We provide help with transport for children who meet certain eligibility criteria, for example:
Please note, home to school transport is only available if your child attends the nearest suitable school.
View our secondary school catchment map.
If you choose to place your child outside this area, you will be responsible for organising and paying for your own transport.
Applications for the new 2025/26 academic year are now open for:
Further applications will open on these upcoming dates:
We encourage parents and carers to thoroughly read our policies and code of conduct for our full list of eligibility criteria before applying for home to school transport.
Upon submitting your application, you can expect to receive an outcome within 20 working days.
All on-time transport applications for the new academic year will be reviewed between June and mid-August.
If your application is successful within the published deadlines, you will be contacted before the start of term.
You will be given:
For those applying within academic years, applications can take up to twenty working days to process.
The majority will continue to receive “free” travel assistance at their current placement.
Those on one-year awards such as Extended Rights and Discretionary Awards will need to reapply for the upcoming academic year. Transport officers will then reassess their eligibility.
You will be contacted before the start of term with the specifics of your route and notice if any of your child’s route details have changed, this includes route name and/or operator.
If you are not entitled to free transport, you can apply through the vacant seat scheme (VSS).
Please see our vacant seat scheme policy before applying.
With effect from 01 September 2024
Please note that due to new DfT (Department for Transport) guidelines, we can no longer accept any VSS applications for vehicles over 22 seats.
This means that if your usual transport to school is a coach (over 22 seating capacity), any spare seats will no longer be available through the vacant seat scheme.
Please note there is no guarantee we will have vacant seats available.
Seats allocated under the scheme may be needed by pupils with a statutory award. If this happens, we will give you at least two weeks' notice of the seat being withdrawn.
As a council service, we aim to meet with your expectations. Should you be unhappy with our service or if you feel we have made a mistake in processing, you can have this reviewed through our complaints process.
If the council refuses a child's home-to-school travel assistance or you believe the travel offer received is not suitable, the parent/carer has the right to ask for a school travel assistance review (STAR). The STAR process is for parents/carers who wish to make a challenge in the areas of:
Parents and carers must provide all relevant information and evidence at Stage 1 that may support your STAR. Please note that the final decision will not take into account any information submitted during Stage 2.
Additionally, we will only accept information sent from the parent/carer's email address; we cannot accept emails from third parties.
To launch a (STAR), please email the relevant information to school.travel.appeal@n-somerset.gov.uk within 20 working days of receiving the travel offer or refusal.
You will be provided with a unique reference number for your case. We kindly request that you keep this document safe and refer to it when emailing for updates. The STAR process consists of two clear stages:
Once we receive written confirmation of your intent to launch a STAR, including evidence that the policy has not been applied correctly under the following criteria:
All the information will be forwarded to our senior officers for their review.
Next, the senior officer will have 20 working days to review the decision and the information provided in relation to the home-to-school travel policy. They will then respond with details regarding whether the decision is approved or refused.
This response will provide a thorough explanation of the reasons behind the decision and the factors considered in making it.
If a parent/carer is not satisfied with the outcome of stage one of the STAR, an impartial reconsideration of the case can be undertaken through to stage two of the STAR process. A parent/carer should submit a written notification that they wish to escalate this to stage two within 20 working days of receiving the outcome of stage one.
Within 40 working days of receiving the parent/carer's request to proceed to stage two, an independent transport STAR panel will review the case. The decision of the STAR panel will be sent to the parent/carer within five working days of the STAR panel hearing.
If you have completed the STAR process and believe that we have unfairly refused help, made a mistake or not handled your appeal correctly, you may be able to complain to the local government and social care ombudsman.
For more information, please visit the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman website.