Guilt over school commute

[Allotment123]

DS just started year 7 aged 11. Now has to get the bus to school. Could go to local school, this school is better. Buses been utterly rubbish, should be 40 minutes, 1 hour door to door. Today it took him almost 2 hours to get home. I feel so guilty but it is a much better school for him. When he's older he could cycle in less than an hour but all roads do not an option now. Do other parents have this guilt. He comes back so tired and grumpy

2hrs to get home and at least an hour to get in

He'll be too tired to benefit from the better school, his friends will be miles away

You eventually want him to cycle for nearly 2 hours a day!?

Personally I think it’s cruel to expect an 11 year old to have a 2 hour commute each day.

Why was it 2hrs, random accident or could.this be a regular thing? How much better is the school, that's a really tiring commute if it keeps happening, could negate any good effects.

Can you drive him?
I think 1hr each way is massive for school aged 11 and that's before bus issues.

Are there no other options?

(I'm driving my DD to college which is an hour round trip for me and I'm shattered afterwards.)

I'd feel guilty about that.Two hours to get home from school is far too long.

That's a long commute. Does it also mean he's living further away from friends?

Are there any ways you could drive him at least a couple of days?

Do you drive?
My DD has a longish bus ride but coming home seems much worse. We have a car share with several of her friends which makes life easier. She gets herself to school which takes about 40 mins and driven home.
If he's on regular bus services (not dedicated school buses) this was our problem too, too many kids and not enough seats. Alternatively, can he go to the library after school and do homework and set off home later and miss the scrum for the bus?

Does that really worth it? If the school was chosen by him and there's something special, maybe. But sounds like you chose it, and it's not significantly better than local school, just better.
Potentially 3 hours+ of commute, maybe 2 if cycle? So much wasted time when he can do something else, like clubs, meeting friends, etc.

How bad is the local school?

In my town all children who pass the 11+ have a journey of an hour or so. And as we live in a fully selective area, that’s a lot of children (about 25% of all children go to grammars).

My ds had an hour’s bus journey to his school, but no walking time. My dds had a quarter of an hour’s walk to the train station, a half hour train journey and another quarter of an hour’s walk at the other end. They survived. They would have preferred a shorter travel time, but accepted it as the norm.

Similar for my older one. She spent the first year feeling exhausted and was then ok physically but very resentful during her final years. She didn’t want to change school however so there wasn’t a choice.

the younger one goes to a local school so commute not an issue but the education doesn’t even come close. It’s a tough one.

That’s too long a commute. Imagine the stress of being late for exams etc.

Hour journey time is fine and manageable. Two hours not.
However, his first few weeks he's going to be tired no matter what because of all the changes of going from primary to secondary.
I'd be looking at the reasons why the home journey was so long and working on how to make that more reasonable/reliable.

That sounds exhausting. Can you move nearer?!

@Allotment123 my sibling and I used to commute, it was over 30 miles (we were dropped off and picked up). However, as you can imagine, it took hour and half to get to school (sometimes longer) and about the same to get home (driving into large city and back out rush hour time).
When we had snow, no one got back home until 10pm (it was one off, but awfully long time).

The first term was hard, I felt the exhaustion, but then we were so used to travelling (by then we would use train too on some occasions), we'd find it odd when people looked shocked at how far our school was.

So, he will get used to the travelling, but of course it's a case of assessing what is best for him.

It's regrettable, but as with most things in parenting, it's an invidious choice. I'm interested that the word "guilt" is so prevalent here. I don't think men would dream of saying they felt guilty about a choice made to benefit their child. Anyway OP, the decision was made with love and his best interests at heart, and sitting on buses isn't exactly torture, my kids spend hours with headphones on wherever they are.

I would also query whether a school that involves perhaps three hours a day sitting in a bus can be a better school. The commute is part of the school.

I moved jobs last year to a better job - it is more interesting, more focused on my skills, more options to progress, more money. The commute is 40 mins each way (compared to 15 mins in my previous job). I have assessed that it is worth it, but the extended commute is part of the assessment, and a negative against the positives. If it had been 90 mins each way I doubt if I would have taken the job.

My commute to school was about 50 mins in total - walk, school bus, walk. I lived a long way from a lot of my friends (selective school, rural area) and looking back, that made my teenage years a challenge. Different now no doubt because of easier communication and probs parents more keen to drive DC to far flung places (mine weren't).

40 mins at a minimum is OK; a possible two hours each way is surely not. I used to hate my bus commute - bullying, boredom, worries about missing the bus. How bad is the nearby school? Would it be possible to counteract the badness with some enrichment at home - paid for by the bus fare or driving savings?

I had to do similar commute for a "better" school.

Believe me, the school was not sufficiently better to justify 2 extra hours a day of sitting in a bus, being exhausted by the journey and not having any local friends.
Think of all the "better" things he could be doing with that time.

DD2 goes to school 30 minutes to 1 hour away (traffic dependent). DD1 goes to college 30 minutes to 45 minutes away. Both specialist provisions, so justified. I'd find 2 hours to be beyond the limit of reasonable.

2 hours is a mad commute, my dc did 35/40 mins each way for a much much better school and they still felt the trip.

Absolute madness. Is he leaving at 6.30am in the morning so there’s no risk he’s late if it can take 2 hours? How on earth is this better for your son?

Send him to the closer school. That's cruel. Let him have some friends that live nearby. School is often said to be the best years of your life. What you describe is miserable, even worse when it's cold and dark.

If we're talking the difference between good and outstanding this is madness. The local school has to be the pits to justify this surely otherwise he'll be too tired to benefit.

I don’t have the guilt because I wouldn’t make mine do that commute.
I know a parent who send theirs to a private school with that sort of commute, but she shares the journeys with another parent, and they both work so that they can drive the kids. It’s a choice they made.

That school would have to be spectacular and the local one completely shit for me to consider that worth it. Driving him for at least some of the week if possible may make the situation better but otherwise I'm not sure I'd find this sustainable.