Home-to-school transport in contemporary schooling contexts: an irony in motion

ABSTRACT

This paper explores ‘home–school’ transport in contemporary schooling contexts in England. Home–school transport is a complex issue lying between government departments, policy frameworks, research and professional disciplines. It is complicated further by commercial and private interests alongside social and public ones. Informed by an interdisciplinary literature, the authors argue that there is an urgent need to develop understanding of the position of home–school transport policy and practices in contemporary schooling contexts, particularly in relation to school choice making and enactment. This paper calls for research to inform the development of home–school transport policy and practices that are socially just and sustainable.

Keywords:

• home–school transport
• choice
• access
• social justice

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The authors wish it to be known that each contributed equally to the writing of the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 An ‘eligible child’ is defined in Schedule 35B of the Education Act 1996 and includes children who are unable to walk by reason of their special educational needs, disability or mobility problem (including temporary medical conditions); children unable to walk in safety to school because of the nature of the route; disabled parents (if walking safely to school requires being accompanied by a parent); and children living beyond the statutory walking distance of 3 mi because there is not a suitable school available closer, or children from low-income families who attend a qualifying school between 2 and 6 mi from home (as long as there are not three or more nearer suitable qualifying schools); or the child is from a low-income family and attending their nearest school preferred on the grounds of religion or belief, between 2 and 15 mi from home.

2 A low-income family is defined as one where the child is in receipt of free school meals, or the family is in receipt of the maximum level of working tax credits.

3 Qualifying schools are defined within the Act as being suitable for the age, ability and aptitude of the child and any special educational needs (SEN) they may have and must have places available. They can include community, foundation or voluntary schools, community or foundation special schools, non-maintained special schools, pupil referral units, maintained nursery schools, city technology colleges, city colleges for technology and academies.

4 Travel in London for 11–15-year olds is free on buses and trams.