To think the school bus is a safe guarding issue

[VWCJW]

So my child is 11 and in year 7. We live in a village so the local authority runs a bus service from the village to the school. There is not an alternative school. my child has autism but it is a mainstream school and they do not require a special school.
The bus sounds absolutely awful and is a definite safeguarding concern. It arrives really late. Children have to stand on the stairs and all the way through the bus, with nothing to hold on to. ;According to our kid’s.
Kids throw food, drink, smoke, blare out music and spit. My child finds the language intimidating but I realize they are teenagers on the bus, so feel there is a certain level of acceptability and is the last of the worries.
On a number of occasions, I have received texts from my child to say the bus has not arrived, 15 minutes after school started. This morning, they arrived at school 45 minutes late and a number of children got off at the next village because the driver had lost it, in exasperation at some of the older children who kept pressing f the button to stop. Those children the. Had to call friends, family, friends of friends etc to get a life. It is not a public bus service. It is a school bus so did not need to stop unless it was picking up children.
If children call their parents to say the bus is late, we can’t give them a lift as they get late marks which lead to detentions etc.
AIBU to think there are many safeguarding issues here. The school say it is not a school issue. The local authority say they pass on our comments to the operator. I worry it will take an incident or injury for anything to be done.

Nothing really screams out as a safeguarding issue more of a crap service and awful behaviour issue. School should be addressing the behaviour and the local authority should be addressing the time keeping off the bus

I wouldn’t say it’s safeguarding but I’d ring the local authority about the lateness of the bus and the behaviour.

It doesn't sound great but it's not safeguarding just shorty behaviour. My kids get a regular TfL bus to school, if they fuck around their zip cards can be cancelled none of them want to risk that so the behaviour is really good (mostly). I was smoking in the top deck back in the day that would never happen now!

I lived rurally and used to get the school bus, our route at times had a reputation. when that happened they would put a teacher on the bus to control the kids

I'm not surprised the driver lost it, it extremely distracting, potentially dangerous to drive kids who are misbehaving. the school needs to fix this and the parents need to support them.

Over the years I've had to email
School (and the other school the bus service provided for) the council and the bus operator regarding bus incidents.

The other school put a member of staff on the bus for a while. My DCs school took what I was saying very seriously and spoke to those in the bus (and I think loaded with the other school) The council eventually gave the contract to another bus company. They don't know children are late to school unless someone tells them. I also raised the issue of no seatbelts in a 60mph dual carriage way, which is totally legal, but certainly not ideal.

Unless you raise the issues nothing will improve.

It must be near impossible to find school bus drivers. What a terrible job. I would speak to the operator about kids standing on steps and think the school should stop in to deal with behaviour. Or the operator should have a code of conduct and those thaybdont follow it are not allowed on the bus. Tricky for the driver to enforce though.

It sounds exactly like my school bus OP, 30 years ago! The schools tried by making some of the kids 'bus prefects'. It was awful. I feel terrible for how some of the kids treated the poor driver. We also didn't have enough seats.

You need to contact school as they will usually send staff to support with this.

It's not safe as the driver is trying to concentrate - they should have bus conductors in my opinion.

Is bus your only option? Would a taxi shared with other kids be an option?

I lived rurally and had to get a school bus. It was horrendous. Most kids sat petrified that they'd be the ones picked on that journey, and you'd end up pleased but guilty that some year 8 girl was today's victim.

Sounds very normal for a school bus unfortunately! It was the same when I was in school 20 years ago.

Our driver was known to pull over numerous times and give people a bollocking - it was private school too and people were reported but not much really happened.

We ended up getting a couple of teachers on the bus (just by chance as they lived on the route) and that calmed it down a lot.

If they're sitting on the stairs do you mean is it a safety issue rather than a safeguarding Issue? If so then maybe yes but how a lone driver could police this I don't know.

The bus is run by the local authority so all they provide is a bus driver, not anyone to look after the kids.
The school might provide a teacher, but I doubt in the present climate they will have the money to pay staff extra so it would need a teacher volunteering to do it. That will be understandably hard to find someone prepared to do that.

Definitely let the school know. It was the same at my dc's school and the bus was involved in a serious accident. Luckily the children had all been in seats at the time - which was unusual. But there were still injuries.

YANBU. I had to get the school bus between the ages of 9 and 13 and honestly, it was like lord of the flies. As a slightly strange child, I was totally at the mercy of some really scary children who enjoyed tormenting me (pouring juice in my hair, refusing to let me sit down (we had enough seats on our route although other buses in you had 3 to a seat), name-calling etc.). There was also the much older kids to contend with; generally they ignored the really small kids but I was exposed to really inappropriate, sexist language, slurs, weird sex talk etc.

Also really vicious bullying of a few unlucky boys who were older than me (I remember asking my dad, "what does wanking mean?" because what seemed like the entire bus started chanting "[name]'s been wanking!" when one poor outcast bastard got on one morning with his flies undone. Then he tried to do them up and the bullies started saying he was a pedo! (Weirdly I didn't ask my dad what that meant, I guess I knew it was tabboo.) As PP says you'd always feel guility relieved that it wasn't you.

When I was a bit older, more like 11 or 12 there was near-constant sexual harassment to deal with as well, much older boys thought it was funny to "chat up" year 7 or 8 girls. Constant "jokes" about periods, boobs etc. There was some refugee girls on the bus and they received loads of racist abuse too, which was nice 🙄 they barely spoke English but they would have the piss ripped out of them for their names, for not understanding, etc. It brought out the worst in the boys my age (by then about 10, 11, 12) who'd usually be picked on, as they could get cheap laughs by mocking the refugee girls and thus deflect their own being mocked. Occasionally there would be physical fights / attacks between the bullies and the bullied and the bus driver would have to break them up. On one occasion a driver got hit in the face. I honestly DO NOT know how the school managed to run these buses as presumably the bus drivers complained. There was obviously an unwritten rule that you could never tell any grown-up what the bus was like and if I'd been asked by my parents I would never have said it was anything but OK.

I would never, ever let my kids get on a school bus (unless I was 100% sure they were the hardest kids in the school which they they definitely won't be, with me for a mum!).

I’ve had very similar issues recently with the DCs bus (they are 14 and 12). DS said on the bus you sit with your bag on your head in case you get hit with an open can of something, deodorant or worse.

luckily DH wfh and I can leave work early and pick them up, I’ve had it with the school bus now

Write to your MP and see which counsellors are on the committee which deals with school transport and write to them as well.

This was similar to my experience too

DS was so badly bullied on the school bus he was eventually funded a taxi, but it took him years to recover. No other child will dare dob in the bullies so school can claim nothing happened. A school is unlikely to pay for supervisors or put it on older children, and it's a lot to ask of the driver who doesn't necessarily know the kids. Many children eligible for the bus got driven in by parents to avoid it.

I would suggest ask if bus has CCTV and if you know the culprits, report to school. When schools are all about safeguarding and zero tolerance it's astonishing that school buses are still like the wild west.

Also the council will have gone for the cheapest provider which often means unreliable vehicles and poorly paid or inconsistent drivers.