Long Commute to Senior School

[Louiselady500]

Deciding on School for DC for Sept 2023. Currently school journey is 15mins by car. I travelled an hour on school bus each way for senior school and it never bothered me. Is a 40min-1hr (depending on traffic) car ride from year 7 too long. How do your kids find it? It’s an Independent School where kids travel mostly within a 25mile radius from many different areas. There isn’t a school bus from our area. Some parents say it’s great to have the 1:1 time to talk with their kids especially in the teenage years when they can become distant. Lots of kids get homework done on the journey or use the time to read or revise. The drive is not an issue for me. Any experiences would be very helpful.

My son has a long comments about 1hr 15 mins to school. The plan is to get him flexi boarding.

It also helps her to get to know more local kids more quickly - and for you to get to know more local parents if you need otherwise it can be a nightmare

I used to have about a 1:5 hour commute to school on the bus. I didn't mind it at the time but when it came to choosing schools for my own kids I surprised myself by refusing to consider those with a long journey. When I thought about it I realised how much I missed out on by leaving home at 7:15 and not getting back until 5:45

You used to enjoy your bus journey with friends, but your ds will be with you and not with friends.

will he be able to meet up with school friends during evenings and weekends or will he be isolated from them? At that age having independence to meet friends and being less reliant on parents gets increasingly important

4 hours of driving a day is going to cost a lot in fuel too.

What happens when you’re ill, the weather is bad, accidents or roadworks on the way? It sounds like a huge commitment where lots could go wrong to make him late for school. I would find that hugely stressful.

would you plan in doing this for 7 years?

Is the bus 20 mins away a school bus? If so, I would start with that from the beginning. My DD travels for longer than I'd like on the school bus, but she doesn't seem to mind as it is a time to socialise with all the kids on the bus.
They all get to know each other at the start of year 7, so if your DD were to wait until year 8 to catch the bus she might find it harder to feel part of the group of kids who had been on the bus from the start.
Also, I like driving but 4hrs a day would become a chore very quickly!

I do a 15 min drive but some days it horrendous.

Some days kids won't get up. Get in car on time etc. It was fine in year 7-9 but now hormones hit and they are so grumpy and don't care if they are late.

I find it stressful

I’m assuming if you can pay for private school then paying the fuel for 4 hours driving a day isn’t an issue, but your fuel bill alone would be horrific!

there isn’t a school in the world that would be so superb it would be worth 4 hours in the car a day. There are schools closer. I would genuinely just pick one of them.

I wouldn’t do it - I would always pick a school where they can get to independently. It gives them more freedom to travel with friends and it teaches them important life skills. By year 9 many kids are embarrassed if they are still getting dropped off by their parents.
If you choose this school then I would do weekly boarding.

1 hour driving each way is too far for me. The Flexi boarding sounds excellent and the bus.

Our kids will have a 1hr commute for yr 9+ but hopefully it will mostly be on the train so they can chat with their friends / do homework. Back up will be school mini bus half the way and driving.

But I am not looking forward to it. Make sure you have credible back up plans in case you are busy / ill / car in garage etc.

I don't think it is possible to underestimate the benefits of attending a local school.

Teens want to spend time with their friends, not their parents. It won't just be 4 hours a day you are travelling. You will be committing yourself to acting as a taxi at weekend and in the evenings as well! And being asked to give Daniel or Bob or Gareth a lift home because it's en route.

Remember teens do more extra curricular activities so you could easily find yourself needing to do even more lifts.

We have 1 child, who attends our nearest secondary school, and we still rack up 50 miles per week in lifts to and from sports training and friends!

I would drive to the 20 mins away bus stop from day 1 - he'll make friends on the bus. More tricky to make friends later on once bus friendship groups have been established

My DD is at a full boarding school about 1 hour of drive away. She returns home about once every two weeks, which is already painful for me. It means I need to drive 4 hours on those weekends.

@zoemelb Y7 is normal for independent travel. I took DD on the first day to show her the route and she's done it ever since. She has a smart phone with the trainline app, bus apps and a tube map so if something happens and she has to find a new route to or from school she can. DD is a summer birthday so she was a young Y7 and in 2.5 years we've never had a problem. She has a small bag for phone/train tickets etc that has a mini torch/alarm on it just in case, but so far no safety issues at all.

She has a 90 minute journey each way for school - 2 trains with just a platform change in London.

Doesn't find it a problem - we live rurally and all her friends are London based, so she'll sometimes meet up with them after school. Gets homework done on the train so has evenings and weekends completely free once she gets in. Nearest local schools were 45 minutes and 80 minutes away, and both involved quite a long walk, so she was more than happy to do the 90 minutes and sit on a nice warm train with tables and wifi! Train also much better than being tied to a school bus - she can stay for clubs, plays, seeing friends etc.

