New School Year, New School Run!

When we visited our Grandchildren in America, their system seemed to work like clockwork.
There was a line for cars outside the pick up/drop off point for children, two of the more senior children waiting for cars to arrive in this line they would open the cars doors as they arrived, the children would get out and go into school being watched by the more senior ones and there was never any trouble and the children were safe

As grandparents we are not needed for school run duty from this September. DD has one child starting her secondary school which involves being ready for transport at 7.30am and another child starting Reception class aged 4 years and not quite 2 months. A childminder is needed for the younger one as mum works full time. Yes, hats off to mums juggling more than one child, more than one school and work as well!

🤣🤣🤣

keepingquiet

When my kids were little we walked to school- and no it wasn't the nearest. When they went to senior school they caught the school bus. The good old days...?

I always walked to school or caught the school bus and I always walked my daughters to school. I didn't have the luxury of a car then or now.

Our schools are so oversubscribed that the little ones get pushed into any space. One mum has a child in the nearest school, one 3 miles away and one in the next town!

A number of secondary children are travelling 10 miles, that was until they tried to stop the service bus they travelled on.

Going to be fun as the road in one direction has traffic lights, and in the other it is closed for the first 3 days of term

We lived in Oxford and all of ours were able to cycle to school safely. We don't need to live in a world of absurdly big cars which apparently keep people 'safe', but actually injure and kill other road users.
The Netherlands was once a country of cars but political will turned it into a sane place instead of a nightmare of cars and people who find every reason to hate cyclists or rather 'other humans travelling differently' as my husband likes to say.

Hope your gs enjoys his new school.

hS62 absolutely 💯 your mum really needed that help.
My mum was the youngest of 8 but there were no school uniforms in her school days.

I lived several miles away from my school, so went by bus from an early age. My children walked to primary school, took two buses to senior school (not school buses), or sometimes walked, a long walk but less trouble the the bus.

My grandchildren go by bus. There are no school buses as far as I know. Cars are not allowed to park near the school, in central London.

The problem we have here in a very rural area is that now, instead of the old rules that brothers and sisters would go to the same school, now the council insist that they go to the nearest school to their homes. When you have already got children at the other schools you are now in an impossible situation, where you can have 3 children all going to different schools, with no bus service available from right up the dales and parents are used to working out ways to get them to the nearest bus stop available or to the school but now the situation is impossible. They all made as sensible plans as they could as the children were growing up, and worked out what to do. Now they are left trying to work out ways to deliver the children, run the farm in the best way they can, and you cannot know when some emergency on the farm, of animals getting out or any accidents, which are a long way from any form of help at all. This will end up in young people no longer being able to even consider trying to live in the dales. Common sense does not seem to be a commodity that is available to any of the politicians. I also speak as a person who used to walk 3/4 miles to the station, a 15 mile train journey and another 1/2 mile walk at the other end, so am very aware of what it entails. Children walking down dark lanes without any street lights need to be safe and of course parents will do whatever they need to do to keep them safe.

The inability of councils and politicians to look at the long term situation which is what needs to be looked at , means that the children may again be put through the upheaval of moving schools or even mean that this is the last straw and families will leave the countryside to have to go down to towns where they can organise life in a better way.

It is no good any politicians or councillors saying they support rural areas , when they seem incapable of looking at what will inevitably happen if this ludicrous situation is not sorted out with some common sense. You might be prepared to allow an 11 year old to walk along with an older sister or brother, who knows the way and is sensible. I most certainly would not be happy to have an 11 year old walking alone and here in the winter we can have deep snow and flooding in certain areas. The children are used to the weather and would do there best but the thought of trying to keep walking up to 2 miles alone on an unlit road for a new pupil is not what you would want to allow. If that situation happened and there was an accident with a car or tractor or whatever the first thing would be people asking why was this child allowed to walk alone there? Well the answer is to think ahead and not end up where such things are allowed to happen.

Yes silverlining, but my mother was widowed with eight children, so it was very much appreciated, and I'm sure a lot of parents need that help today. Having 2 children that need to be logged out in new everything for new school term is costly. X

Good advice from mum by the way

Mid 50 s/ early 60 s. Free dinners and uniform allowance etc was probably because you were such a big family, we were
just two children, not wealthy, but apart from tepid milk nothing else was free.

