Home to school travel FAQs

The home to school travel policy was approved by the council in July 2024 after a public consultation exercise and became effective from 1 September 2024.

The policy has been applied to applications made for school places from 1 September 2024 onwards. It is also being applied where there is a change in circumstances such as a house move.

We will automatically assess your child’s eligibility to travel assistance and we aim to notify families of eligible pupils by Friday 30 May.

If you have not heard from us by 30 May, then your child will have been assessed as not being eligible for assistance with home to school travel and you will need to make your own travel arrangements.

If your child is assessed as not being eligible for assistance, then you will have a right of appeal. Details of the council’s appeals process can be found on our school and college transport page.

We only provide home to school travel from one address. The address used to assess eligibility for travel assistance, is the one provided on the application for a school place.

If a place is not available at your nearest suitable school, we will consider the next closest school with available places as your nearest suitable school for travel purposes. This will be automatically checked as part of the assessment for travel eligibility.

The example below explains this situation. 

• Child M is 11 years old and has been allocated the second nearest secondary school to their home. It is 4.2 miles away. Their nearest secondary school is 3.7 miles from their home. Their nearest school was oversubscribed, and they were not offered a place. Child M is eligible for free travel to school to the school allocated as they would be attending their nearest suitable school with available places.

Not necessarily. Each case is assessed on individual needs and eligibility.

If your child has been allocated a secondary school place by North Yorkshire Council on National Offer Day (3 March) and you have not heard from us by 30 May, then your child will have been assessed as not being eligible for assistance with home to school travel and you will need to make your own travel arrangements.

Please note if your child attends a primary school outside North Yorkshire, they are on free school meals and they are transferring to a secondary school in September 2025, we do not have a record of their free school meal entitlement so please contact us.

Not every child with special educational needs, an Education Health Care plan or who attends a special school will be eligible for free travel to school.

If a child is not eligible for free school transport to their nearest school, but cannot reasonably be expected to walk there (even if accompanied by an adult), we will complete an assessment considering the child’s physical ability to walk to the nearest school or any health and safety issues related to their special educational needs/disabilities or mobility problems. Consideration will also be given if the child can walk to school accompanied by an appropriate adult. Each case will be considered on its facts.

Once the council has carried out the eligibility assessments, and from 2 June 2025, if you believe that under the policy your child is eligible, you can challenge the council's decision in relation to transport eligibility and you can appeal against:

• your child’s eligibility to free travel
• the transport arrangements made for an eligible child
• the distance measurement of the walked route
• the safety of the walked route that is under the statutory walking distance

Details of the council’s appeals process can be found on our school and college transport page.

Once the council has carried out the eligibility assessments, and from 2 June 2025, where you believe that your child should be eligible to travel under the policy or where there are any exceptional reasons, to make an assessment, we would need:

• your child's details
• home address
• school allocated
• any exceptional reasons
• any supporting information

If you believe they qualify on extended rights grounds, we will need sight of your benefit claim.

We would not normally consider matters such as your working pattern, the cost of transport, or the fact you have children attending more than one school as exceptional reasons.

Parents and carers continue to have the right to exercise choice in making an application for a school place for their child.

The home to school travel policy means that assistance with travel, for those pupils who are eligible, is provided to the nearest suitable school (with available places).

This is in line with government legislation and guidance, which states that a child’s nearest school may be in a neighbouring local authority area.

A consultation took place from 12 February 2024 to 26 April 2024.  All responses from the online consultation, drop-in sessions, MP, Parish and Town Council views, Councillor views and school feedback were considered as part of the decision making process.

Here is a summary of the discussions at the Executive on 16 July 2024. The papers for the meeting of the Executive were published five working days ahead of the meeting on our website.

• the home to school travel assistance budget has been over-spent for a number of years and this needed to be addressed - the current policy (noted the previous policy) makes provision for eligibility above and beyond statutory requirements
• the policy will only apply to applications made after 1 September 2024 – this means that pupils who have an existing eligibility for school transport will not be affected unless there is a change in their circumstances, for example, they move house
• there will be measures in place to support families on low incomes
• there is a need to balance our council budget and the estimated savings of up to £4.2 million by the end of the implementation period will contribute to the overall savings of £48 million that need to be made by us over the next four years
• the cost of providing home to school travel assistance is our third largest item of revenue expenditure
• home to school travel routes are risk assessed
• our councillors recognised that this was not an easy decision to make but one that needed to be made to help ensure the longer-term financial security of North Yorkshire Council

The Executive considered the report and recommended the report be taken to the Full Council meeting on 24 July 2024.

View the papers for the Executive on 16 July 2024

View the details of the full council on 24 July 2024

View the new policy which was approved by Councillors.

The estimated population of compulsory school age children (five to 16), attending schools in North Yorkshire at the time the policy was considered was approximately 75,000 pupils and the number of those accessing free home to school travel assistance is approximately 10,000. Therefore, our policy and provision of free travel services is currently a factor for broadly 13% of the pupil population aged five to 16, and for approximately 87% it is not.

Yes. We are doing that and we will continue to lobby the government for funding for rural authorities. However, public finances being as they are, we cannot rely on more funds being given to us.

No one will lose their travel assistance provision under the former policy unless there is a change in circumstances after 1 September 2024 that requires a re-assessment of travel eligibility. There are measures in place to support low-income families. 

You are not able to appeal against the travel policy as a whole given it has been consulted upon and approved by Councillors through our democratic process.

We have a statutory duty to provide travel to eligible pupils and the categories of eligible pupils are set out in the home to school travel policy September 2024. The current policy is compliant with the legislation and was adopted following a full public consultation and agreed by full council in July 2024.