It might feel fine but commuting (for you) four hours a day every day will get boring. DC were at school 30 mins drive away and the trains were constantly cancleed so we ended up driving them often. that same stretch of A road gets a bit monotonous.

But, I love your attitude - it is a good opportunity to chat, to do homework, to unwind a bit. Once they are older and flexi board, it would be much easier. So if it is the irght school, I'd say, go for it. IMO, far better to have a longish commute to the right school than a convenient commute to the wrong one.

I think the journey would be fine for your child but not so much for you.

DS goes to school which is about an hours car journey- he takes a taxi and copes fine with the journey. Another child I know does the same journey but is driven by her mum. She’s now in her second year at the school and will be starting a more local school in Jan as her mum has found the journey unsustainable.

Too kong, and friends too far away.

My DSs are now late 20s so my experience is ancient!
However, they attended an indie school about 45-50 minutes by bus- the nearest bus stop was 3 miles down the road. There were alternative options - but the timings were similar.
Our boys started in Y7 but there were much younger children on the buses who were well looked after by the older children. DS2 regularly came home with another boys coat or sports kit. When I queried this, he told me that his friend was organising his younger brother who was in reception and didn't always collect all of his own stuff.
Our experiences is that the pupils get to know each other and make friends across all school ages, and we found the pupils looked out for each other. They sometimes did homework on the bus, but also read a lot as well.
Both DC were bus prefects in years 12 and 13 and the responsibility was good for them - they had access to school contact while on the journey and the bus company liasion person .
I would take your DC to the nearest bus stop, mine moaned like mad if they missed the bus and I had to chase it!

It might be "normal" but it's hardly ideal. I'd also be interested to know if OP's timings are realistic or genuinely what it would take on a wet misty morning in January (for example).

I think getting the bus is totally different to being driven by a parent. You can socialise with friends, do homework (much harder in a car due to the motion) etc. The car journey will be dead time. Yes, you might sometimes have nice chats with your teen, but your will more often likely sit in silence while they listen to music or be at the mercy of their grumpiness.

You might say the drive is not an issue for you, but my experience of parents who regularly drive their DC (shorter distances) to school is that it becomes a huge millstone round their neck.

From a social point of view, you will presumably also have to drive her to parties and to see friends - are you happy to do this, even if they live an hour the other side of school?

you might do that now. It's unlikely you're going to do it for the entirety of your child's time in secondary school.

An hours commute each way for ds is OK but I think committing to 4 hours driving some days is madness.

Ds is y7. He leaves at 745 and is back at 430. He is on a packed dedicated school bus. If he has sports fixtures after school he generally gets a public bus then tram then we pick him up to save him a 20min walk home in the dark rather than a 10 minute car journey for us. Its easily an hours commute on public transport but oy 15 min drive each way.

It's good to Foster independence.

We have a similar dilemma although in our case the school doesn’t run any buses at all.

My concern is not just the commute but also the high chance of not having any friends who live nearby as the school such a pain to access from where we live.

Like you I took a long school bus journey but it was fine as I had friends on the bus and there were several buses to my area so lots of local friends to meet up with at weekends. What you are describing is very different IMO.

Do you have other school options?

I’m not worried about the friends situation. She already has friends all over the city from current school and clubs outside of school. It’s never an issue getting together to do things.

My secondary school commute was that length but it was on public transport with my friends so was a fun part of the day, plus we passed through the city centre so could go to the shops meet up with boys in McDonalds. I would have absolutely hated being reliant on my parents to get there and back and in my mid-teenage years would have hated being trapped in the car with my mum for 2 hours a day.

But your child is currently (presumably) 10 or 11.
It's normal for parents to make arrangements for their children and to ferry them about.

Secondary school children like to make their own arrangements and ideally to be more independent and not reliant on parents.
They do things later into the evening and into the small hours by the time they get to the top end of secondary school. If they need lifts, they want parents to drop them off and go away, not hang around and supervise. They will want to go to as many social gatherings as they can. And these will be organised at the drop of a hat, not nicely planned in advance.

You are thinking about your child as they are now - not as the teenager they will become.

I have 1 kid who takes a (school specific) bus that's 45m each way. Longer sometimes with the late bus as there are only 2 and they cover a greater area. He is ok with the commute but when he's needed to be picked up due to being sick or for appointments it's been really difficult.

I think I'd only do it if you might move closer to the school in the next year or so, or were planning to have kiddo board 2 nights minimum by grade 8.