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

He shouldn't have threatened them as that's obviously not appropriate.

But as everyone else has said, where were the teachers and what were they doing? And if seven teachers couldn't control that sort of behaviour on a bus, what on earth is it like in the classrooms of that school?!

I must say that in all the schools I’ve taught in and on all the trips I’ve been on, I could never see seven teachers not getting involved if there was bad behaviour on the bus or if a driver had to get out of his seat and sort out the trouble. Even if there was only one teacher they should be wading in and ime they absolutely have to be very strict in that kind of environment.

I can’t imagine why they did not sort out the pupils themselves. They could have dotted themselves around the bus and even sat amongst the smokers to stop them or split up the group so some were sitting at the front. I have done that kind of thing many a time.

I imagine he was sick to the back teeth of the disrespectful little shits he has to deal with on a daily basis.

The driver sounds at the end of his rope. He shouldn't have threatened to punch them or swore but he's got to drive back on time and he wants to get home at a reasonable time.

When we went on school trips there was always one teacher who would lay out expectations and go mad if we didn't comply. Once he threatened to leave one child behind. The teachers here didn't do that.

The unseatbelted children could have been in a crash, died and he would be blamed. I would rather my 2 hear this and arrive home in one piece.

He doesn't work for the bus company anymore, he's probably glad about that. He did go too far and it was unprofessional but the 7 teachers failed to keep the students under control and everyone safe, what's happened to them, and it would be interesting to see a video of the students behaviour too.

As I said I’m happy for you to prove me wrong and show that these kids are all from professional working families. You can take your own comment and stick it on yourself.

This!

You seem just as happy to make yourself look like an ignorant, uneducated Mumsnetter, to be honest.

I’m happy to be proved wrong that all these kids are from self supporting households with a parent in a professional job. I doubt if though.

The loser parents need benefits stopping and therefore having to work.

And what about the loser working parents who also allow their kids to turn feral?

Stop their wages?

The loser parents need benefits stopping and therefore having to work.

Nice assumption about the parents, in my experience “professional” parents are some of the most difficult to deal with.

It’s loser parents creating a society of feral teens. The teachers not bothering to look after the kid’s either on the bus and tell them to behave responsibly and respectfully. The driver was saying how it is. Good man. Safety of the passengers was top in his mind. What a difficult situation for him. The feral kids on that bus need borstal. The loser parents need benefits stopping and therefore having to work. The teachers need sacking.

Everyone saying the bus driver should have pulled over (which I agree with from a safety point of view) what if he had somewhere to be after work and couldn’t wait for a group of kids old enough to know better. And parents don’t tend to be supportive of kids returning late back from school trips, even if the reason is their poppets misbehaving.

The teachers needed to have better behaviour management strategies, it never should have reached the point that the driver lost the rag. The teachers presumably have a relationship with the kids and should have been sorting it out.

As a parent I’d go through my kids like a dose of salts if they were in any way involved in this kind of behaviour. They certainly wouldn’t be going on a school trip in the near future. It’s an all round failure of discipline.

Absolutely, not to mention "disgusting parents" too, raising feral shits.

I've no doubt that there was a lot more that went on before the video started that led the driver to lay the law down like he did.

I have sympathy for him but he should have parked the bus up and awaited the school to deal with it. That is the standard way of dealing with it.

It's a job where threats, abuse and violence have become normalised and no one cares.

Then people wonder why we are short of bus drivers.

Ah but if the driver stopped the bus to await SLT (?) you'd have the bleeding heart brigade, the parents and the pupils sad facing to the media about being 'held hostage'!

Would your child not be upset at the chaos and smoking on the bus, that the teachers were obviously NOT dealing with, so therefore not safeguarding your child?

"Disgusting male".

What about "Disgusting teachers" letting your child down massively?

As people may guess from my user name, I am an ex school bus driver. I have used this name on here before.

Driver is expected to do his job and do the job of the SEVEN teachers who are present but ineffectual.

Driver manages it.

If he gets the sack, so should the SEVEN teachers.

Reduce the number of seats? How? They are all still taking up a seat on the bus, but probably all sitting in a group at one end of the bus.
A teacher cannot be on their own with a child, but they aren't on their own, they are on a bus with 50 other children and adults

Where's the teachers?

Regardless, no it was not acceptable to speak to children like that. Yes deal with the trouble makers in a mature way and speak to the school to make them aware.

My DS would've been very upset by that aggressively behaviour from an adult, he has SEN and that would've been appalling for him to witness, I'm sure not every child on that bus was an issue so why threaten them all?

If my child showed me that video I would be contacting the police for threatening a minor.

Disgusting male.

Absolutely, actually the staff should have done it long before it got to that stage. No need for shouting and swearing.

All the other work is done beforehand, so you don't get these situations.

Teachers should have dealt with the kids, and if they were actually smoking on the bus, they should have been dealt with appropriately by the teaching staff. The driver should have pulled over and refused to carry on until the kids were under control, and the teaching staff should have ensured this for everyone's safety. It sounds like the teachers weren't doing their job on ensuring the kids safety and compliance of the rules, so the driver had to step in and do it his way, which may not have been the right way, but if no one else was going to do it, what choice did he have? Yes I'm sure it could have been handled better, but he was probably fed up and annoyed that the disrespect and attitude of these kids was being allowed. He's the one who's responsible for driving the coach and getting the kids safely back to school, and had to do something if the teachers weren't stepping up. Disciplining kids isn't part of his job, but he was forced into that role when the ones who should have been enforcing the rules failed to do so.

So stop the coach and talk about feelings and things and the dangers of lung cancer and secondhand smoking?

Nope, not the fucking time for the bleeding hearts brigade to start that.

The teachers should have told the driver to stop while they contact the school.

I think he was a bit more than upset. He was right to be extremely concerned about dangerous behaviour. A kid larking about in the aisle becomes a missile in a collision, and any disturbance prevents the driver from concentrating,

The driver has been sacked and has paid a high price. Let’s hope those causing trouble and smoking face at least some penalty. Mine would be in so much trouble if he’d joined in.

Yes, the best response of the driver would have been to park up and refuse to move until the staff dealt with the troublemakers. But presumably he would have faced consequences for not driving.