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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

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Original poster

Getting year 7s to school. Is this unusual?

58 replies

blurredlines · 06/09/2016 20:04

So dd started year 7 today. One of her closest friends got in the same school. We have made plenty of practice runs with buses over the holidays so she did really well getting there and back today. Anyways mum of the Friend has made is clear under no circumstances can dd friend make her on way to school with my dd or on her own. She just can't face letting her dd go . It's absolutely her choice but I just wondered how common is this ? The parents are very over protective. The bus journey is around 15 mins and they are have phones.

OP posts:

OldBeanbagz · 07/09/2016 09:04

I offered to drive both my DC on their first day of high school but they opted to travel with their friends instead. I would never have insisted on taking them on a daily basis. It's time for them to start getting more independent.

Titsywoo · 07/09/2016 10:42

Seems silly if she will be travelling with your DD anyway. DD started today and DH dropped her while he was walking the dog but this was just for the first day as we didn't know where she needed to go and didn't want her going in flustered! She will have to walk home this afternoon (about a mile) and I will just have to let her get on with it as I am picking up DS at the same time. She is nearly 12 and will be fine (I hope!) - they need to grow up at some point.

atticusclaw2 · 07/09/2016 10:48

Surely it's also partly dependent on the school. DS1 is in Year 7 and practically every child at the school is either on a school bus or else taken by parents due to the fact that it has a very wide catchment area.

It's also dependent on the parents' arrangements. DH works a few minutes from the school. It would be very odd for him not to do the school drop off.

redskytonight · 07/09/2016 11:22

I think this must depend on school/area. Round here DC start making their way independently to school from Year 5, so a secondary school child getting a lift from a parent unless particularly good reason would be considered very odd indeed.

atticusclaw2 · 07/09/2016 11:41

It will be area dependent. At my DSs school they won't release the children at the end of the day unless to a parent/notified adult until Year 7. Year 6 children are not allowed to leave school without an adult.

Original poster

blurredlines · 07/09/2016 13:15

We live in a semi inner city area.
I'm sort of eating my words today as the bloody school bus didn't turn up ! Luckily she knows which public bus to go on and arrived with 3 mins to spare. She texted me the whole journey saying she feel sick with worry 😢

OP posts:

Eolian · 07/09/2016 13:22

My yr4 ds walks (the admittedly 1.5 mins) to school on his own. Dd has just started yr7 (having only turned 11 at the end of August) and is happily walking 10 mins to the bus stop and getting the bus.

If the child is capable and happy to do it, the parents need to let go of the apron strings!

Eolian · 07/09/2016 13:24

We do live in a village in a fairly rural area though - I might feel differently if we were in a city.

Fern1965 · 07/09/2016 13:24

A bit of a mixture here, the majority do make their own way to/from school but there are also some who are taken and collected by parents.

sunnydayinmay · 07/09/2016 14:40

Mixture here too. Too far for ds to walk regularly, but no public transport or school bus, so I drop him off.

But...one child in his year is so smothered that, when picking up from a school trip, parent was complaining that she hadn't been able to track him on his phone, as it had obviously been confiscated by staff before they reached the destination. Other parent mentioned that they'd had text messages from their dcs well unto the evening.

When I asked ds, he laughed and said that the boy had switched his phone off as soon as he got out of the school grounds, because he was fed up with his mum harassing him.

justjay1123 · 07/09/2016 15:16

Getting picked up and dropped off in a car is nothing, nobody will really notice. She will probably be less independent but won't get soaked through in winter and have to be standing her ground to get on the first bus that comes and not have to wait for the next one if its a busy day.

My mum tried to get the bus with me when I started, my bus ride was 45 to a hour. I crept into her room when she was asleep and changed her alarm so she wouldn't be up in time to leave for the bus.

Badbadbunny · 07/09/2016 16:07

Agree with others, no-one will notice nor care.

There are lots of reasons why kids get lifts to or from school. Loads of kids at my son's school get lifts and no one bats and eyelid.

For some, the public transport isn't feasible - some parts of the town and surrounding area are well served, other areas mean 2 or 3 different buses and/or a very long walk, so relatively few kids from those areas take the bus.

For others, their parent works close to the school so it makes sense for them to be dropped off or picked up as part of the work commute.

eddiemairswife · 07/09/2016 16:43

I've sat on appeals where parents don't want the allocated school, because the child would have to get a bus. And not just Y7s; parent last week told us her 14yr old didn't know how to use a bus!

