Teenagers being driven to and from school

My grandchildren live in a village and are driven the four miles to the school bus. The road is a busy lorry route with no pavement snd far too dangerous to walk or cycle. The bus pass costs over £1000 pa each!

Not all schools have lockers, and paddyann45, we live in Scotland too and you don't have to send your children to your local school. My two didn't go to their catchment area secondary.

Just wondering why so many kids aged 13 to 18 can't make their own way to and from school anymore?

Mine seem to manage on the bus.

One on school transport, the other on public transport, both since the age of 11. So do most of their school friends.

Galaxy

I havent been on a bus since the pandemic. I would think it would be better for everyone at the moment for teenagers to avoid buses if theres an alternative.

Often there isn't and the bus is so overcrowded they have to strap hang all the way, nearly 10 miles.

Squiffy

The cost of the school bus can be prohibitive! £750 a year per child in my GC’s area! Don’t forget the ridiculously heavy loads they have to carry these days, very different from our days at school when we could safely leave books etc in our desks!

Not to mention their cookery dishes, sports equipment etc!

Dont local authorities provide school transport free ?

They always have done here .I left school in 1969 and never paid for my train pass to school 4 miles away .
None of my children or GC have had to pay for a school bus pass.From this month the free travel is being extended to take in up to 22 year olds ,thats ALL children from babies to 22 .

It will help Students with travel costs .young people on low wages and it will try to stem the numbers of old cars these young folk buy to get them around.
Win win,keeping old cars off the roads ,keeping the bus service busy and saving parents being taxi's
.Good for the environment
Bus passes for 60 year olds are still the norm and soon it will become more cost effective to provide free public transport for everyone as it did with prescriptions where the admin costs were higher than the cost of everyone getting their meds free.Bet you wish you had a government who think out of the box....or even THINK about anyone but themselves

IIrc our school bus was £3k pa as it isn't subsidised

It isn't free in my local authority in England paddyann, they even charge some SEND pupils fr transport now

My OH took the bus to school by himself from age 5. He is 75. I was appalled when I heard that.
We walked in a group with “Grandpa Fraser” another child’s grandfather who used the walk to increase his daily exercise.

Hithere

Tight not tight

Bloody autocorrect Hithere ?

Dont local authorities provide school transport free ?

*paddyann^ Here the pupils get a free bus pass if they're in the catchment area but have to use use public transport.
If they are out of the catchment area they have to pay.

Primary school pupils get school transport if they live a certain distance from the school. The daft thing is that, although the bus goes right past a housing estate on the other side of a busy main road from the school en route to a village, the children on the housing estate aren't allowed to use it because they don't live the required distance away. The parents offered to pay but no.
So it sails past their homes with about 3 children on it.

Typos, sorry

My granddaughter is physically disabled and a wheelchair user. She’d love to get to school on the bus with her friends but it’s simply not an option. Due to the rubbish support system in place for her she relies totally on lifts from her parents.

We knew someone in a small remote town who lived 300 yds from the local school. “Nice short walk” I said (I walked 1 ½ miles to school). “ actually I drive them” she replied. Her children were 7 and 8, quite old enough to walk on their own if she didn’t want to walk. This was nearly 20 years ago.

TizLiz I knew someone who did that.

I must admit driving my DD to school, chucking her out at school on my way to work.

Esspee

My OH took the bus to school by himself from age 5. He is 75. I was appalled when I heard that.
We walked in a group with “Grandpa Fraser” another child’s grandfather who used the walk to increase his daily exercise.

Esspee I think the further back you go in time the more independent children were. As I said, from the age of 5yrs I walked to school on my own in London in the 1950s. My father, back in the 1920s, lived in a cottage next to a wood and from the age of 5yrs walked alone through the wood for a mile and a half in all weathers to the village school. When I tell my grandchildren they can't believe it.

My DH had to find his own way across London to change trains to get to boarding school age 7.

I was fortunate enough to live within walking distance of my schools. Five minutes walk to the junior school, and just over 10 minutes to the secondary school.
We lived approximately one mile from the secondary school my children attended. It took them 20-25 minutes to walk. They walked. I only ever collected them in the car if we were going somewhere straight from school.

I’m gobsmacked by the amounts of parents waiting outside Secondary schools for great lumps of teenagers who; in the politest terms, look as if they might benefit from a walk.

Both my DGC live about a mile and a half from their secondary school and have walked to and from, from day 1.

For their first day, as so many of her friends lived off the main road leading to the school, DGD organised a walking train. As furthest away, she started and was joined by about seven friends as she went.

If the weather is tipping with rain or snow, DS will give a lift or collect, if he is available, otherwise they walk it, rain, snow or shine.

It is a straight up a main arterial road into their city, so there are always people about and it is well lit.

DD walked to school for the last 2 years of primary school and throughout secondary school, but the schools were quite close. I could see her primary school from the front gate.

I used to walk to the bus stop, get a bus, get off, cross a main road and walk down a long road to school - and back - and I was 5 !!!

But too dangerous now of course.

Since the advent of schools being able to take children out of catchment, lots of the pupils are from out of area.

If we're out at that time (which we try to avoid) we do see lots of teenagers walking home from school and, for those out of catchment, it's quite a long way.

The world now is very different from the one we grew up decades ago

Throwing judgements on what parents do now vs what you did then is comparing apples and oranges

I get very frustrated when parents pull into disabled bays in a car park next to a school to wait for their 16-18 year olds. They do not pay for a ticket and when this is pointed out, they remark that they won’t be there long as they are just doing a pick up. This procedure is replicated by driving instructors prior to driving lessons. One was even running through a theory test ( you could see the book quite clearly) again with no parking ticket.

I just worry how all these cossetted children will manage once they get to university.

Even back in the 1960s when I went to university, we had students, especially girls, coming up who were so wet behind the ears because they had been so protected by their parents, who did things and got themselves into situations that made my hair stand on end. Having for various reasons had a peripatetic childhood, including my sister and I flying round the world, in the very nominal care of an air stewardess. I was streetwise and so many at university with me were clueless.

I can see my DGC and their friends who have had to walk to and from school, cross busy roads and walk sensibly, including from after school classes and in the dark, being at a real advantage over those who are fetched and carried all the time.

The odds are still loaded against women when out alone after dark