Does the council pay for transport for courses at another school

[swaninbay]

My son going into S6 next year wants to do advanced computer science. It is not offered at his school, but is offerd at a school a 25 minute drive from his school (35 minute drive from home). The schools are far apart where we live. Would the council be required to pay for transport between schools if this is the only option to take this course? For the higher they were considering the students doing it at another school, but in the end they paid for them to do an online higher which has worked out really well. But no online option for advanced higher. The school did not offer to pay for transport to the other school for the higher, but suggested parents could do this (!). Buses are few and far between as well.

I guess it depends on your council. I would contact the school and double check now before any choices are made.
I know in my area, the council are heavily budget cutting and are considering changing the normal school bus entitlement from 2 miles to further than 3 miles so I doubt they would put on a bus to transport children to other schools for classes.

Our council does but I have colleague in another council area and her son had to go to local college to do AH in a language and had to arrange and pay own transport.
So check with your council.

Don't know about Scotland, but in many parts of England, "taxiing children to school for various reasons" has been cited as one of the biggest factors pushing councils into near bankruptcy - the cost can be eyewatering. This situation is forecast to get worse, not better, in the next few years, and the picture does not seem to be any better for Scotland than for England. Obviously there are cases where there is no alternative (child needs SEN schooling and family cannot easily move), but I feel that with budgets being squeezed everywhere, we all need to be thinking about ways we can use our public services a bit more carefully.

My son is in same position, doing AH computing science at a different school. Council provide taxis for him.

It’s not readily accessible by public transport. Google maps show 17 mins to drive vis a vis 1 hr 40 mins on public transport.

I’d have no issues paying for the taxi but we haven’t been asked to.

I think it depends. Our council does pay for taxis to ferry S6 children between schools but they are all expected to share even if they are going at slightly different times. Kids who are going to college for one morning a week are expected to make their own way there for 9am, then get the bus back to school.

The school doesn't offer it so why should the school/council be anyone else be expected to pay for transport? How would it work around other subjects? A correspondence course

Hit enter too soon but you get my drift...

This is nothing new, I did CSYS French in 1989/1990 and there were only two of us at our school taking it, we were joined by another 2 from the nearby Catholic high school. As far as I know they just walked to our school though.

Ours didn't pay for transport to another school, the responsibility was on the pupil/parent to get them(selves) there.

They also didn't align timetables, so the pupil might miss periods for other subjects too.

Same, people came from other schools to do highers and sys to our school back in 1990

Because the schools are in a consortium and between them offer subjects that might not be available in each specific school.

Well obviously if it has been offered as a consortium subject that's slightly different although my dd's consortium subjects at other schools did not have transport provided. Are you the op? Hard to tell as namechanged.

My boys school did provide taxis but journey was 10 minutes. DDs school was more rural (20 minutes driving time from nearest school). They didn't offer taxis but did offer OU YASS courses and a bus a couple of times a week to a FE college.

OU has a YASS computing course which needs H Computing so might be sufficiently similar to AH Computing.

If consortium teaching, can they live stream the lesson to each school with teacher visiting satellite schools once a week to assist with practical work (or another teacher within school available to help).

Thanks everyone, interesting to hear your views and experiences. I only heard about OU YASS courses here last week. They are first year degree level arent they? I also looked at the CS based ones and I wasn't quite sure it fitted with what he wants to do, but I will look again as obvioulsy online is much more preferable than a half hour traveling either side of a lesson. I honestly am shocked at how few schools in Scotland offer CS as a subject.

I honestly am shocked at how few schools in Scotland offer CS as a subject.

It's to do with having the teachers. Computing people can earn so much more in industry. There's a national shortage of computing teachers.