Hockeydude · 07/09/2016 16:54

Well I think it's pretty common. My friend's school received a warning that there were two local instances of an unknown man trying to get a girl into his vehicle. My friend began driving her 14yo to school.

Driving kids to secondary school seems so uncool on MN but IRL I know loads and loads doing it for one reason or another. It's a perfectly normal thing to do. Those who walk are walking only a couple of streets and they are in pairs or groups.

BikeRunSki · 07/09/2016 17:02

Parents taking DC to high school is quite common here, because our rural public transport is a bit rubbish.

I grew up in central London in the 70s/80s where it was pretty normal for children to travel on the tube alone when they were 8 or 9. Although I did go to secondary school with a girl whose mum drive her to school all the way until we left sixth form. We were very .

228agreenend · 07/09/2016 22:16

It's quite common for parents to give lifts where I live also, which is semi-rural.

However, forbidding your dc to use the bus, due to stranger danger or not being able to let them go is different. I know a mum who physically missed their dc when they were at school, it was almost as if they were bereaved and they used to count the days until the holidays. It was all a little claustophobic.

bibbitybobbityyhat · 07/09/2016 22:22

I don't know a single child in Y7 in London who is taken to school by their parents. They all walk or bus or tube.

Davros · 07/09/2016 22:41

I live in fairly central London (zone 2), the school is a mile away. I drive DD to school because she's always running late and I'm not doing anything else. I pick her up because she likes me to. I don't have any danger fears or difficulty letting go, I feel she needs to at least come home in her own. We will see ....

myfavouritecolourispurple · 08/09/2016 08:17

I got taken to school a lot because it was a 30 minute walk or two busses. Nobody batted an eyelid. When we moved house when I was 16 I could then walk 30 minutes or get one bus, I tended to get the bus. Funnily enough, I coped just fine.

As for collecting from a night out, some of you obviously have great public transport - I was picked up. And again, I managed just fine to walk home or get the bus when I went to uni.

You don't have to practice all these things to cope. When you have to do it, you just do it. I had never flown on my own until I was 17. Then I went to a continental European city on my own and managed because I had to.

All that said, even if you are nervous about your child walking home from school by themselves, I would have thought that you'd be ok about them doing it with a friend.

budgiegirl · 08/09/2016 08:24

I take all three of our DC to secondary school as it's 13 miles away, and the pulbic bus takes 1.5 hours (no direct route) and the private bus would cost a flipping fortune for 3 of them.

However, myself and DH will be away for a few days and my inlaws are looking after the DC. My inlaws don't like driving, and I wouldn't expect them to take the kids to school anyway, so we've arranged for them to go on the bus for a few days. My MIL is beside herself with worry about it - even though my eldest is nearly 16!

yeOldeTrout · 08/09/2016 09:36

Be careful on what you think it costs...
Friend is driving her 3 DC to school (9 miles away). The bus fares for all 3 would be £1500 annually.
My back of envelope calculation is that it will cost friend £1750 to drive all 3 kids, assuming nothing for depreciation on the car, that her time is worth nothing and fairly minimal usual wear & tear + diesel costs. False economy, all that.

Balletgirlmum · 08/09/2016 09:40

It depends on the child.

Dd gets multiple trains & buses from Stoke on Trent to Chester.

I wouldn't trust DS on the bus to school alone (it involves multiple changes) though he has done the journey with dd.

But both mine have asd.

GiraffesAndButterflies · 08/09/2016 09:48

As for collecting from a night out, some of you obviously have great public transport - I was picked up. And again, I managed just fine to walk home or get the bus when I went to uni.

This. It's not like there's one specific window where you have to learn these things or be forever lost. My parents were absolute martyrs to my every journey until I learned to drive at 18. At uni I cycled and walked everywhere. Took me until I started commuting aged about 23 before I had to independently work out trains/buses/tubes, but it's not rocket science, I was fine.

Davros · 08/09/2016 09:52

I thought you unicycled!

irregularegular · 08/09/2016 09:52

Very unusual. The only Yr 7s I know of who are taken to school (very, very few and all in private schools) would find it impossible to get to school by public transport. Or else have a parent who works at the school or very near by.

In Yr 7 my DS took a 15 minute train (station 10 mins walk from home) then walked a good mile across town to school. Daughter did similar but a slightly shorter walk. No-one I know has any issues with it.

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