffic day?

7am wake up for 8am departure sounds quite reasonable

How did you find that every day?
Did you have the same for pick up too?

I do drop offs only really but it’s fine we have a routine now. I work from home so just like a commute to work really.

DH/DDad do pick ups between them. Wouldn’t be able to it on my own because of work but would be a drag even if I could 2 trips per day

Bad traffic days can be not much short of 2 hours. On really bad ones I have tried to get round problem to get them from earlier stop and wriggle home. When the major road round here goes down it is carnage.