Depends so much on the attitude of the school.

Wife’s school is a ‘Sports Technology College’ (soon to be Acadamy 😐 ) and had a very pro cycling/outdoors policy.

They have a small fleet of bikes available to pupils and to the local community which mostly get used on rides organised by staff.

Kids enjoy basic canal towpath pootling, pester their parents and turn up to school on older siblings old bikes.
But it’s a semi rural area with lots of safe access routes.

Don’t know if the question has already been asked but in general do children attending non private schools cycle to school?

From my experience they don’t but I could be wrong.

So, theoretically speaking, if you had no car, how would you manage to transport the stuff?

School bus – which is what one of them takes but @ £800 each per year I’ll take the other two in the car if you don’t mind!

Gary_M – Member
Don’t know if the question has already been asked but in general do children attending non private schools cycle to school?

From my experience they don’t but I could be wrong.

my youngest does, but very much in the minority. He’s in P6 in a school of around 500 pupils, and there are less than 20 bikes daily 😯

School bus – which is what one of them takes but @ £800 each per year I’ll take the other two in the car if you don’t mind!

I think you’re missing the point of my question.

I understand from your responses that for you personally, due to distance and cost of bus, that the car is your chosen method of transport. In your situation if all they had to take was a pencil case you would still use the car.

My original point was about using ‘they have to carry stuff’ as an excuse for using a car. If for example the school was closer* and had a nice safe traffic free route to it then would the amount of stuff to carry mean you still use the car?

*assume anywhere form 200 yards to 1 mile for example.

And I’m genuinely interested about the answer to if anything has physically changed, I don’t have school age kids, but I do live near to 3 schools (one private) and my wife is an ex-teacher, and over the years of meeting her at work and watching activity in our neighbourhood I certainly haven’t noticed the kids that do walk and cycle to our local schools being any more laden than I was when I was at school, so it’s a valid question really.

Since those without cars do manage to get to school with all their stuff, and since we managed it in the past, is the amount of stuff they have to carry a genuine barrier to cycling or walking?

@crazy there is a big reduction in the congestion charge for hybrids. I suspect families still own those big cars for weekends / holidays.

The usual for this kind of thread, then…..

This came to my mind recently. Not private schools but all schools. The easter hols were bliss and then back to rush hour hell right after. I live in a city with heaps of public transport and drive past several schools each morning choked with parents dropping their secondary/college age kids off. I walked, cycled or bused to school from primary age and i’m not so old that you would say I was born in a different time. Grrr.

I think it’s an all types of school thing tbh.

My eldest is at a school with around 1200 puppies and the very small bike shed is always empty. Traffic chaos outside every single day, the barstewards don’t even leave me a car parking space 👿

I’d love my boys to be able to bike to school and they are always asking if they can. Not letting them cycle up Pebble Hill (surrey boys will know it) though as I’m not even keen to cycle up that road myself to be fair. Not due its gradient but speed and quantity of cars and lorries.

I commute up and down pebble hill and the dangerous traffic is making me consider throwing the towel in with commuting. I would not want to see my son on a bike on that route!

My eldest is at a school with around 1200 puppies

I would have loved to go to that school. Dogs are so much better than children.

Poe’s law – as amedias mentions, it’s a line people use seriously.

Poe’s law – as amedias mentions, it’s a line people use seriously.

I know! I would just politely refer them to rules number 5 and 9!

I got so wet on my ride earlier I might as well have showered fully clothed!

Completely off topic but…..Got a mate who lives in California. He visited a couple of years ago with his three year old. It rained while they were here, apparently just the second time his son had experienced being outside in the rain in his life! If only!

I went to an independent school (so fee paying, but exam to get in so not private per se) and after a couple of years of getting the bus in I got bored with that and cycled there and back about 4 miles each way per day. I knew a few people who did the same. It was a while ago now but there were quite a few that got dropped off in posh cars when they only lived a couple of miles away.

So, perhaps the thread title should read:

‘Why do kids who attend fee paying schools because their parents made that informed and advantaged decision to make the sacrifices necessary to pay for an education that they felt they wouldn’t get in a state school and may also live in a nice area which might be quite far away from said school along dangerous country roads, choosing instead to drive in their expensive but somewhat uncesessarily blingy statement cars which they consider safer for their precious children not ride to school’

More affluent people have more choices. Stop to think that they might be rich because they work hard long hours in stressful senior roles or for themselves with the inherent stresses that this brings and not for any other reason. They therefore use this to make choices that less money would not offer. They have more choices about where they live (Cobham for example), where they send their kids to school (Cobham for example), what car they drive (a Range Rover for example), and whether the wife in the family needs to work or not (although many do in order to afford to send their kids to fee paying schools, live in Cobham and drive a Range Rover).

Unfortunately the world is split into ‘have mores’ and ‘have lesses’. Have mores are not inherently better or worse, but they do have more choice. Have lesses are not inherently worse or more worthy, but whether we like it or not, less money offers less choice. It’s just life. All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. Let’s not be so judgmental about the have mores and the have lesses.

The state education system generally works according to catchment areas meaning that that school is more likely to be a closer commute away. Fee paying schools work on an affordability and often selective entry basis, they are fewer and further between, sometimes in more remote leafy/semi rural areas and therefore have a wider catchment where cycling is a less viable option. House prices are often kept high around decent state schools precisely because of the attractiveness of the school, leading to much the same phenomenon of being driven to school and owning an expensive car despite a shorter distance to school. Not sure it is in fact purely a private school phenomenon, and even in state schools I see fewer kids riding to school than when I was a kid.

Fantombiker
I’ll be the one in the 4×4 bucking the trend and waiting patiently behind you for a space to overtake!

If for example the school was closer* and had a nice safe traffic free route to it then would the amount of stuff to carry mean you still use the car?

Christ no! But I think they’d walk instead of bike.

The easter hols were bliss and then back to rush hour hell right after.

Yes, but many parents take time off work during kids holidays so there’s going to be less traffic anyway – it’s not all school traffic.

Our local state school [in a village] has a fair number of kids walking/biking to school from the surrounding area – say 1 mile radius – so the activity isn’t dead.
I think it’s basically down to distance, road type, traffic volume and whether it’s feasable for the kids to bike with the bags.

My son often rides in with me but he’s only 5. It’s a 4km ride and we’re amongst the closest.

We take him in our big 4×4 when it rains (well, our nanny drives) 🙂

I think independent schools often have larger catchment areas so riding is less practical although I rode to school 12 miles each way for a term once as my parents said I could have the school bus money for some Judy XCs if I did.

Independent schools are also likely to have more after school activities meaning by the time they finish, it’s getting late. School here is from 8:00-3:40 but the school’s only beginning to get quiet around 5:30. Sports, games, music, performances and every other club you can imagine.