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When does proximity of a placement school becomes unreasonable?

Hi everyone,

I would normally find what Im looking for by searching through these forums but is now a slightly specific issue that has been on my mind over the last few days.

I am currently doing my PGCE at a London university. Unlike the rest of the subjects which knew their second placements from before Christmas, our university tutor only managed to tell us a day before our induction day this week. Our suspicion for the reasons behind this is the vastly different list of schools available this time (as opposed to September) with some pulling out. Long story short, the new list has a majority of schools that are situated at places just outside of London. The fastest journey to the one given to me using public transport(I dont have a car) is showing to be about 1h 30min. Because this is something that the Internet tells me, I did not know what to think of it so I still agreed to go to my induction day and experience the journey for myself. It turned out to be a significant underestimation! I went out of home at 5:30 in the morning(aiming for 8:00 to be there), not concerned whether I get there too early as I could always read while waiting. Instead, I barely got there for about 5-10 min before 8am. I thought to myself that I should see how the return journey works out but having been let go at exactly 3pm, I ended up at home just after 5:30pm and in fact it felt even worse.

My current placement takes about 60-70 min to get to and I thought of it as about borderline reasonable. Needless to say, I am not having an easy ride meeting the requirements of the course and, knowing how the bar will rise at the second placement, I cannot see myself doing even more work while spending a minimum of 4 hours a day in travel. Its not even the direct sort of travel where you sit on a bus/train and could use this time to do some work. While not the biggest concern, the fares for the journey in both ways is not a great factor either as this is no longer oyster domain.

I am therefore seriously considering declining this placement but I am a bit split over it. On one side,I feel unprofessional to do that. Even when asking other PGCE students, they are telling me that the placement is close enough by car(works out about 40 min) so I would be unreasonable to refuse it on proximity grounds. Do universities normally have a mechanism in place or do they have the "take it or leave it" approach where the latter means me dropping out of the PGCE for refusing what they offer to me?

I have no issues with the school itself. From what I saw, it was a decent one and I received a proper welcome from staff.

Reply 1

Veggiechic6

Hmm, that's a long travel time. My Uni says up to 2 hours commute is considered reasonable. Does your Uni know you don't have a car? Is there any way you can get a lift with anyone placed nearby? A lot of time is being wasted on a journey that should be spent working/studying. You're probably going to end up exhausted and struggling with the workload and the uni should realise that.

Reply 2

Kaizn

Yes, they do. At the beginning of the year, the placement office sent us a form to fill in with regards to our travel circumstances and this was the first time I told them. At the time I was not worried because many schools were within London and, in fact, in my own or nearby boroughs. I really dont know what this office actually places though because it seems to be our Tutor that has the say. He sent us a small form about 10 days ago with the schools listed and asking us to rate them by preference. Ironically, it was like a list of extremes. One school was really near, in my borough, so I naturally went for it as a first choice. The next nearest is my current placement which I can obviously not choose and rest of them are getting exotic(some were showing even worse travel times) so I felt like just filling number one and against each what sort of travel times Im being shown that I will have to commute. I explained in the comments section that nothing other than the first choice would work for me when Im without a car. I didnt get my first choice and I realise that given this roster, it must have been a funny balancing act for the tutor to decide who goes where. The current school has 9:00 to 15:30 day but I would be there more or less in the 7:30 to 17:00 bracket. I dare not think what sort of times do I need to leave or come back home if I do something similar at the new one(and sometimes I would have to stay longer due to meetings,parent evenings etc). At the point when I applied for the course, I did my research and saw which schools work with that university and the fact that they were all really close was a major factor behind my pick. This has changed big time since then (in fact, the tutors are not same either as the one that interviewed me has left).

Its funny because I have been constantly in touch with the person that is about to finish her placement there and she lives in a similar part of London as me. She tells me getting there is not so bad, that if train fares scare me, she can tell me the busses I can take though it would push the journey to well over 2 and half hours. I kept asking her questions from the likes of "How was that ok with you?", "Did you not get worn off?", "What time did you aim to be there for?" and she was telling me its all fine until she slipped on Friday that she didnt travel by using public transport but hired a driver to take her and pick her up. At that point, I decided that I dont care about the thought that if I cant work round such schedule then Im not efficient enough to become a teacher. I have to do something about it although I never really went into checking what happens in such scenarios.

Reply 3

Mr M

Study Forum Helper

You can certainly raise your concerns with your provider - you *might* get somewhere with it.

