To ask for my child to be put in a different taxi

If it was to ensure my children never missed out then yes I paid it!!
Also it wasn’t that much!!

OP I have known trouble makers removed from SEN transport for bad behaviour. Just keep complaining.

Who are the 3% who think OP is unreasonable?! Crazy. Hope you get it sorted OP, it’s a serious safeguarding issue from what you’ve said here

@Odearr

Ring SEN transport at the LA , report this. follow up with a factual email. Give them 24 hours to make contact with you. Escalate this urgently if needed.

Don't send him in until they have sorted this. Don't be fobbed off, they will be very persuasive. Say it's not safe and his mental health is suffering.

Let the provision/ school know.

The LA are responsible for sourcing and providing a safe means of transport to and from SEN education.

They can give you a generous transport allowance until they can get a new taxi in place.

They won't tell you this. You can do it month by month and stop at any time should this be an option until they can get tenders out to new taxis.

Not to be confused with direct payment. This means they relinquish all responsibility for transporting your child.

This is the LA's legal responsibility.

Can you tell I've been here before?

There is rarely a chaperone these days.

I’ve worked at three special schools and have never seen transport being used without a chaperone. Completely unacceptable and needs raising with the school and LEA. Most of our students go on minibuses or at least 7 seaters so there is always space for a chaperone. Hope your DC is ok.

Could you really afford to pay £300 a week or £1200 a month. I know I couldn’t.
You are just being a twat!

No you didn't pay £60 a day.

Stop being so nasty. What are you doing?

I agree. The school needs to deal with the bullying.

You need to tell them this is a failure in their duty of care and it must be rectified.

It's important to talk about their duty of care and ask them about the risk assessments and why this is being allowed to continue.

It really ought to be your son and the boy up front who go to school and the other two who caused the problem have to secure alternative transport. That’s how I’d approach it and then the extra funding is their issue not yours.

And if the LA isn’t sorting it out then for the time being then parents should do it!
BTW, yes I’ve been there with my daughter! I paid for her transport to school as it was taking the authorities too long to sort it!!
They used to provide buses for our village to school, my child wouldn’t get a bus with the others, so I paid for her to get to school!!

Another vote for calling the police

I am a private hire driver and previously have had an additional child added to my school run as he was being bullied in the minibus taxi that he had been on.
As for allocation of passenger assistants, this is down to the council and the information they have on the children. They decide who needs an assistant and who does not.
My current run has an assistant but I could easily manage without. They don't always get it right and on paper I need one as one child is in a wheelchair.
Generally they get it right, but they have hundreds of school runs to deal with and I wouldn't want the job of organizing it all.
At this time of year there are a lot of people asking for changes and the response time is not always as quick as it would be in an ideal world.
The situation you describe doesn't sound fair on your child and as a driver, I would be contacting my office about a child being bullied.

I hope you reach a solution soon.

Totally. Also you can't just send a child with SEND who is 11 in a taxi with a random. SEND taxis have DBS etc and usually an escort. Safeguarding, and avoiding abuse from rogue taxi drivers. @BrendaSmall.

Also it is the LA's legal duty to provide safe transport to the school that can meet needs. I'd bow out gracefully now before the wrath of more SEND parents descends. We have enough shit to deal with on a day to day.

The LA needs to change the transport arrangements whether that’s by providing another taxi (they do provide individual taxis) or via an escort (they can use of bigger vehicle).

I second other posters who have said contact the police. Stealing your son’s phone and phoning you saying they are sexually assaulting him is worthy of police contact. Tell the school this.

Why on earth didn’t the taxi drive raise the issue?
Put this kid in the front?
Refuse to take him?

unbelievable

So your child has been threatened, assaulted, terrorised and his things taken and destroyed.

You require an appointment with the head teacher to discuss their absolute lack of safeguarding for a vulnerable disabled boy.

Although tbh is your son ok getting back into such a small area with these boys again. If someone has attacked me, I wouldn't want to get back in a car with them. I'm not sure why we expect children to put up either this when adults wouldn't.

This is good, make sure you hold them to it. Any one further incident and report immediately.

My child is on transport to an SN school. I would not have that, SN or not. I would demand that the offending children are removed from the taxi whilst this is being sorted. Your DS should not be without transport because he was assaulted. Contact transport and the school and report to police if needed. Get the others bumped off. Hopefully, your LA will find a long-term solution that is suitable for all. We have to sign paperwork with our LA and this sort of behaviour would not be acceptable, and you would like the taxi as a result.

‘I am f**ing your son!” Omg! Is that kid really SEN or simply bad learnt behaviour?? So sorry you are dealing with this. Get your son aware from there and these kids now. This needs urgently looking into.

There should be an escort who travels with the taxi, etc or minibus.
My DB used to be one such driver for his council, and he always had an escort.
The reason being that if the children start fighting they could distract the driver and crash.
An escort keeps everyone safe.