What are your views?
Introduction
The Learner Travel (Wales) Measure 2014, places a statutory duty on local authorities to provide home to school transport where children and young people meet the eligibility criteria. Each year local authorities are required to review their Transport Policy and consult on any changes to the existing arrangements.
Whilst Monmouthshire has not sought to make any significant changes to its Transport Policy, amendments have been proposed to make our operational practices clearer and more transparent for parents, learners, and other stakeholders. We would like your views on our Transport Policy so that we can make sure that we are considering all viewpoints.
Responses to this consultation will help to inform the Transport Policy before it is considered by Cabinet in September. The adopted policy and any changes will come into effect in September 2024 and apply to all learners accessing home to school transport. This will ensure that parents of learners commencing primary or secondary education in 2024 will be aware of the Transport Policy and eligibility criteria before submitting applications for their preferred school.
What are the eligibility criteria?
The Learner Travel (Wales) Measure requires local authorities to provide free home to school transport if a learner lives more than their statutory walking distance from their nearest suitable school (2 miles to a primary school and 3 miles to secondary school).
Monmouthshire County Council has decided to improve this provision and instead will provide free home to school transport to learners nearest suitable or catchment school if you live more than 1.5 miles from your primary school or 2 miles from your secondary school.
When determining if a school is suitable, we will consider:
- Age appropriateness – this relates to the learner’s attendance at either a primary of secondary setting.
- Ability appropriateness – this will relate to attendance at a mainstream school or welsh medium
- Special education requirements – if a learner has a statement of additional learning needs which specifies a school.
When assessing suitability, we will not consider the outcome of Estyn inspections, individual concerns or preferences over specific schools or parental preferences. If your nearest suitable school is full, eligibility will be assessed based on the next nearest suitable school that has availability to accept the learner. Where a learner changes schools due to incidents of bullying, free transport to the replacement school will only be provided where the Education Welfare Service or Access Unit have been involved and supported the change of schools.
Key Changes
1. Transport hierarchy – It is proposed that the policy is amended to reflect Welsh Governments Llwybr Newydd Transport Strategy. As a result, when home to school transport is being allocated, the following hierarchy will be applied:
i. Active Travel – Wherever possible available walking routes will be provided to enable learners to walk, cycle or scoot to school.
ii. Public Transport – For journeys more than 1.5 miles for primary pupils and 2 miles for secondary pupils, wherever possible learners will be provided with season tickets to enable them to access public bus services.
iii. Dedicated Home to School Transport – This will only be provided if a public bus transport is not available. Learners will be asked to meet transport at agreed pick up/ drop off points where walking routes are available, which will not be more than a mile from their home address. It is the parent’s responsibility to ensure that their children get to and from the designated pick up/drop off point.
iv. Feeder transport will only be provided if designated pick up and drop off points are more than a mile (private driveways and roads will be disregarded when calculating distances) or there is not an available walking route.
2. Provision of transport to Faith schools – Currently the Commissioning Team do not undertake any checks to establish if a learner attending a faith school is doing so because of their faith beliefs.
Proposed change:
If an application is made for a learner to attend a faith school the Commissioning Team will contact the admissions officer of the school to confirm that the learner has been awarded a place based on their faith criteria. For example, St Joseph’s RC Comprehensive School includes the following criteria for admissions:
- Looked after and previously looked after Baptised Roman Catholic children
- Baptised Roman Catholic children from designated faith primary schools
- Baptised Roman Catholic children not educated in a Catholic school
- Non-Catholic children educated in the designated Catholic Primary Schools, whose parents seek a specifically Christian education, supported by a letter from the Headteacher
- Christian children not educated in a Catholic Primary school, whose parents seek a specifically Christian education, supported by a letter from your Minister of Religion
- Children of other faiths not educated in a Catholic Primary school whose parents seek a specifically Christian education, supported by a letter from your Minister of Religion/Faith Leader.
If the admissions officer confirms that the application was accepted based on their faith criteria, then free home to school transport will be awarded in the normal way if the learner meets the distance eligibility criteria. If, however, the learner does not meet the faith criteria then the application will be assessed against the Council’s distance eligibility criteria to their nearest or catchment school. If the faith school is not their nearest or catchment school, it will be assumed that parental preference has been exercised and home to school transport will NOT be provided.
3. Learners with dual residences – We currently provide transport for learners with dual residences if they meet the distance eligibility criteria and parents are able to provide evidence of the shared care arrangement.
Proposed Change:
Where a shared care arrangement is in place and a learner has more than one home, we will continue to provide transport to both addresses if the learner meets the eligibility criteria and parents are able to provide documentary evidence of the arrangement. Where parents do not have documentary evidence a fixed weekly arrangement may be sufficient evidence of the shared care arrangement, but we will not provide transport if there is not a regular pattern or the pattern is less frequent than weekly. If a learner lives with one parent but has regular contact with another parent, we will only provide transport to the learners’ primary address.
4. Learners with additional learning needs – Currently transport for those who do not meet the eligibility criteria will only be funded if a child attends specialist provision or specialist resource base which is not attached to their local school.
Proposed Change:
Transport for those who do not meet the distance eligibility criteria will only be funded if a child attends specialist provision or specialist resource base which has been approved by the Local Authority.
5. Assessing a school’s suitability – Currently when assessing suitability for transport purposes the Council will not consider parental preferences or parental concerns with a specific school.
Proposed change:
In addition to the assessment criteria set out in the existing policy we will include that we will NOT disregard a school that is in special measures when assessing nearest suitable or catchment school for transport purposes.
6. Available Walking Routes – Currently, if an assessment results in a route that was previously designated as unsafe being recategorized as available, free transport will be withdrawn from the start of the next academic year.
Proposed change:
It is proposed that where a route is assessed as available, free transport will be withdrawn from the start of the next academic term.
Where learners have an evidenced medical condition that prevents them from walking to school, they will be able to apply for discretionary transport. If parents of a primary aged learning have an evidenced medical condition that prevents them from accompanying their child to and from school, they can apply for discretionary transport.
The proposed Transport Policy is available as a separate document or can be viewed on the Council’s web page School Transport – Monmouthshire. If you would like a hard copy sent to you please contact us on 01633 644777 or alternatively email us on passengertransportunit@monmouthshire.gov.uk