Support for 5-16 year olds

Assistance with travel to school - introduction

We provide assistance with travel to school, free of charge, for children to whom the following apply:

• The child lives in the Shropshire Council administrative area, is of compulsory school age (5-16), and
• They attend their nearest school, catchment school or designated school, and
• The school is more than two miles from their home (children at primary age), or more than three miles from their home (children at secondary age)
• Or they live within the distances above but can't reasonably be expected to walk to school because of their special educational needs, disability or mobility problem
• Or because the nature of the route means they wouldn't be able to walk it in reasonable safety

For children admitted through the mainstream school admissions process

Where a child’s nearest/catchment school is full and unable to offer them a place, we'll provide travel assistance to the nearest school that can admit them. They won’t be eligible if their parent chooses for them to attend a school which isn't their nearest school, catchment school, or designated school and they could have been admitted to one of those schools.

We measure the shortest walking route to determine whether a child lives more than two or three miles from their nearest school.

For children with an education, health and care plan

We'll usually provide travel assistance to the school named in the plan. The SEN Team will discuss a child’s travel arrangements with their parent/carer during the EHC plan process.

Where a child has special educational needs, disability, or a mobility problem, the travel assistance we provide will be suitable for their specific needs. We only provide travel assistance from a child’s registered home address, and travel assistance is only provided if the eligibility criteria is met.

For more information please take a look at our school transport pages.

If your child has special education needs, disability or mobility problems please take a look at the additional information on this page.