A BBC news article from March 2024 highlights that local authority spending on school travel for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) has increased from £728m in 2018 to £1.4bn in 2023 (Kemp et al., 2024). The Department for Education proposes in the above article that increasing SEND school places will address escalating costs. Those in opposition parties, including a local council leader and a national party spokesperson, call for increasing local SEND provisioning. 

However, the proposed interventions overlook the less visible, or ‘invisible’ (Royston et al., 2018), ways in which policy can shape commuting patterns, costs and related energy use. Additionally, a focus on costs contributes to conceptions of pupils as burdensome and the sidelining of other areas of impact. This post contributes to academic and policymaking debates on school commuting by discussing these two issues concerning how recent coverage frames SEND travel.

Recent research and debate 

Policies that promote choice of school within a quasi-marketised system are being pursued in England (Hall, 2023). However, little is known about how those policies affect local and regional patterns of school commuting.

Lait et al.’s recent research aimed to deepen understanding of the intersections between schooling and travel in Devon, UK. It involved conducting stakeholder interviews (15 total), and analysing documents (45 total) and transport datasets (61 total). It was found that education policy plays a pivotal role in shaping how children, young people (including those with SEND) and families travel to school in Devon. Initial findings were presented and debated at a workshop in March 2024 on cross-sectoral policy co-ordination, at which the authors developed this post.   

Policy and commuting

The research identified two core connections between policy and travel. First, policies and other measures make families responsible for actively choosing a school that does not have to be the nearest. Interviewed parents selected schools based on reputation, inspection report or school type, all of which policies help to sustain. Second, (quasi-)market reforms that link funding to pupil enrolment can incentivise school leaders to recruit pupils by heavily promoting their offerings to families outside the immediate locality.

Allocating pupils with SEND to schools is a more complex process. Nevertheless, interviewees reflected on the role of policy in shaping the challenges identified by Kemp et al. (2024). Specifically, policy change has resulted in the creation of a smaller range of separate SEND schools and the closure of specialist SEND teaching units on mainstream sites. Transport co-ordinator officers reflected that a perverse outcome of excluding pupils with SEND from mainstream sites is that it requires them to commute over longer distances at a higher cost to local authorities. 

‘School travel, particularly SEND travel, should not be understood solely in terms of financial cost as this contributes to misconceptions of children and young people as burdensome to local authorities. […] The research found that lengthy commutes impair action on other policy goals.’

Beyond costs

School travel, particularly SEND travel, should not be understood solely in terms of financial cost as this contributes to misconceptions of children and young people as burdensome to local authorities. An implication raised by a Conservative county council leader is that families should be made responsible for the mounting SEND transport costs associated with successive governments’ policy decisions. Such positioning is particularly worrying for families of pupils with SEND, as they often have little choice but to send their child to a school that is not the nearest.   

The research found that lengthy commutes impair action on other policy goals. Children and young people of families that choose, or are required in the case of pupils with SEND, to attend schools far from home often cannot walk or cycle to school, undermining national health policy aims to promote active travel. Equally, lengthy commutes that are usually taken by car or dedicated school bus can increase carbon emissions and levels of local air pollution. Lastly, policies that allow pupils to attend schools that are not the nearest can weaken the role of a school in supporting community life. 

In the future

Policymakers should consider how policies (such as partitioning SEND and mainstream provisioning) contribute to challenges identified by Kemp et al. (2024), and especially those with broader implications for advancing health and environmental sustainability goals. Further research is needed on how excluded pupils and their families experience inequalities relating to commute duration or involvement in active travel and community life.

References

Hall, D. (2023). England: Neo-liberalism, regulation and populism in the educational reform laboratory. In J. Kresjler, & L. Moos. (Eds.), School policy reforms in Europe. Springer.

Kemp, P., Fenwick, J., & Forsyth, A. (2024, March 27). Council spending on special needs transport doubles. BBC. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68665303

Royston, S., Selby, J., & Shove, E. (2018). Invisible energy policies: A new agenda for energy demand reduction. Energy Policy, 123, 127–135. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2018.08.052.