coach driver had to swear at and threaten school children to make them put seat belts on

This situation was very badly handled, you don't need to swear at children to get them to behave.

I work in a PRU, with children excluded from school, who've presented the most challenging behaviour. No one shouts, behaviour is generally very good and when it's not, it's managed calmly using the respect staff have earned.

A coach is what, 50 passengers and there were 7 staff? How on earth were they not able to manage that? Yes, 30 kids with one teacher is hard, if it all kicks off, but a ratio of 7/8 :1?

Coach drivers can be absolutely dreadful. One went through a red light when I was on a trip - didn't even seem to see it! It was well on red as well. Very lucky we didn't have a crash.

You don't see a midway between no discipline and threatening / carrying out violence? And empty threats are pointless so presumably you're up for him smacking these kids about a bit if necessary.

He should not have threatened to punch them.

But there were 7 teachers on that trip, allowing kids to travel without seat belts, smoke (allegedly) and otherwise behave badly in a coach.

It must be absolutely awful being a coach driver if the kids are badly behaved and the teachers do not support your need to do your job properly: I.e not enforcing seat belts.

Shocking behaviour all round, starting with the kids, then teachers, then driver for the ‘punch’ comments.

He wasn’t in the right but he is the one I have most sympathy for.

That parent is the problem, and parents like her. She clearly doesn't realise that it's her job to raise her child properly and follow instructions from bus drivers.

I do think it's telling though that it's from one of the big academy chains. They mostly employ quite young and inexperienced teachers (as they're cheap and easily bullied themselves), which means they probably have no idea how to deal with situations like this when away from school.

Maybe children should only get allowed to go on trips if they're not obnoxious little turds

To be fair there are way most posts supporting the driver - at least to the extent of understanding why he behaved like that albeit not the punching threats.

Obviously the punching threats were wrong but I can still remember school trips on coaches and how some of the boys (always boys) behaved. I very much doubt any of them were remotely traumatised by being shouted at like that. And I doubt he was shouting at the allegedly ‘very upset girl who then didn’t want to go on school trips’.

honestly tho - given all these kids no doubt have parental-granted access to the internet and all the swearing and anger there, I’m a little amused some of the parents are ‘oh no my poor like Henry has never hear shouty words before he’s soooo upset’

good that the driver isn’t working with kids anymore of course

You want school teachers that threaten to fucking punch up their pupils or ones who'll carry it through? What's the point of empty threats. Let's allow teachers to hit and thumping kids that they feel need it. Parents too. From any age. Misbehave, get thumped. That's the society I want to live in 🙄🙄

Why didn’t the teachers sort them out before it got to this point

Yeah, with a broken jaw, only to see nothing done because no-one saw anything or because the description of the bloke in the pub is so vague that it could be anyone.

I would be shocked by the DCs behavior but the mans behaviour was wrong. I'd imagine the reason so many DC are like this is because they have parents like the bus driver threatening to 'fucking punch them up'. And to all the parents saying they'd be fine with this, the driver saw red, he saw the whole bus as a collective. What about when your DC who has been behaving fine nervously coughs, the driver thinks he's messing about and punches him. Is that OK?

Absolutely 100% in support of this coach driver. We need more adults like him. Interesting how the precious little darlings sat down and buckled up.

If one of them had catapulted through the windscreen he’d have been blamed.

I’d love to hear that he gets a job in a school. Teachers are paralysed at the moment when faced with this sort of behaviour. And the ‘don’t swear at my little cherub’ comments on this thread illustrate that.

If my kids were amongst those on that coach I’d be mortified, not trying to justify their behaviour.

Well done that man.

The swearing was unnecessary, but he sounded very stressed out, wonder what had happened before.

Try being a London bus driver at school turnout time. The kids are even more entitled since they were all given zip cards. The scheme says it is the parents responsibility to ensure their child has their pass with them and you can not travel unless you have the pass and it must be valid. That translates in the little darlings heads into scratching their photo off the pass to invalidate it so they can throw it out the window for all their mates without a pass to use or just not bother bringing it to school and tell the driver I don't need my card cos it's free and you have to take me. Then just spit all over the drivers screen when told they only get free travel if the pass is in their possession.

They will be able to report them to the police for assault.

Maybe the driver had asked that the teachers intervene and deal with the smoking/unruly kids but he got no joy from any of the 7 teachers (7 did absolutely nothing?!?!) and decided to deal with the kids himself.

The unruly kids always spoil it for the others and should not be allowed to go on trips until they learn to behave. (Have they been adequately taught how to behave in these situations by their parents?!)

I'm still gob smacked that it appears, not 1 of the 7 teachers stepped up and a) dealt with the unruly kids before this all kicked off and b) told the driver to stop bawling, swearing and threatening the kids.

But I don't know, are teachers allowed to do any disciplining anymore?

Threatening children with violence and swearing at them has no justification.

Sounds like a horrific experience for all.

That man's is not suitable to be working in that environment. Good thing he has left.

I’m not sure if it was a trip or a school run but it doesn’t matter except if it’s a school run they probably behave like that every day and that’s out of order.

It’s not good but it is a life lesson - when they stop being mollycoddled and hit the real world, there are plenty of people who’ll happily punch them in the face for being cocky, and they won’t be able to run to teacher.

So many mums on here are outraged at the drivers behaviour, Not so many outraged at the children's behaviour but that sums the whole situation up. These children are in for a shock when they have to go out into the real world, maybe someone won't threaten then but just belt them one.

It was a school trip, not a regular school run?

I don’t blame him whatsoever. I don’t think it does any harm for young people to know they can’t go round doing what they like as one day they will meet someone who will smack them. It did sound like he was at the end of his tether.

The young people would not do as they were told and had obviously ignored the teachers (can’t work out where they were.)

Smoking on the bus? I’m shocked at that. I’ve done hundreds of school trips over the years (teacher myself) and never experienced that. If the driver was kicking off like that I would have been going round with him to make sure the pupils complied and also to calm him down. The onus is definitely on the teachers to sort it out.

I agree to a certain extent, he should have cut out a bit of the swearing and all the physical threats though, the threats are unacceptable imo.
That said, I can’t imagine the stress of driving a coach filled with rude little shits so I can sympathise with him!
As for parents giving it the ‘my child isn’t safe’ nonsense, they just want to get their mugs in the news. I’d be mortified if my kid had been acting up like this.

If one of my kids were behaving like a cocky little arse, I'd be fine with someone finally losing their shit with them. It's an important life lesson not to fuck around and find out what happens when you wind up random adults.