11 Plus Exams Forum

My lad starts at KEFW next term, and as we live in Bromsgrove we intend to have him travel to and from school on the Green Bus school service (885) - it seems the logical choice. He's asked if I can travel in and out with him on the first day, which is fine by me, but I'm wondering if the "general public" like me can use the bus without raising any eyebrows, or is it just for the KEFW kids?

On a related note, has anyone got any thoughts or opinions on the 885 service, good or bad? Have their been any issues or problems with it?

My wife has occasionally caught the 871 (Solihull -> CHB) en route to work in Moseley; no problem doing so, but I think the driver may have raised his eyebrow a couple of millimetres.

885 is generally reliable, on time, but expensive. If it is delayed, you receive a text to that effect.

I would encourage your son to catch the 885 on the induction day as there will be other year 6s on the bus. This will familiarise him and give him confidence in catching it in August at his first day at school.

I have never heard of a parent accompanying their child on the bus on the first day. Generally, parents stand at the bus stop until the bus arrives, for the first week and then they drop their DC off at the bus stop and leave him/her to it after that. Perhaps catching the bus on the induction day in July will give him the confidence to do it by himself in August or you could follow the bus (although it does make lots of stops) on the first day to give you and him confidence in it. It is amazing how quickly the new Year 7s get into the routine of catching the bus and meeting up with their friends.

Good luck with it. If you want more detail, PM me. I have 2 children at the school.

I'm sorry, this is a quick off-topic question -why does your autumn term start in August? Is it just at this school, all the KE schools, or all Birmingham schools?

ToadMum wrote:I'm sorry, this is a quick off-topic question -why does your autumn term start in August? Is it just at this school, all the KE schools, or all Birmingham schools?

KEFW start back August 27 (don't know if that's the whole school or just the new first form). Autumn half term is two weeks long to compensate, so we get mismatched term date headaches with our kids in two places...

It's the whole school. It's annoying having less time in the summer and a childcare nightmare for the extra week in Oct.

pmc wrote:My lad starts at KEFW next term, and as we live in Bromsgrove we intend to have him travel to and from school on the Green Bus school service (885) - it seems the logical choice. He's asked if I can travel in and out with him on the first day, which is fine by me, but I'm wondering if the "general public" like me can use the bus without raising any eyebrows, or is it just for the KEFW kids?

On a related note, has anyone got any thoughts or opinions on the 885 service, good or bad? Have their been any issues or problems with it?

I'm surprised your son wants you anyway near. I lurked near the bus stop on the first day but ds said the other kids were discussing who the weird woman was so I didn't do it again

Ds takes the public bus without incident and we did a couple of practice runs in the summer where we pretended we weren't together. I was mostly concerned he wouldn't recognise his stop!

Just to note that as far as I am aware it is only KEFW who start the term at the end of August and have two weeks of holiday at October half term.

The other grammars generally follow the Birmingham LA term dates (although they are academies and don't have to).

Regarding transport, my older boys got the local public bus by themselves on the first day. However they'd both been to the week long school summer sport camp on the bus beforehand so were familiar with the way.
I walked dd to school on her first day because that was the first time I have ever walked a child to school (have always commuted longer distances) so that was a novelty Mind you she disappeared quite quickly near the gates...

For information - KEFW has 2 weeks in Oct to allow them to plan for overseas trips without impacting formal teaching. This works well.

My DS did the KEFW trip to China and HK some years ago and at the time the school only allowed those pupils to go on the trip if they were well ahead in their studies and could cope with missing 1 week of the autumn term. The 2 weeks at Oct seems to work well and has good support from parents.