School transport campaign

School transport is an integral part of a child’s education. If a child can’t get to school or has a stressful experience getting to school, they are not able to learn and take part in the school day like other children.

Thanks to funding from the Motability Foundation, Contact is campaigning to improve transport to school or college. Over the next three years, we will:

• Review local transport policies and see how they comply with the law.
• Conduct research on the issues faced by families, disabled children and young people.
• Together with families, identify what can be done to influence change for the better.

What are the issues?

Disabled children are more likely to travel further to nursery, school or college, and unlike their non-disabled peers, many can’t travel independently. Many also need to be in education or training for longer.

So school transport is fundamental to enable them to access education. In spite of this, school transport is one of the top issues our helpline gets calls about. The impact of unsuitable transport or losing school transport is huge – with parents having to give up work or disabled teenagers unable to start or complete their education.

Watch a Channel 4 News film about school transport featuring families we support and our CEO Anna Bird.

“As the parent of a disabled 19-year-old who uses school transport to get to college, I am in this project heart and soul.

I know first-hand that a lack of specialist provision and college courses for disabled young people means they often have to travel much further. And travelling independently is not possible for many.

School transport is an integral part of the school day for disabled children and young people, building confidence and independence and we will be making that case very loudly through our new project.”

Rachel Dixon, policy lead on school transport at Contact

The school transport loophole

The law says a young person is expected to be in school or training until 18. But young people do not have the right to transport to enable them to get there once they turn 16. This is grossly unfair.

There is also no legal obligation to provide free transport for under 5s, but a blanket refusal could be discriminatory. For example, if a four-year-old attends a special nursery school some distance from home and could not access education without transport.

Contact’s 2019 research based on responses from 525 parents with disabled children aged 16-18 in England showed:

• 79% of disabled young people are denied or charged for school transport or face disruptive, short notice changes when they turn 16.
• One in 10 disabled young people are paying more than £1,000 a year for school transport
• Nearly half are experiencing increased stress and financial difficulties

In response the government said there is a bursary to help teenagers with the cost of school transport.

But Contact’s research found that the 16-19 bursary and discretionary funds are neither accessible nor sufficient to cover travel costs. Only 12% of families who applied are successful in getting any money from the bursary. Just 4% of eligible families got the full amount of £1,200.

Clearer guidance for school-age children

Contact’s instrumental School Transport Inquiry found that statutory guidance for local authorities is unclear, leading to children missing out on the transport they need.

The Department for Education agreed to revise statutory home to school transport guidance for school age children in response to our Inquiry and campaign.

However, some concerns remained, including the section on accompaniment leaving parents largely responsible for accompanying their teenage disabled children to and from school.

Do you have a disabled child aged 11-16 who’s been refused school transport because you live within 3 miles of their school and you’re expected to accompany them? If so, we’d be very grateful if you could complete our survey – it should only take a few minutes.

What are we doing?

• We have launched a new project to look at families’ experiences of transport to education. This is thanks to funding from the Motability Foundation.
• Raising awareness in the media, such as working with Channel 4 News on this film
• Working with other charities including Cerebra, IPSEA, SOS!SEN to raise concerns about unsuitable school transport
• Calling on the Scottish Government, Welsh Assembly and Northern Ireland Executive to strengthen the law, making it clear that education authorities ‘must’ provide school transport for children because of their special or learning needs, disability, or mobility problems.
• Running a information campaign for parents, including factsheets and template letters on how to challenge decisions. See our webpages and myth buster on school transport.

How you can get involved

• Please follow the @contactfamilies Twitter account and like our page on Facebook.
• Share your experiences with [email protected] 

If you have been refused school transport or want to find out about your rights to school transport, please call our helpline for advice on 0808 808 3555 or read our school transport webpage.

Our school and college transport project is co-produced with parent carers, so your experience and views are important to us. If there is something you would like to say about school or college transport, please email [email protected]

About our School Transport Inquiry

Our report and desktop research, published in September 2017 on BBC Radio 5Live Investigates, brings together evidence from more than 2,500 parents. We discovered:

• 48 per cent and mostly mums said that school travel arrangements for their disabled child meant that they can’t work or have had to decrease working hours.
• 23 per cent said their child’s journey to school is stressful which makes it harder for their child to learn.
• 51 per cent of local school transport policies in England include unlawful statements.

We want to say a huge thank you to the thousands of you who responded to our Inquiry into school transport for disabled children.

As a result of our School Transport Inquiry the Department for Education agreed to review the statutory school transport guidance for children of compulsory school age. This was published in June 2023.