How long will your child’s journey to school be?

[Juneboy]

Just curious to know how long it will take your child to get to their new school? Ours will be 35 mins by car and 1 hour by public transport. Our older DD has a journey of about 15 mins by car and 40 mins by public transport.

[Sorrel]

Ours will be about 30 mins by train and 25 min walking, divided between home end and school end.

[PettswoodFiona]

DD could walk to school in 30 mins but due to hills and heavy bags she tends to take a bus that take twelve mins and walks the rest, it still takes 30 mins that way.

Sometimes if the bus is not working she can get the train. The last week with the snow has clearly demonstrated how being close to the school has given her more options than many of her class mates who live further away. Some of her friends have journeys each day of 1 hour fifteen mins each way.

When there is no traffic it takes a seven minute car drive to the school. We tend to only do that for evening events. During rush hour going by car is just not practical (or deemed ‘cool’ by most of the girls at DD’s school).

[Sparklecat]

Anyone using Arriva buses, I would recommend you download their app and see how long the journey actually takes in real time. Due to weight of traffic, our school buses regularly start on time and get delayed en route. If a direct 35 minute journey takes over an hour, that could begin to be a problem.

[jools1000]

Think we are quite lucky my dd can walk to DGGS in about 20 minutes (although it will be up hill)

[Eccentric]

It takes 20-30 minutes for me to drive my DD to school dependant upon traffic. The bus takes an hour in the morning. However the reality is that after school that hour becomes an hour and 45 minutes because of the time getting to and waiting at the bus stop as well as evening traffic slowing the journey. This can be problematic for homework so I often end up finding an excuse to do some shopping or to work close to her school because this allows her a whole extra hour at home (not good for the environment).

[phina1]

A little over half an hour in total. 15 minute walk to the station, 8 minutes on the train and then a 5 minute walk at the other end. So with 5-10 minute leeway to ensure he doesn't miss the train, it will be about 35 minutes.

We didn't really consider journeys of more than 45-50 minutes as he'll need time to get his homework done and still hav a life, so I would rather he didn't spend too much time traveling.

When we looked around Beth's, we were shown around by a boy who spent so much time traveling that he got up before 6am every day in order to get to school and said by the time he had got home and finished his homework it was 10pm. I could well believe it, as he could barely speak. Surely, it's better to go to a local comp and spend an hour a day traveling than to go to a grammar that requires 4 hours a day of traveling?

[ToadMum]

A little over half an hour in total. 15 minute walk to the station, 8 minutes on the train and then a 5 minute walk at the other end. So with 5-10 minute leeway to ensure he doesn't miss the train, it will be about 35 minutes.

We didn't really consider journeys of more than 45-50 minutes as he'll need time to get his homework done and still hav a life, so I would rather he didn't spend too much time traveling.

When we looked around Beth's, we were shown around by a boy who spent so much time traveling that he got up before 6am every day in order to get to school and said by the time he had got home and finished his homework it was 10pm. I could well believe it, as he could barely speak. Surely, it's better to go to a local comp and spend an hour a day traveling than to go to a grammar that requires 4 hours a day of traveling?

A Top 180 scorer from Essex / Eastbourne / Hillingdon?

[mystery]

Just curious to know how long it will take your child to get to their new school? Ours will be 35 mins by car and 1 hour by public transport. Our older DD has a journey of about 15 mins by car and 40 mins by public transport.

Do you mean 35 mins by car OR one hour by public transport? If not, that's long. If it is OR, it's pretty average for Kent. Not many big towns in which to situate schools the size which are needed to be economic to run a wide curriculum. And having an elevenplus system makes the travel situation worse.

[salsa]

That’s interesting, Mystery. I guess not many people consider how even Kent children have to travel. My eldest has a couple of friends who travel 10 miles from within Kent. They were considered out of catchment because they didn’t live in the named parishes. Their journey is long and not straightforward as those coming 10 miles away, but from south London on a direct train journey where those 10 miles would take them approximately 30 minutes.


Salsa