Travel to KES from Redditch/Studley

[jimbobjoe321]

Travel to KES from Redditch/Studley
How long do you think the travel time is ok for kids taking bus to school? I am checking school bus timetable. X19 from Studley (I can drop my DS to the bus stop in Studley) to KES take about 50 minutes on bus and walk 8 minutes. Start from 7.30 and arrive about 8.30 everyday. Can I have some advice?

[Molly10]

Not sure if this helps, but my children are at school in Stratford and we live in Redditch, daughter is Y8, son Y7. They get the train in from Henley-in-Arden every day, partly because it is on my way to work and partly because my son was in his final year of primary school there whilst my daughter started at SGGS. For us, the train has worked really well, it seems to be more reliable than the bus, but there is only one train per hour and if you miss it (we haven't so far!) it's a dash to the bus stop or a drive into Stratford.

When my daughter started school in Stratford I was really worried about her having to walk through the park at the back of SGGS but there are lots of other girls who take this route too, so she's never walking alone. Before my son started at KES, we did a couple of practice walks, as KES seems farther from the station, plus there's Stratford town centre to navigate through, but he's managed it brilliantly. There's barely a backward glance as we get to the station and he's off with his friends, and again there are lots of boys who do the same commute, so he never seems to walk to or from the station on his own.

There is a fair amount of stuff going on after school, and our work patterns allow either my husband or I to meet them after school when whatever they are doing has finished. For my son, I think he's always pretty grateful that my husband can collect him from the playing fields in Manor Road after an entire afternoon of rugby on a Friday, rather than him having to walk back into town and then onto the station, carrying his sports bag, which seems to be almost as big as he is!

For us it's a twenty minute drive to Henley, seventeen minutes on the train, then a twelve minute walk to KES, which both children have coped absolutely fine with.

[jimbobjoe321]

Not sure if this helps, but my children are at school in Stratford and we live in Redditch, daughter is Y8, son Y7. They get the train in from Henley-in-Arden every day, partly because it is on my way to work and partly because my son was in his final year of primary school there whilst my daughter started at SGGS. For us, the train has worked really well, it seems to be more reliable than the bus, but there is only one train per hour and if you miss it (we haven't so far!) it's a dash to the bus stop or a drive into Stratford.

When my daughter started school in Stratford I was really worried about her having to walk through the park at the back of SGGS but there are lots of other girls who take this route too, so she's never walking alone. Before my son started at KES, we did a couple of practice walks, as KES seems farther from the station, plus there's Stratford town centre to navigate through, but he's managed it brilliantly. There's barely a backward glance as we get to the station and he's off with his friends, and again there are lots of boys who do the same commute, so he never seems to walk to or from the station on his own.

There is a fair amount of stuff going on after school, and our work patterns allow either my husband or I to meet them after school when whatever they are doing has finished. For my son, I think he's always pretty grateful that my husband can collect him from the playing fields in Manor Road after an entire afternoon of rugby on a Friday, rather than him having to walk back into town and then onto the station, carrying his sports bag, which seems to be almost as big as he is!

For us it's a twenty minute drive to Henley, seventeen minutes on the train, then a twelve minute walk to KES, which both children have coped absolutely fine with.

Thank you for this great advice. We are actually thinking about the train solution when my husband goes to work in the morning. We will also do some trials.

[kenyancowgirl]

It's probably a 5 minute walk to KES from Stratford train station and, as Molly10 says, the trains are pretty reliable whereas traffic in Stratford is a nightmare at the best of times!