11 Plus Exams Forum

Hi Does anyone travel from twickenham to nonsuch school or any other place in Hounslow. Are there coach service in this area for that school

Monu wrote:Hi Does anyone travel from Twickenham to nonsuch school or any other place in Hounslow. Are there coach service in this area for that school

Not sure if there's a coach service as such but most people which probably take the X26 bus.

It's a really long journey for someone to have to take for several years. I would really encourage you to look for a school closer to home and make it easier for your DD to travel. That extra time they will get back by not having to travel so far is invaluable. Your daughter will get a reasonable amount of homework so after a long commute, there's still work to be done before she gets any part of the evening to herself. Going to a grammar school is a great achievement but it should not be any cost.

From the number of people who ask more or less the same thing each year, one might think that someone had actually got a minibus service up and running (I'm also assuming that Nonsuch doesn't have much of an after school extracurricular offering). However, there is also the possibility that parents moved nearer the school, or that they ended up moving their DDs out after a while, due to the effects of the daily journey.

Have you tried asking the school if they are aware of a parent-organised service?

It’s not a feasible journey by either public transport or car.

DD is in Year 7 and I am pretty sure that there is a bus service organised by parents for Years 7 8 and possibly 9 paid for my them. There are quite a few people coming from that way.

A teaching assistant in a tutoring centre, a Nonsuch graduate, once told me, she commuted 3 hours everyday for 7 years: 1,5 hours each way. Her sister was in Tiffin and her cousin was in Wallington Girls, both of them also had similar commute times. These parents do not think like us. It does not matter how many times we say it is not feasible, our warnings don’t mean anything to them. They maybe had longer commute times back home, wherever they are from, so, to them 3 hours seems normal and doable. They do not care about after school clubs or the social life of their children. When that girl told me she had spent 3 hours in traffic for 7 years every school day, I was shocked. She resented her parents’ choice a little, but only a little. Different social dynamics are in force in these families.

As long as schools do not strictly limit their intake to shorter commute areas, these children will continue suffering silently for the choice of their parents. The schools fail them. The system may be designed for giving every bright child a fair chance of grammar school entry, however, the same exam boards are aware of the grammar tourists or the long commute these children had to endure for years. And they do NOTHING.

It is a complicated issue but I can’t see anyone taking any steps to resolve it in the near future.

Thanks, everyone for the inputs. It looks like traveling to Nonsuch from Twickenham/Hounslow seems not feasible.

Did you actually name Nonsuch as your first (or likely to be first effective) preference on your CAF without investigating the feasibility of your DD actually having to get there and back every day for 9 months of the year first? Or is she not yet in year 6?

ToadMum wrote:Did you actually name Nonsuch as your first (or likely to be first effective) preference on your CAF without investigating the feasibility of your DD actually having to get there and back every day for 9 months of the year first? Or is she not yet in year 6?

No i haven’t put it as my first choice. I was trying to explore this option as it is nearer to my son’s school. But reading the reviews looks like it is very hard for the girls to travel that long daily

Allegras wrote:A teaching assistant in a tutoring centre, a Nonsuch graduate, once told me, she commuted 3 hours everyday for 7 years: 1,5 hours each way. Her sister was in Tiffin and her cousin was in Wallington Girls, both of them also had similar commute times. These parents do not think like us. It does not matter how many times we say it is not feasible, our warnings don’t mean anything to them. They maybe had longer commute times back home, wherever they are from, so, to them 3 hours seems normal and doable. They do not care about after school clubs or the social life of their children. When that girl told me she had spent 3 hours in traffic for 7 years every school day, I was shocked. She resented her parents’ choice a little, but only a little. Different social dynamics are in force in these families.

As long as schools do not strictly limit their intake to shorter commute areas, these children will continue suffering silently for the choice of their parents. The schools fail them. The system may be designed for giving every bright child a fair chance of grammar school entry, however, the same exam boards are aware of the grammar tourists or the long commute these children had to endure for years. And they do NOTHING.

It is a complicated issue but I can’t see anyone taking any steps to resolve it in the near future.

I think your summary of the situation is spot on. The school clubs are an important of part of a childs all round education. My DD goes to Nonsuch as she has been involved in competitive sport fixtures which sometimes mean coming back a bit later than normal. She gets a lot out of doing sport and I feel it provides her with some much needed balance in a very academic school.

Something needs to be done to bring in the catchment area as I don't think it's sustainable to have such a long commute. The covid-19 situation has made this situation even harder.