My grandson starts a new Senior school tmrw. He would have to catch 2 busses to get to school, there's no scheduled school bus. His mum found some young new boys on Facebook who live in the same road who will now all walk together in a group for safety sake. The bus fare was much too expensive, and inconvenient with school starting time. Parking outside school gates are all double yellow lines as well. Nothings catered for. It's down to parents now. When I was at school we got a school uniform grant, free school meals, free milk and free transport. We were a family of 8 children. When we started senior school we walked 2-3 miles there and back to attend . And everyone looked out for each other and we were taught about being approached by strange people by my mum. It was run and kno k on the nearest door and scream. X

Even earlier than 30 minutes sometimes. Because we had a long journey to get to the school w e used to set out because of traffic and often arrive early, only to find the car park already crowded with a mum inside each 4x4 looking at her phone, 📱 with only tiny gaps between each parking space fir us to try to squeeze into. Then given ‘looks’ in case we knock their car while we slithered out bent sideways. After 11 years it was over… relief 😅 .

A few years ago we set up a “walking bus” to encourage children and parents to walk to school or at least, park further away, then walk the remaining distance.
There was much publicity about the healthy habit of walking.
There were awards for being a walker, even if it was only from the end of the road (about 0.5km).
It went really well for a while . . . until the first rainy week, when it dwindled away.
After that, those who always walked, still did, but the cars flooded back.
Do you know, some parents/grandparents arrive at school 30 mins before school starts and even earlier before school finishes, just to get their place.

The school had to send out a letter reminding parents to be considerate to local residents.
Yes, the local primary school did the same and asked parents to use the car park about five minutes walk away. Mostly it fell on deaf ears. They are very entitled!

It was ever thus. I remember cringing with embarrassment when I witnessed one of the yummy mummies of our generation being asked not to block someone’s drive and in reply spitting out that “all these little houses should be razed to the ground to make a carpark for school”. The woman lived a 10 minute walk away and never worked (heaven forbid). The school had to send out a letter reminding parents to be considerate to local residents.

That doesn't surprise me in the slightest, valdavi
When a neighbour politely asked one school mother if she'd mind not parking across her drive the woman said "You people think you own the road. You don't". The same woman was extremely rude to me when I asked if she could move to a wider bit of road as we were expecting a delivery and the van wouldn't be able to get through.

We live up the road from a school, luckily we've never been blocked in, but it's a busy road & gets clogged.
Not a problem, but how rude was the mum (in a 4x4 actually) who lowered her window to say to DH 'I don't know why you people have to drive up here at this time of day'. Two doors from his house, which he was returning to!

The other point is that old bats as you term us, probably have more time than young parents who are rushing off to work after dropping the children at school. I remember it well!

There should be more school transport, other countries can do this, why not us?

keepingquiet

Allira

Sarnia

keepingquiet

When my kids were little we walked to school- and no it wasn't the nearest. When they went to senior school they caught the school bus. The good old days...?

Too far to walk to either school and no school bus, more's the pity. I have often wondered why local authorities don't run school buses which would remove several cars from the morning rush hour thereby reducing traffic, pollution and then nightmare of parking. I think many families would happily pay for this service.

There are school buses but only for children living a certain distance from school, even though the bus may pass by a housing estate which could be 20 yards inside the limit.

If a child goes to a school just out of catchment area there are often private bus companies running school buses but it's expensive. £5 per child per day here, expensive if you have more than one child, so it could be more economical for a parent to drop children off if it's in the same direction as their work.

Ok so why not park a walkable distance away from the school and then walk?

There is no need for parents to park as close to the school as possible.

At my healthy living old bats club the other day lots of people were talking about going to the gym etc and the importance of walking.

I then asked how it is that users of gyms always seem to want to park near the entrance?

It is a modern mystery to me...

Well, yes. Space was designated in a local car park so that parents could walk their children the few hundred yards from there to the local primary school but many won't use it, prefer to clog up local roads. The thing is, they don't arrive at 3.25pm for pickup, some arrive an hour or so before and are working (or otherwise) on their phones!

I used to do the school run in a 4x4, not my vehicle of choice but a necessary evil due to the remoteness of where we lived.

I was lucky as my DC always walked or used school buses.

Age 10 to 16 my school commute went like this - mum would drive me a mile to the one (non-school) coach a day that went into town. I would walk from the coach terminus to the bus station. Would take a 3 mile journey through town on Midland red bus.
In the evening the reverse, except there were 2 coaches back so if I missed the 4.30, I could get the 6.15. But mum didn't pick up in the evening, I had a mile walk home from the nearest coach drop-off.Occasionally there weren't many people on, the coach driver would drive along our lanes rather than the correct route, & drop me off. Bliss!
A lot of hours of my life, but we had a lovely gang of friends (fellow-sufferers) on the coach so not all negative.

silverlining48

I know a near squillionaire whose children 10 and 9 are transported to and from school by taxi paid fir by the council while mum stays home all day and the Porsche sits on the drive.
The same council is talking about cancelling school transport for SEN children, which these aren’t. Difficult to understand.

Why is the taxi paid for? People like these entitled wastes of space make me sick! Who do they think they are?