Lower Hutt mum Ashleigh Berry and her son, August Vaughan who is starting school this year. Photo / Supplied
Lower Hutt mum Ashleigh Berry and her son, August Vaughan who is starting school this year. Photo / Supplied
With school starting next week, it’s time for parents and kids to get organised – and the Herald is here to help. Today Melissa Nightingale looks at transport
Come the start of school this year, Lower Hutt mum Ashleigh Berry will join the ranks of parents making the first dreadedleap from preschool to primary school drop-off hours.
She will be one of tens of thousands who drive their child to school every day, at least until 5-year-old August Vaughan settles into his new environment.
Previously she could drop him at his preschool about 7.30 or 8am, but at school she won’t be allowed to drop him any earlier than 8.45am, making the traditional 9-5 workday a challenge for the single mum.
Berry lives just a few minutes from her son’s new school, and will be faced with the choice of driving him, waiting with him at home until the bus comes at 8.30am, or taking him to a more central train station with her so he could catch the bus from there at 8am.
“Either way I will be racing into the city for work,” she said.
When he’s older, cycling isn’t an option due to the 70km/h speed zone on the way to his school.
Government figures show more than 800,000 students attended school in 2022, and census data from 2018 shows most students go to school as passengers in a car, truck or van.
The data, compiled by Figure NZ, showed more than 63 per cent of 5-9 year olds are driven to school, with 22 per cent going by foot, 8.5 per cent by school bus, and 3.4 per cent by bike.
For 10-14 year olds, about 40 per cent were driven to school, and students were more likely to walk, jog, bus, or bike to school than those in the younger age group.
Some also catch a public bus, train, ferry, or study at home.
The Ministry of Education does not collect data on how many students are driven to school in private cars.
Greater Wellington said there would be 241 daily school bus trips starting in term 1 in the Wellington region, including Waikanae and Wairarapa down to Cook Strait.
Meanwhile, in Auckland, there would be 499 daily school bus trips serving about 145 schools.
“Geographically the coverage is from Hatfields Beach in the north to Papakura in the south, northwest as far as Kaukapakapa plus some school trips on Waiheke Island,” an Auckland Transport spokesman said.
“There are [also] buses contracted by the Ministry of Education and trips which are private arrangements between the schools and bus operators.”
There were also many students using standard urban buses, he said.
Cycling advocate Patrick Morgan encouraged parents to get their kids cycling to school if it was safe to do so. Photo / Anna Grigorjeva
In Christchurch, Metro school buses took roughly 1600 students to and from school each day last year, though the numbers fluctuated each month.
“School services are provided to supplement the urban bus network in areas where it has been identified that public bus routes require more capacity for school students at the beginning and end of school hours”, an Environment Canterbury spokesman said.
“In some cases, additional frequency is provided around school start and finish times in order to cater for the numbers of students travelling around these times. We have also taken measures such as putting on an additional trip on the Northern Express (NX1) that starts from Smales Farm Station in the afternoon on schooldays in order to cater for the large number of students using this station.”
Cycling Advocates’ Network (CAN) spokesman Patrick Morgan encouraged parents to look into getting their kids cycling to school.
“It’s absolutely possible because we’ve been there before, as recently as the 70s and 80s,” he said.
“Masses of school-aged children got around their neighbourhoods by bike.”
Data from the Auckland Regional Authority 1980 showed about 20 per cent of intermediate students cycled to school back then.
As cities began building outwards instead of upwards it became less easy to bike, with suburbs becoming driving-dependent and roads being built to cater for cars, Morgan said.
Attitudes were now starting to change with bike lanes being built and traffic speeds being lowered, which would allow more children to safely bike to school.
He said parents could ride with their children until they were confident and added there were multiple things to teach kids to help them have a safer commute.
Morgan, a Pedal Ready instructor who goes into schools to teach bike skills, said their main message was “see, be seen, communicate”.
They taught riders to do regular head checks, ride in a position where drivers would see them and avoid the gutter, the “door zone” near parked cars, and take the lane when needed. “Communicate” meant using hand signals to let drivers know where they were heading.
He said parents should also contact councils and ask for bike lanes, and warned them not to send kids out on bikes without a safe route.
