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

[Odearr]

My 11 year old ds goes to a sen school, mainly the needs of the children are semh -he had autism and adhd.
he loves school. Feels safe, everything there is good.
however, my son has been out in a taxi with 3 other children from the same school who are older than him (they are year 9) and this past week he has been threatened with being strangled, put in a headlock, had his phone taken and they kept calling me telling me "I'm f**king your son" "we're beating you're son up"
and today came home with a pumpkin he'd carved at school smashed up and the other child had thrown it at him, put his phone inside it, put pumpkin bits all in his hair and over his clothes.

No way is he getting in that taxi tomorrow, and I have emailed the council transport team and tried to contact the school but waiting on a call back.

AIBU do insist that this transport isn't appropriate or safe and they he's given alternative transport ? I know the la are going to be hard to convince because it will cost
more money, but he can hardly be expected to be subjected to this every day

This is why I just drive my son to and from school. I don’t trust taxis and chaperones - too many bad experiences. It makes life hard though in terms of employment.

Absolutely nothing was done with my son ,and he had a nervous breakdown and had to leave the school.
I really hope you get something done to help your son xx

Gavin at SENTAS is a good person to check in with. He knows everything! Am sure he will have heard all this before and have a good way to deal with this nonsense. I am sorry. I know exactly how you feel and it's horrible.

Definitely report to the school.
This is a very serious issue.

Report the problem and ask that he goes in the font passenger seat away from them. The other kids need reprimanding, possibly even suspending.

It's not the driver's fault, for all those asking what the driver is doing.

The driver is likely a contracted taxi driver, and many of such drivers around here doing school transport speak very little English. They're drivers, not teachers or school staff.

This is awful OP I’m so sorry for your son. I know it’s not a short term solution but please learn to drive.

I’d be reporting this to the police. How have they got your phone number? This is harassment of you as well as assault of your son.

The LA who employs them is responsible though.

LA is who you contact and the taxi company

itll be council trying to save money on no chaperone and squashing them in, but as others have said it’s for high need kids.

Our sen school has no more than 3 kids in a taxi with a chaperone. two kids get a chaperone and single kids either on their own or with a chaperone. What your son has experienced is awful and would not happen in our school. They would never have agreed to that transport set up in the first place. Kids are all risk assessed. I am so sorry for what your son has experienced this is appalling and unsafe and they know it. Please report in writing far and wide at school and absolutely do let let your son in a taxi again with those children.

So the response I've got from the la transport team, is that they have spoken to parents and that they are installing a camera on his taxi route over half term, and any further instances of bad behaviour or bullying will result in the child being not allowed in the taxi in future.
Not perfect but to be honest a lot quicker of a response than I thought I'd get from them- they usually just flatly ignore me for weeks

That’s a reasonable response but I wouldn’t let the current episode just drop - report to the school , it is not acceptable .

Definitely going to talk to the school about it still, usually the school are good on dealing with behaviour issues so I'm hoping they will be able to help, it does seem insane to me that there's so many kids in one taxi unsupervised when at the school these 4 children would never be put together with inky 1 adult (who can't deal with anything anyway because he is driving)

Get the other parent on board with your complaint they may agree to another taxi for two people. Consider calling the police

7 seater vehicle would have space for chaperone. VW sharan for example

What is the school's policy on behaviour in transport, if you report to school they should enact that. It may be possible for the school and taxi company to rejig routes to swap combinations of students or to investigate putting one or more of them into a guided route on the basis of risk assessment- it's not safe for the driver to have to manage such behaviour on the road so a guided route can be used to help with this if the council and school have policies that allow for it.

But mainly the issue is how the behaviour of the others is dealt with and the risk management going forward so that your child can continue to access their provision safely.

Can you approach it the two bullies are the ones who must stay home or find alternative transport? Not your son?

They are the ones assaulting him so they should be excluded from the transport, not your son.

Yes that’s a good shout- report to safeguarding lead at the school as well, explicitly saying this is a safeguarding complaint. Escalate to safeguarding governor if necessary.

This is a safeguarding issue. It’s called peer on peer abuse. Speak to the DSL straight away, if they aren’t alarmed then speak to the head. Next stop is the LADO at the council. ASAP.

This is horrendous. I would definitely contact SENTAS and ask for their advice. I'm not sure about the camera in the taxi as a solution, there will be other events before they take action and it's not at all acceptable for your son. It's also pretty dangerous for a driver to have that level of disruption. Have you spoken to the taxi company? The one that transported my DC were pretty good, they would have made a stink about this too. At one point my DC was in a shared taxi that wasn't at all suitable and the taxi company made this clear to the LA

Pay for a taxi yourself, to ensure your child’s safety,

Definitely talk to the school. IME the taxi companies listen to them slightly more than than parents.

The taxi driver is allowed to refuse to take children that he feels make the journey unsafe, so it might be worth getting him inside too so that he can complain straight to his employer.

It would be interesting to get the taxi drivers perspective as if he was to say it’s an unsafe situation they might get you another taxi , or he could possibly refuse to drive the bully children and let their parents deal with getting them into school .

I would report this assault to the police.