Bus passes for 11-15 year olds

I hope all goes well for your grand-daughter's transfer to high school, glam. The local authority here lays on schools buses to collect and deliver schoolkids who live more than three miles away from school. There is only the one high school to serve a huge rural area and not enough (or even any in some places) public service buses. DD's journey takes about half an hour and the high school and 14 primary schools that feed into it work very hard in the final year of primary school to help the kids adjust, including arranging for them to spend two days in the high school, travelling to and fro on the school buses, during their last few weeks at primary. DD wasn't streetwise either but she managed fine. I got a resounding NO when I asked if she wanted me to come to the bus-stop with her the first day!

I think well thought out arrangements and systems between schools saves a lot of bother when the primary school kids move up. Most then find the change relatively easy. Mind you, DD's final year primary school teacher was superb. I'm sure that helped. When some parents worried about their children not being ready for high school, she would retort: "My job is to get them ready!" and she did

jane and lily, I guess the people I know, and the school teachers here, are not indolent then. I don't think it's a case of "allowing" teenagers to test boundaries. Any healthy teenager will test boundaries. You have to be one step ahead. It's not the kids' fault if the adults in their lives aren't ready to keep re-drawing the boundaries.

Which is not to say it's easy, and I am sorry if you have to live among rude people.

14 year old boys, (generation after generation of them) for some reason, seem to think spitting is a brilliant way to impress girls. Bless them. So gauche. And so obviously never read Freud.

I lived in a rural area and the only way to secondary school was on a contract bus.

The only adult on our bus was the driver. The journey there was usually uneventful some were a bit noisey but mostly DC doing last minuet homework. Me and my best friend used to test each others french and latin vocabulary.

The journey back was the opposite. Lots of smoking, shouting and rude signs at class mates walking home......not me it was the boys!
Sometimes the older ones would sing 'rugby' songs. At 11 we didn't always understand them but we joined in the chorus!

Even the bus driver used to sing along to 'Roll me over in the clover, Roll me over lay me down and do it again.

This was 50 years ago.

From what Minibags tells me, mamardoit, it's pretty similar to that now. The drivers are still friendly and tolerant and the kids turn into decent adults.

It was fun and educational in a very innocent way!

We couldn't have walked to school because it was just too far. My own DC have all done a similar journey but with head phones in......They missed out!