4 year old left on the bus

[Huskylover1]

Just heard about this on the news.

A 4 year old boy, gets the bus home from school. He misses his stop. Doesn't alert the driver. Driver gets back to the depot and parks up the bus and leaves. Bus driver has now been sacked for this.

In my book, a 4 year old, is way too young to get the bus home. Especially as there was no parent waiting at the bus stop even! Had there been, the parent would have alerted the bus driver that their son was on board, and needed to get off. Usually, this boy makes his own way home from the bus stop, lets himself in, and his parents arrive home from work, shortly thereafter.

Cue lots of moaning by the parents, that they've been let down. No mention from anyone, that perhaps this little boy shouldn't be making this journey alone.

I just can't fathom, how any parent can thinks it's good judgement to let a 4 year old:

• identify the right school bus to get on
• realise when he needs to get off
• walk from the bus stop to home, and let himself in

Bonkers!

I am of the opinion that a 4 year old should be handed from the care of one responsible adult to another.

Arrangements like these are all well and good until something goes wrong.

Only slightly confusing thing is North Kessock has its own primary school and isn't in the catchment for Munlochy primary, so not really sure how that works.

Even if he woke during the night he would lie and watch the TV and fall back asleep, but not now

He's allowed watch tv in the middle of the night...That says a lot

@Mumof56.

Fair enough. Personally, I'd just keep an eye on the clock, listen and look out the window every so often when the bus was due.

DD gets a school bus. It stops outside the house, the driver beeps the horn (if nobody comes out of the house straightaway) then we walk outside and get her from the bus. The child has to be handed over to an adult from an approved list of people given to the school. If she wasn't on the bus or the driver didn't know she was on the bus, the bus wouldn't drive to our house.

"He's allowed watch tv in the middle of the night...That says a lot"

it says you're a judgy fucker.

No wonder many people in very rural areas say townies have no understanding of their life.

Bus driver is probably a respected member of the rural community and known to everyone.

I feel for him/her in this case.

We are very quick to blame others.

Glad the child is ok now though. Shit happens sometimes. But to summarily lose your job doesn't sound right to me. I thought there would be warnings, protocols etc before the sacking for this.

This only works if the bus driver does his job and drops kids off where he should. No wonder he got sacked.

I am surprised though he went to Munloch as it is outside his catchment area.

That's ridiculous Annie, this was a huge fuck up and we all make mistakes doesn't cut it when the consequences could have been tragic. I know the child was fine but you can't really expect parents or schools to set the bar so low that it's all ok as long as no child is killed.

Look I'd feel sorry for anyone losing their job a week before Christmas but had they not fired him then ultimately more people would have lost their jobs as the company lost contracts. They may still lose some but they're at least able to say they took appropriate action immediately and presumably there'll be some reviews of their processes and further training which will help from a PR point of view.

Yes I think bus driver should have been given a final warning, not sacked.

Cathy who do you think should be blamed though? Bearing in mind the facts and not the hysteria of some MNers?

In no university is this ok. Four is far too young. I wouldn't let my very sensible six year old do this and she wouldn't want to. She wouldn't want to have to do it alone. Four is far far too young to be left alone for any reason. Living in the middle of nowhere is no excuse.

Right.

I live less than 8 miles outside Inverness. We have no shop within five miles, but we do have a school 200 yards away, which takes many rural pupils, who get the bus from the age of 4. From the age of 10/11 they get the bigger bus to the high school, which is about 8 miles away.

My mum lives in North Kessock, my in laws near Munlochy. Neither of these places are in any way large. In fact I've been in bigger shopping centres than the middle of North Kessock.

I grew up on a small Scottish island and got the bus. It picked me up at the end of the drive and dropped me at school. There was literally no other way to get to school some days due to my mum's working patterns.

I have lived in Edinburgh and worked in Glasgow. I have a 6yo and a 3yo. My husband is a teacher, my MIL worked for Highlands and Islands council within education, my niece and nephew get transport due to SEN and I am intimately acquainted with the stretch of road where the boy was found. I even saw the Facebook posts about him being found as it was happening

This was a mistake. It was a bad one. It had nothing to do with the boy being 4 or his parents being negligent.

fatrascals fair point actually, we dont know the person involved.

Yes I think bus driver should have been given a final warning, not sacked.

As someone said upthread, his jacket might have been hanging on a shoogly peg already.

some of the reporting is proper bollocks.

The Sun says 'treacherous 12 mile trek from Inverness to North Kessock'

It's a mile and a half!

www.google.co.uk/maps/dir/57.4947119,-4.2232143/North+Kessock/@57.4959355,-4.2395028,15z/data=!4m9!4m8!1m0!1m5!1m1!1s0x488f74162bb64d87:0x9fd13773cb2033af!2m2!1d-4.251458!2d57.501959!3e2

that 4 year old could hve chosen to stay on that bus and die of exposure

Yes, he could have 😳😱

IF his parents hadn’t noticed their 4 year old wasn’t home overnight. God sake, get a grip.

In no university is this ok

Autocorrect really is da bomb.

He was dismissed rather than given a final warning because his failure to do what he was employed to do meant that a small child was left alone on a bus on a depot in Inverness. That is gross misconduct.

That says so much more about you than anyone else. Were you raised by a spiteful, judgemental cunt? Because that would explain why you appear to be turning into one

wow, Aren't you just lovely.

I hit a nerve there it seems...

I wondered why a child from North Kessock was going to Munlochy as well!