scary mum wrote:
Please be aware that if admissions criteria change over the next few year to make the schools more "local" a bus service could be unsustainable if no new students are going from a particular area.
This has happened locally with Piggot school. Up to recent years, a quite a number local to us got places, but as it’s got more popular and church attendance (it’s a church school) moved down the pecking order on the admissions (I believe), more local children got places, so fewer in the area around me got places to the point I think very few now do. The LA did provide transport but basically told parents they would be stopping it as so few were using it, leaving some completely at a loss as to how they were now getting their children to school. Some were in gcse or A level years so did not have the option of changing schools at all. I’m not sure how that panned out. DD briefly considered it for sixth form as a back up, but the rejected it when she heard the bus would be disappearing.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Upton Court follow the lead of Langley and now Herschel and have priority areas, reducing the numbers getting places from Reading/Earley. In my view that’s no bad thing, I personally think travelling from here to Slough by road is too much for them especially when we have several decent schools locally. There is absolutely no reason for them to need to travel to Slough.