AIBU to be concerned about young children on council-provided school bus with no adult supervision?

No - what is it?

Have you never heard of sarcasm?

What?? You shock me. I never would have guessed.

My daughter got a private bus to school from the age of 4 ( a group of parents paid for it from a coach company). No chaperone. First driver would not have intervened with poor behaviour. 2nd driver did. The rule was youngest children at the front, oldest at the back which prevented the kind of behaviour op has described. You need to speak to the driver/school about putting some rules in place.

It was clearly sarcasm.

what a clearly untrue and incredibly pointless statement.

I grew up in rural Scotland. When I started going to school age 5 there were only a few large buses that did long convoluted routes. We lived 3 miles from the school but I had an hour long trip home from school and was the last one dropped off. My parents said I was so shattered at the end of every school day that they decided to change things and spoke to everyone they knew who owned a minibus and asked them to apply for the school bus contracts the next year, as a result my trip home changed from an hour to 5 minutes, that primary school still uses minibuses. But also, a minibus with 8 kids in it is much easier to control the behaviour than a coach with 50 kids on it.

My dgc had free school transport which isn't supervised in England. Over family members have the same.

But public buses kids pay

No one even knows how much older this " bigger" boy is. He could be all of 6 years old ( threatening to pour juice over someone is the sort of silliness 6 year old boys think of)

Ours don't have a chaperone. I don't think the driver is allowed to do anything but stop the bus and tell the kids to stop misbehaving.
A child got off the bus once and wanted to come home with my gchildren. She wouldn't take no for an answer and I had to physically pick her up and put her back on the bus and clip her in. The driver wasn't allowed to touch anyone.

I thought they had to have a chaperone?
There is always a chaperone on all school transport in my area (taxis and buses)

How would that work exactly? OP could volunteer as as a chaperone on the bus, gets to school.... Then how does she get back home? Or to work?

I would speak to the school. I’m in the same rural situation so my dc have been getting school bus for years with no chaperone. The school are hot on bus discipline and a child can be removed from the bus if they don’t behave and parents will have to find an alternative. Even the most gentle of parents tends to read the riot act when faced with that twice daily school run.

In the meantime ask if she can be seated at front of the bus (row behind driver) as theres generally better behaviour at the front.

Report to the school. They can exclude certain bullies from the bus and they can appoint a school bus captain who writes names and notes to report to the adult at school who controlls the school buses.
Suggest that the bus has a camera.

It’s completely standard where I live in Scotland for school buses to be unchaperoned and both my children travelled that way to primary from age 5.

report the behaviour to school and they should deal with it.

Should be clear that this is England. Rules in are similar but a bit more generous. The distance remains 2 miles until secondary school

One escort was standard on all the Primary buses, as the driver wasnt considered responsible for the children. Same across the whole LA.

That's probably why. The chaperones were assigned to the SEN children, not the bus as a whole.

Can your DD sit at the front and the bus driver be alerted to the issues?

I would ask for the risk assessment.

I would expect a chaperone to be necessary. To supervise the kids and help keep them safe. Who ensures seat belts are in and fastened? (Assuming a private coach rather the public bus)? Who provides first aid if some falls of a seat when bus stops? Who assists if driver is taken unwell?

Also to protect the driver from accusations by the kids or their parents. Any safeguarding training I've completed recommends adults are not alone with DC if avoidable and certainly don't give them lifts.

A host of issues could occur where one adult isn't sufficient.

as regards cost if in at compulsory school age if the nearest suitable state school is more than 2 miles by safe walking route to age 7 or 3 miles 8 and older then local authority must provide free school transport. Different rules may apply for children with SEND.

I live in rural Scotland. I still wouldn’t do it.

When my son started school I couldn’t get him to go in when I took him in the car, but he loved going the 3.5 miles on the bus. The bus driver was a darling and gave him a toy for the journey. He had his big sister with him
too which helped.
Secondary school bus home was like the lord of the flies. I just could not understand the behaviour of what I thought are decent boys with lovely parents all of which we know. The bus driver took them back to the school one day as behaviour was so bad. (my son was sick that day, but it was the talk of the village) Now my son is older I have warned him if I ever hear that he is pissing about on the bus annoying younger children his life will not be as he knows it!

I think you would struggle to find someone willing to take on the role. Either because they need to work longer hours that such a part-time role, or because they would be fearful of accusations from some children and it affecting their future job possibilities.

It’s normal in rural Scotland.