11+ school preferences and daily commute

[PurpleDuck]

A point I would add to your post is this. My own school journey (to a grammar school) was a 10 minute walk, an 8 minute train ride and then a 40 minute walk. Just short of the hour you mention.

My journey to school was somewhat shorter, Sally-Anne, just a 30 minute walk and easily twice that on a way back (who could resist a stop-over at a sweets shop ). I did have my fair share of getting soaking wet and was definitely fitter then than I am now.

As a general guide, transport arrangements should not require a child to make several changes on public transport resulting in an unreasonably long journey time. Best practice suggests that the maximum each way length of journey for a child of primary school age to be 45 minutes and for secondary school age 75 minutes, but these should be regarded as the maximum.

Thank you for digging this out, Guest55. It may be that the 1 hour I quoted was meant to be just the time spent on the train or bus plus 15mins. in total on both ends of the journey to/from bus stop or station. In any case, this is significantly less than what some people seem to be willing to consider.

It all depends.
Here in the wilds of East Kent, children travel to Folkestone from Romney Marsh. It is the nearest Grammar School , but the Marsh is rural, bus journeys take a while.

Yes, you are right, yoyo123. If there is no alternative, there is not much you can do and there is no comparison between rural areas and large urban communities. However, as you mention, there is no reason to travel 2 hours in or out of central London (or another large city) if there are good local schools much nearer to home.

I drive DS to school now and it takes about 45mins; if we had succeeded at appeal for the nearer school then that time would have been halved. But, in some instances, a longer journey is worth the trouble to know that your DC does not have to suffer the local failing (as seen on YouTube) school. I guess what I am saying is that, although a lot of parents on here choose to have long travel times to get to the "best" schools, some of us choose to have long travel times to get to a better/more suitable school.

A 45-minute journey to school sounds very reasonable to me. In fact, we've been able to get into a selective school a similar distance away. We have a very good comprehensive much nearer, but couldn't get a place there as we've always been out of their catchment. The one we could get into was rated by Ofsted as 'requiring improvement'...The cases I can't bear thinking about are those where children have to leave the house at 6.30 am or even earlier to make it to school in time for registration. There are a couple of boys in my DC's schools who are on the train just after 6am. I wouldn't want to do that myself.

[PurpleDuck]

Hear hear purpleduck. I'm amazed at how many people sit children for schools they realistically have little chance of being able to commute to for 7 years. Especially when the poster decides to choose one more prestigious miles away offering over an excellent more local school (where they will do just as well but not be knackered and resentful). We entered DC for 3 good local independent schools and when they got all 3 the main deciding factor was which one was easiest and quickest to get to and from. Teenagers want to have active social lives, live near their friends and to get back home without fuss. Agree that they have the rest of their lives to deal with the **** that is commuting.

Sorry that wasn't a swear word, no idea why it was censored!

It didn't even cross my mind it could have been, OldBean

[Yamin151]

dS got into the GS which is 15 minutes away in the car. Hands up, we didn't consider how long the bus journey would take, thought about 30 minutes, but actually more like an hour!! It is free however, for whcih we are very grateful, and it's door to door, which to ,y mind is not too bad. Ds does whinge sometimes, but this has more to do with his general mood than with the commute, today for example he was very jolly about it all. We do have the option to take him in and pick him up a couple times a week, so it's not like he is at a school many miles away.
Other Ds is at school 25 mins drive away, and catches bus one way, that is also door to door and takes 30 minutes and is more or less a cheauffeur service!
Occasionally I have my 'rightmove' dream where I move us all to a place, boys at local school 10 minute walk away (and they could both have gone to GS five minutes walk from here!), but as I say, I think the commute whinge is more to do with mood than actually the commute. I'd love them to be able to sleep in longer, but we like a nice family breakfast so we'd be up early anyway I suspect.
The schools they are in make up for the distance as they suit them both. Ultimately that was the most important thing.

