My two have a long walk joey but dh drops them halfway there in the morning on his way to work and I pick them up after school. Is there anyway you could arrange something like this? Does she have anyone to walk with, or could you offer to pay towards petrol if someone else gives her a lift with their child?
If all else fails, bribe her. Tell her it will save you 50p a day on petrol, so she can have it (or whatever). Tell her she is being very helpful by doing her bit for the family and you don't know how you'd manage without her, etc. Tell her she can have her own key and take her phone to school. Giver her incentives that make life easier for all of you.
The work will not be too hard. They pitch it to the level your child is on. I've found secondary school to be brilliant at this - lots of support if needed. Very different to back in my day.
Do you know if they use MyMaths? It's a great computer programme to work on at home, aimed at all levels. Basically, they just keep working at whatever level they are on until they get enough questions right to move up a level. The teacher can monitor it from their own laptop and set it as homework.
We got into a homework routine straight away. Come in from school, half an hour 'free time' to relax, unwind, have a snack and a drink. Then do their jobs (each have daily housework jobs which take about half an hour). Then homework (30-45mins usually), then dinner, then freetime until bed. If they don't have homework they do a little bit of revision (spellings, learning vocab, etc.) This is only Mon-Thurs btw, homework doesn't have to be done on Friday, 'cos they've got all weekend to do it. Also, Friday is sweetie treatie day 
Stealth boast warning my dd has just got all As and A*s in her gcses this year, so something has paid off there 
I talked to my Year 2 children at the school I work in about their worries going into Year 3 and most of them said that the work would be too hard. So I asked them, did they want easy work? Did they want 2+3 like they learned in reception. They all laughed and said No.
Some of them were worried about teachers shouting, being told off for something they hadn't done, oh and one of them was worried about falling out of the window 
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Getting lost is a big one because most do get a bit lost at sometime but they are usually in a group and manage to sort it out. My SIL is starting a teaching job at big school and she is worried about getting lost too!
Keep talking with her joey and if she shouts, walk away. Tell her you will listen when she is ready to talk.
Wow, that was a long post. Starting big school is so exciting, I'm sure she will love it!