Have you considered renting a nearby bedsit for the duration of this placement - you would then only need to travel at weekends?

Reply 4

Bobbi!

You need to try to talk to who ever organizes the placements and remind them that you don't have a car (these people have to organize hundreds of placements so it's possible they assumed you had a car even though you did the form..) Also, if travel cost is an issue, at my uni, you can claim back any extra that you've spent on getting to placement than you would have on getting to uni.

I think it's reasonable to expect you to be at the placement between 8 and 5, so 9 hours, when you add in your 5 hours travel time and 8 hours you need to sleep to function properly at school, you only have 2 hours left in your day!! It's definitely not reasonable! you'll probably spend that getting ready in the morning and making/ having dinner. Remind them that you still need time to wash and spend an hour or so relaxing in the evening. Do they want you to have a breakdown!?!?

Reply 5

Kaizn

I did consider renting but its going to significantly add to my expenses and Im already struggling to keep up with the 9k tuition itself. I was also told by my mentor that it shouldnt be happening like that. Back in September when placements were being given, the school I am at now was one of the furthest ones away so I was in the ironic situation of travelling for about an hour while people would come from elsewhere to schools that were 10-15 min away by walk. I thought to myself that it cant get any worse and that ill be bound to be somewhat closer in the next placement and, while Im not expecting to have a school next door, I did not see this development coming either.

I will keep the travel claim issue in mind though I would gladly consider paying even double for a teleporter. :smile:

Do they want you to have a breakdown!?!?

The tutor has only us(about 12-13 people) to place so not 100s. If my school is any indicator to what might be going on is that they were used to working with the previous tutor and thought about not taking any new trainees too (but changed their mind). The new tutor, in his struggle to find placements(he told us more than once that he is), went for any available and location became of lower priority.

Reply 6

Barton316

Talk to your university tutor, this is far too long in my eyes. I wouldn't want to spend more than 2 hours in total a day commuting somewhere. My university was being a bit long with my placement so I rang up a few local schools and organised a place myself. Maybe you should ask your tutor and see if you can do the same?

Reply 7

Kaizn

Hi everyone, thanks for your input! I have spoken to my tutor about it and he wasnt pleased at all since he believes its too late for amendments and because the tfl site shows him that the travel time should be shorter, that I should probably get a car etc. I expected him to say something like that but I still dont see this as a reason to sit back and put up with it.In any case, he agreed to talk to the course leader about it so nothing concrete was decided. I have started to look for my own placement in the meantime though I dont know where my chances stand as it is.

Reply 8

Airfairy

Original post by Kaizn

Let us know how you get on. It is a shame he has been a bit unhappy about it. We have had people in similar situations on my course and they have managed to be moved. Seems we have sympathetic tutors! I'd personally be annoyed with anything over an hour, but our uni say that reasonable is 90 mins. They have had trouble finding placement schools though, so I guess they can't always pick and choose.

Reply 9

Galaxian

I personally think a one hour commute is the limit. Not everyone can afford such travel and don't have a car. In some areas the nearest bus stop could be 2 kilometers away.

Reply 10

Juno

You knew you'd have placements when you signed up. Unless you can't drive for medical reasons, you should have considered how you'd get to placements before you signed up to the course. As it's 40 minutes away by driving that's not an unreasonable distance, so whilst you can try to argue you need a closer placement they probably don't have to agree to it. Why should the other students have to change to accommodate your lifestyle choice? If you always get the closest placement that's unfair on them.

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Reply 11

TraineeLynsey

Original post by Juno

That's rather harsh. The need to drive varies massively depending on the area you live in. For example, in most parts of London it is more unusual to HAVE a car, than not have one.

I trained at a school in Newcastle and about 6 of the teachers relied on public transport with no problems.

Reply 12

Veggiechic6

Original post by Juno

How are people supposed to consider how they will get to placements when there's no way of knowing where the placement will be or how to get there before the course starts?

Reply 13

Airfairy

You're not really supposed to have to consider if you can get to the placements or not before applying to the course. And as above poster has said, you don't even know where they will be. It is the uni's responsibility to ensure they don't give you somewhere slap bang in the middle of nowhere when they know you can't drive.

My subject struggled to find placements for our second. There is one girl who got placed somewhere inaccessible by public transport. She can drive but has no car, but the uni have given her a hire car, because it is their responsibility, not hers, to ensure she can get to the placement given, realistically.