Guide to moving up to secondary school

Travel assistance for secondary age pupils is generally provided where the school is the nearest suitable school and it is more than three miles from your home address. Most children do not qualify for help with home to school travel and families are responsible for the travel arrangements and cost

You can check if your child would be entitled to free school transport by using our Free School Transport tool. This checker measures the length of the journey to school and includes any extra entitlements currently allowed under the Council’s School Transport Policy.

The choice of school preferences and the order of your preferences can affect whether free school transport is available. If you include your nearest school (somewhere in your list), you may be eligible for free transport to a school further away if your nearest school could not be offered. The nearest school referred to here is the nearest school stated on our free school transport checker.

Parents are responsible, in law, for ensuring their child attends school so you should consider the daily journey when applying for schools. If it is not possible to walk to school because of the distance involved, you could consider using public transport or car sharing. Most schools have school travel plans and are working with families to reduce their car use.

For more information, including guidance and policy documents, see our school transport web pages.