[Eccentric]

DD at a school which is only 20 minutes drive away in the car but the bus takes 1 hour and 15 minutes because it meanders all over the place. I generally drive her part way to a closer (to school) bus stop in the morning and collect her every day (otherwise she wouldn't have time to do her homework:)) I used to walk for an hour to get to school as a child, I don't remember minding. When I collect DD from school, I don't park near the school she meets me about a 5 minute walk away, but many other parents seem to pick up at the school gate.

[BucksBornNBred]

A 45-minute journey to school sounds very reasonable to me.

It is only a 45 min journey because we drive there and that means it takes an hour or so out of my day, twice a day. The bus doubles the time...but as DS is doing really well at GS it is worth the effort, so again I am just trying to point out that DPs may have to let DCs travel long distances so they are in the most suitable schools (though I agree that some DPs may not realise how lucky they are to have a good school on their doorstep.

[PurpleDuck]

It is only a 45 min journey because we drive there and that means it takes an hour or so out of my day, twice a day. The bus doubles the time...but as DS is doing really well at GS it is worth the effort, so again I am just trying to point out that DPs may have to let DCs travel long distances so they are in the most suitable schools.

I do see your point and I agree - and I also agree with other posters who make similar points about different circumstances and wanting to choose the most suitable schools for their DCs, which may not be available close to home. I'm sure there is a lot of careful consideration involved in such cases. There are, however, posts on this forum from DPs who seem to go straight for the option of well known/prestigious schools without even considering what might be available closer to home (or visiting the school in question).

I wondered whether you dropped off at school on route somewhere else, or was it a 'dedicated taxi service' ; I can see how that can take a fair bit of your time. You mention that a bus would take twice as long. I imagine the reason you do the school runs is precisely because you don't want your DS to have a long and exhausting journey to school - which was the point I was trying to make.

[Amber]

Exactly! And when I dared to raise it as an issue, I was told I was being unkind.

I tend to ignore those kind of posts now for that very reason. In Gloucestershire as we have no catchment areas we always get queries about getting to schools from some place miles and miles away which hadn't been researched ahead of the exam. I do wonder also what people think is so amazing about some of these schools that they are prepared to ship kids in from the wilds of Somerset or wherever - it is this cachet/mystique surrounding grammar schools which I don't get. It is so tempting sometimes to post some of the 'if you knew what I knew' stories, but of course no one would believe me!

I also wonder how parents have time to spend a couple of hours in the morning and the same at night (assuming they go home again rather than sitting in the car outside the child's school, which I swear some of the parents at our local primary school do!) ferrying kids to school and back - it is just one more way in which the middle classes can buy into good schools I suppose. There must be some spare money knocking around for petrol, and for the parent not to have to work long hours. The idea of sitting in a car crawling through traffic morning after morning with a teenager or two in the car is not appealing to me, I must say, and I am glad of the bus service which connects up nicely by bike with my sons .

[mike1880]

I must admit to having to restrain a tendency to sarcasm whenever I see the "How does my child get to..." threads. The time to think about that is before filling in the CAF, not after offers day.

[marigold]

Oh please don't didcourage those posts, this is my favourite time of year, reading all those "how do I get to.." queries followed by the snitty replies. I hugely admire Toadmum who takes the trouble to google journey routes for some people , I hope she gets hundreds of pms thanking her.

We are very lucky, my son has a 20 minute walk to school. A few years ago, his then headmaster did a statistical study linking expected performance , distance/travelling time from school and GCSE outcomes. He presented the results to the parents and it was shockingly obvious that a long journey to school was having an impact on the boy's results. Following that, a catchment area for 80% of the year was introduced. It will be very interesting to see if the new cohorts are now meeting academic expectations. The girls school over the road introduced a similar catchment area at the same time but their main reason was not tierdness, but the inability of girls travelling from far away to play a full part in afterschool activities as they all made a dash for it at 3.45.

[tiffinboys]

A few years ago, his then headmaster did a statistical study linking expected performance , distance/travelling time from school and GCSE outcomes. He presented the results to the parents and it was shockingly obvious that a long journey to school was having an impact on the boy's results.

This correlation does not seem to apply to the top school.