Maximum travel distance from school to home

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For secondary what's the maximum distance that you'd send your child?

Obviously I'm excluding boarding. As it is it unusual to go to school 20+ miles away from home

90 minutes each way.

If there’s a coach service, I guess others will be doing the same journey.

Also, a hour hour journey isn’t unusual for secondary school, especially in a semi-rural location. My ds’s school was only a few miles away, and it took him an hour - walk to bus stop, bus to town, second bus out and walk to school. Also a grammar school (and not unusual).

DD’s commute (whether I drove her or she got the bus) was around 45 mins, accounting for city centre rush hour traffic and that was more than enough. There were multiple kids in her year who lived up to a 90min commute away - one girl had to get a train and two buses! The parents justified it since it’s a competitive school with an excellent reputation but personally I think that’s far too much for a child. The kids all seemed to manage alright and got used to it but I imagine it was awfully tiring!

Depends on complexity. DD did a term of 1hr tube travel. It wouldn't have been a problem if it was one line for example. The trouble was there was always issues on the district line and that caused a lot of stress. Lots of kids have an hour long journey, and more. It's not uncommon for rural kids to travel over an hour on the school bus. They get used to it and your child is unlikely to be the only one with that journey in a grammar school. They learn to get a lot done in the journey, and tend to miss the worst of the rush hour as they have to be in school at 8:30 or so, whereas most people have to be at work for 9. There's a 30mins period of relative calm before the chaos of commuters in most cities.

It depends on the child, I guess. If yours is reluctant to have a long journey in order to go to a better school than is available nearer, it may not work out well. Otoh if they want to go to a better school than is available nearby then it should be fine. My DD wanted to go to the GS >20 miles away so she got up to be out by 7:30 with no complaints and enjoyed the ‘social club’ of the bus.

My DD is about to start secondary, it's a private coach as well. 15 mins walk to the bus stop then I think it's about a 45 min journey due to picking up in villages on the way.
We are in a small town but a fair number of pupils go to village secondaries partly because we are a grammar town so if you want small and mixed ability you don't go to the grammars or the large town comprehensive (which is more like a secondary modern).

We’ve done 11 years of an hour each way. DH works in the same town so not a big deal. Days were 6:55am to 7pm so pretty long. All homework done at school though.

DS travels 40 minutes on the tube. I will add whilst it is a fantastic school, the majority of kids live local and he doesn’t have any friends that live near us. On week ends and holidays he hangs out with local kids from primary and his local clubs. The lack of local friends is a big downside during the school holidays.

Those journeys are horrific. Our DD goes to a grammar which luckily is a three minute car journey, or 12-min walk. I'm in NI though.

DD went from a 10 minute walk to primary to having just under an hour's commute on the tube/bus. She was very tired at first but she got used to it. She is out of the house from about 7.45 until nearly 5pm. It's a long day but it has been worth it for her. She loves her school.

DH had a long commute. He hated it.

We have the choice of a top private school 25 minutes away or a top grammar school that would be an hour away.