Please do also have a think about how you will manage any early starts (there are one or two early start school trips a year - one is 5.30am) or late finishes (things like clubs, rehearsals, Duke of Edinburgh), social lives and parties, bad weather, train problems, parents evenings, information evenings, fairs/fundraising activities and other schools involvement.
Colchester is very congested with traffic so I’d try and do a practice run at school drop off time on an actual school day to see where any problems might come from and how long it might take. The schools are quite far from the train station and the traffic can add a lot of extra time to a bus journey. Regular problems on the A12 means that coaches are regularly late to school.
Stateschooled wrote:
Just to clarify it does not take 30/40 mins to get to Colchester Girls High from Gidea park. I live in Marks Tey in Colchester (3-4 miles away) and it often takes me 30 mins to get to Colchester Girls High in the morning traffic!