Transport from schools

[GAMD]

Hello, I have heard about taxis that take children from part way through the school journey to their home I e. If the journey is long. E.g. if the school is in Watford and we live in Welwyn, could dd take taxi to Hatfield and then take the train home from there ? Anyone else heard or using it, and are these on sharing basis to guarantee some safety as their are groups of children doing it?

Local authorities often have contracts with taxi companies to get kids to and from special schools. You could presumably negotiate a similar contract, but I don't think anyone is going to organise it for you. And whereas the LA contracts probably insist on DBS checks, the taxi company is unlikely to be willing to guarantee that for an individual contract (especially if their DBSed drivers are being used on LA contracts).

The only organised taxis that I'm aware of are those organised for children who live too far away from their nearest suitable school (which would typically be children going to special schools, or those for whom there was not a space in a nearer school).

If you want to organise a partial taxi service to a school you've chosen (I'm guessing), I suspect you will have to get together with other parents and sort it out yourself.

You're entitled to free school transport if the school is over 3 miles away or there's no safe walking route, but is your closest suitable school- but this might be in the form of a school bus or a bus pass etc.

If you've chosen to send your child to a school further afield, then there wouldn't be any help.

Taxis are generally only provided if it's not viable for a bus to cover the route, e.g. a child going to special school, or a child who lives very rurally. Normally they'd be door to door, and wouldn't necessarily be shared, but the driver would have a DBS check.

Taxi or no taxi, this is not a journey I would want my child doing twice a day unless there was absolutely no option. As you’ve realised, there are literally no straightforward public transportation connections between east and west Herts.

The traffic going into Watford in a morning is a disaster. It can sometimes take 40-50 mins to get from the outskirts of the town into the centre. I did it for a month then realised my direct train from further north only took 10 mins so I just got the train in.

As others have said, if the council have allocated you a school that far away then they should be providing a taxi. If you have chosen the school, or have moved at a critical time in your child’s school career then transport if your issue. I seriously doubt there will be other children with whom to share a taxi as it’s just not a route any parent would realistically want to put their child through.

I live in a fairly rural county so quite a number of children are eligible for school transport. This means that it is almost impossible to get a "public" taxi around school times because they are all on school runs!

Is this a scoping enquiry for an application in the future, or has your DC already got a place at a school in Watford (indie?)? Because if you are 'asking ahead' and are thinking about the Watford 'grammar' school - actually a partially-selective comprehensive school - there is no way that you would get a place there from WGC.

Allocation distances for recent years are in this document (the furthest place allocated under 'distance' was less than 800m this year, and the 'rest of admission area' relevant to the academic places doesn't include any AL postcodes):

https://www.watfordgrammarschoolforgirls.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/HISTORICAL-INFORMATION-2023.pdf

Thank you, all replies help

We are planning to get my son to take 11+ exams for south west consortium. We are trying to asses what the back up options for us are in the wd6/7 area for non selective secondary schools. We wil be moving there soon, so any help would be appreciated. Non selective secondary schools in the are would help us decide whether it's worth moving . Thanks