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

If you look at the FB page of the school involved, they’ve turned off comments on recent posts but a quick scroll through previous posts about new behaviour initiatives is very telling. Entitled parents and entitled kids.

Actually knife crime has reduced over the last 5 years and the reason it's as high as it is entirely down to adults exploiting kids though county lines.

It could be that this one is badly run, of course some are, just like schools and businesses, but also that people don't understand what we do.

What qualifications were the children going to get if they'd stayed in school? Most of the children we get aren't in any place to learn, and the initial work we do is in changing that. Depending on how old they are when they arrive (amazing how many schools find a way to chuck them out once it becomes clear they won't be passing GCSEs) that might mean we've prepared them for next steps. We have an amazing staff member who does all the "parent" work of supporting them through college applications and visits and keeps in touch inbtheirbforst term to make sure they're attending and have the support they need from the college, if parents arent doing that, for example.

It's a tragedy that so many children need it, but ignoring that and saying it's all the responsibility of parents who are never going to do it helps no one.

There were apparently SEVEN teachers on that coach.

What the hell were they doing?

The bleeding hearts plans are entirely ineffective considering the massive rise in knife crime, and other anti-social behavior.

It doesn't matter if they get the odd thank you card and box of chocolates, try telling that to the parents of children who've been attacked by machetes.

I'm not going to make it happen because it's not my line of work.

The trouble is, those whose line of work it is, aren't doing a great job of making it happen either, no matter what they claim.

All this talk about PRU’s and social deprivation and violent families. The most disruptive kids in DC’s school, who have behaved in the same way as these feral little shits on that coach, are the children of solicitors, medics etc who live in £500k houses overlooking the bay. They have incredible entitlement. This is not all about children from poorer backgrounds.

He obviously was at the end of his tether. I'd like to know what was happening before that.

As for parking up and waiting, coach drivers have limits on the number of hours they can drive. I think it is about 9 hours.

The article says it is half way through a four hour journey, assuming he was the driver who had driven them to London he could have become stuck overnight.

Ah well. We don't save them all, but I could tell you lots of stories of kids on their way to prison, now doing decent work and staying out of trouble. We do make a difference and regularly get letters (and donations) from adults thankful for the support that "saved" them.

Your plan isn't working. You can say what it should be like as much as you like, but how are you going to make it happen?

I was thinking exactly the same!

So still no personal or parental responsibility?
They're all absolutely powerless and have to behave like this because 'the system made me do it'?

You know nothing about this man yet you see fit to suggest he abuses his wife and family. THAT’S what is an offensive stretch.

Can you link to where he was sacked, because the only reports I've seen have said he was no longer working for the coach company the following day?

As for the talk about PRUs having the time and expertise and staffing levels to address the behaviours of these type of kids... I wish! The one local to me is where no one, and I mean no one, certainly not the useless parents of kids like this, want their children to go. It's seen as being staffed by well-meaning but essentially ineffectual staff where at best, your kid might be taught for a couple of low level entry level qualifications.

I wondered this too.

Yes, that's all part of the system

Why? It's ok for him to talk to a teenage like this, but not an adult? It's ok for him to talk to a 15 yo like this but not a 5 yo? Where's the line? Is it just say 12-17 years old this behaviour is acceptable against? If I can swear and threaten a 15 yo at work why not my own?

Not normally a fan of money grabbing go fund me set ups but if anybody sees one set up in support of this coach driver, I’d happily donate.

I think the responses here also show why our kids are so soft and disrespectful. Parents seem to take more offence and someone trying to teach their kid manners than the fact their kid has no manners. In my day, adults told you off if you played up and then your mum told you off a bit more. She didn't defend you being a prick.

Yes, I'd want a bus driver telling my kid off if she is being a shit. I'd hope she stopped by the time it got to a threat of violence. If it doesn't, she will learn a lesson won't she. Of course, if he did hit her I would be complaining but there's no smoke without fire and the line that the school would deal within their own behaviour policy is a load of shit. They won't do anything.

"7 adults responsible for managing the behaviour of the kids" - the other people responsible for managing their behaviour was the "kids" themselves. They have massively let themselves down.

I'd actually love for a newspaper or a media outlet to interview the bus driver as I would really like to hear his side of the story.

Can you imagine the OUTRAGE if a driver did that now?

Exactly, and I live in one of the poorest parts of London where anti-social behaviour and knife crime is off the scale.

The two things making that so much worse and actively putting kids in danger of going to prison, are the lack of police and the abundance of bleeding hearts like the PP.

In fact I'd love to know how many lives could have been saved if there were more police and less bleeding hearts.

That's the parents job, clearly they've modelled bad behaviour and that's why they raised a brat.

Not the bus drivers job to sort it out.

I don't think the threats of violence were appropriate but as another poster pointed out I doubt this was the drivers first attempt at getting them to behave. The idea that teenagers will be traumatised by this is laughable, one of the boys seems to be arguing back even after the driver has threatened to punch people who don't comply. If this is what it took to get them to behave you have to ask why.

These children are old enough to understand simple instructions but they have chosen to ignore the rules because there are no consequences. The parents who are complaining only reinforce the idea that they are untouchable. If I'd told my parents about an incident like this I would likely have been punished by them for being a little shit so I'd have kept my mouth shut. Instead these teenagers are filming it secure in the knowledge that it is the driver rather than them who will be criticised.

Stopping the bus and waiting for parents to come and collect their children could have taken hours and then plenty of parents would also have complained about that too.