If they live close enough, children are encouraged to walk or cycle to school, both for their own safety and to relieve pressure on reduced capacity public transport. Visit the My Journey Wokingham website to see suggested walking routes.
We will be promoting walking and cycling through the autumn term.
There are a number of measures parents and their children can take in order to keep school buses safe.
Before the school journey
- It is now the law that children and young people aged 11 and over must wear a face covering on public transport. This law does not apply to dedicated school transport. However, we recommend that people aged 11 and over wear a face covering when travelling on dedicated school transport to secondary schools
- Journeys may take a little longer to ensure no crowding when getting on or off the bus, please be patient and wait 15 minutes past the scheduled pick-up time before reporting any non-arrivals
- When boarding and alighting from the vehicle, do so in a calm and orderly manner maintaining a distance from the passenger in front of you
During the school journey
- Where a bus pass is required, it must be shown to the driver rather than handing it to them to hold
- Passengers must fill from the back of the bus until it arrives and then leave from the front, avoiding passing others in the aisle.
- Where available, passengers must use the hand sanitiser provided when entering and leaving the vehicle
- Passengers must treat all people at the designated stop, including other passengers and staff, with respect and understand that some may be at higher risk
- Passengers must not intentionally cough, spit, or invade another passenger’s space or the driver’s space
At the end of the school journey
- Passengers must take all belongings with them when exiting the vehicle, it will be more difficult to return forgotten items during this time
- Passengers must check the area outside of the vehicle doors before exiting and adhere to the appropriate and current social distancing legislation, there may be other students or public passing the vehicle
Students and parents can also read the UK Government guidance or the Home to School Transport code of conduct addition (PDF document) if they are unsure of the behaviour expected.
Train travel
If your child gets the train to school, they will need to wear a face mask during their journey to comply with the law in England, if they are aged 11 or older unless they have a valid exemption. For full rules on public transport use visit the UK Government website.
Students in Wokingham Borough are likely to get the train with either GWR or SWR depending on where they are travelling.
You can read the GWR guidance for Covid-19 travel here.
You can read the SWR guidance for Covid-19 travel here.