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

It's also possible they already have other transport doing routes in the area that could take your son.

School transport with us (not SEN) is a ban for any poor behaviour. Understandably the driver can’t intervene because they are driving but they can certainly report the behaviour-has the driver also been consulted? Hugely dangerous having disruptive kids in the back of a car

Also I would say if you have a social worker get in touch with them for support. If you don't contact the social care duty line. Yes also I would say talk to the driver - it must be very stressful for them. Maybe they can sort something out with the taxi company in terms of a different vehicle with different seating. They shoudl also talk directly to Transport. Really the disruptive ones should be the ones moved from the taxi rather than your son.

Like all special needs issues it really is a case of mobilising forces in as many directions as possible.

This.
This behaviour has to be stopped now and hopefully a police visit will do that.

Phone the SEN school and council and put in a formal safeguarding complaint. Tell them in writing exactly what has happened then phone the police so it's documented that your child is at risk of harm.

I am actually shocked the taxi driver is still willing to take these kids. My son gets a taxi to school with 5 other kids (large taxi). It's only the taxi driver and the kids are all quiet and well behaved in the taxi. I doubt the taxi driver would want to do it if they were not. These kids are all in the ASN hub of the school and have varying degrees of needs.

I would keep on with the taxi firm as well as the school and council. One of my DC was being bullied on the school bus. There was a chaperone but she was too busy reading her phone and texting to do more than occasionally yell 'Shut up'. The driver was partially deaf and didn't realize what was going on. I reported it to the school and the bus company. The bus company replied that if I could give the names of the children involved their parents would be warned and the children banned from the bus if it continued.

It stopped.

Parents relying on provided transport don't like to have to suddenly start driving their children to school.

I don’t think the response of LA to your complaint is enough, though as you say, you were expecting to be ignored. It’s just kicking the can down the road and the driver still can’t intervene and your son is going to suffer again so they can have ‘evidence’. It needs putting a stop to, and NOW. Not over half term, not in the weeks following half-term, but NOW.

NC for this as I’ve told the story IRL.

I was the subject of bullying by other SEN kids as the youngest, and the taxi driver was a grumpy old git who took it out on us as well, so bullying from him as well. Totally unchaperoned. We were always late for school as there were so many kids to pick up and the last child meant the taxi had to go into town and out again to the school.

There was an incident every day - always worse en route home when everyone was tired and fractious, and in my case there was a simple solution, which I know doesn’t apply to you, but it did to me. (The reason I am telling you is because of the impacts on me, among them being daily nosebleeds with the stress of always being late and enduring all this.)

You see, back then it was the LA way or the highway. My own mother was not allowed to take me to school.

She had the car, and the time, BUT SHE WAS NOT ALLOWED.

We were called into a meeting with the head, SEN teacher, rep of LA and they told me basically I was a silly naughty little girl who was making a naughty fuss. So they bullied me too.

I answered them with a killer line: ‘But if my mummy takes me to school then I’ll get to school on time. Don’t you want me to get to school on time? And everyone else can get to school on time too?’

They had nothing to say to that.

I was all of 8 and this shows I went through more bullying by adults to resolve this bullying by children with the vile taxi driver in the mix.

If you ask me what the seminal event of my childhood was, it was this. The iron entered my soul that day. I’ve stood up for myself ever since, which is a good thing with my disability, but I shouldn’t have had to go through it. I’ve had lifelong physical effects too - the nosebleeds are still a feature of my life, it’s just been weakened by all the bleeds (repeat cauterisations have failed).

It was 50 years ago.

Don’t let that happen to your child. With threats of sexual violence it could escalate to actual sexual abuse while they’re gathering the evidence from the camera. The taxi driver will be culpable if it happens in their taxi so you need to push back and push back extremely hard. Police involvement will cut the Gordian knot of the multi-agency involvement here, and force the school, LA and taxi company, who are all failing you, to address the issue.

40+ years ago I was in your son’s position, one of the other kids I traveled with was Indian and it was the taxi driver who encouraged racist behaviour towards the poor boy.
All these years later I remember him spraying air freshener on the lad in the back seat.
I was a very young child and I was terrified of both the driver and the other kids, I wish I had reported it to the police. I hated getting in that taxi.

I’m repeating what others have said, but the police definitely need to be involved.

Totally agree with having an adult with them in the taxi.

It's a taxi. You should request for him to sit in the front with the driver. There is a limit to what these kids can do to him in a car or small mini van with an adult present.

A separate taxi is money the country and probably your borough/county council simply cannot afford at the moment. He has a specialist school place. He was free door to door transport to school. If you don't like the other kids in the taxi then you'll have to take him there yourself. It's an unfortunate fact of life that some kids are horrible to other kids. Every single day, schoolchildren have to run the gauntlet of horrible bullying little shits on the bus or on the walk home from school and nobody steps in to protect them and provide an expensive bespoke solution.

I used to do this kind of work and in really depended on the county. Some would pay for a chaperone, but just as many did not and stuffed the taxi so full that every seat wat taken by a child with SEN. These kids often did not get along and would fight. I once pulled over on the freeway, because things got so bad and I had no chaperone to supervise the kids. I did not dare drive on with them fighting like that.

The parents would get mad at me, but there is only so much you can do as the driver and you often don't notice things going on in the taxi till it is way too late. I hated driving school children for this reason. You are left with an impossible task and left to deal with the fall out from kids shouting and crying and the parents being angry that their children arrive home late and upset.

I'll never do this work again.

I’m shocked there’s no escort for them, my son has always had one and there’s a reason for that- everyone’s safety. All of these children need to be supervised.

Your poor son, you’re well within your rights to demand this is sorted. Are you on half term next week? Because that gives transport time to deal with this. No way would my child be going anywhere near that taxi with those children.

The issue.e with SEN transport is that problematic behaviour very common due to needs of the children
My son has very different needs to the Op,s but if they refused to take children with poor behaviour, there wouldn't be anyone on the bus.

Yep it may sound extreme but my friend is a police officer and when a previous school were not helping with bullying she said I should have reported it to the police. I would speak to school first. Can you contact the taxi company directly and ask about a separate taxi. The two children bullying him need reprimanding.

In a car with only four passengers I doubt a chaperone is justified. The driver is the chaperone. If it's a regular five seater car, then a place taken by a chaperone is a place not taken by a child. It's another wage to pay, plus another taxi place elsewhere, so the cost is prohibitive and unjustified.

If certain children are unable to behave to the point where they are endangering other children on the trip to school then they should have their free transport withdrawn and it should be the parents' responsibility to get them to and from school, if they want their child to keep that school place.

There has to be a limit to what the tax payer can be expected to be responsible for here. Not every single problem with every single difficult child can be solved by throwing more tax payer money at it, nor should it be.

Wether the.police can do anything is debatable, its an SEN school ,so the pupils will have varying needs and varying levels of capacity.

In my LEA the driver is just often just a taxi driver whose taxi firm has wonn the contract ,they often have little to no understanding of the needs of the children
What should it bee the parents responsibility?
This is an SEN school the kids are there for a reason the LEA is responsible for finding a school that l suits the child's needs and ensuring they can access their education..

I agree this is totally out of order and those kids need some serious intervention. If your child is in senior school then it’s not unreasonable he is travelling with other senior school kids. It’s also not unreasonable he travels in a full taxi to save costs. It isn’t unreasonable to have an taxi driver only adult in the car with four children at senior school, in fact a good friend of mine had a daughter at junior school who travels in a taxi, so his age while important to you isn’t the issue. What is unreasonable is the horrific behaviour of these other children. Focus on that, your child safety and fear of travelling. To be fair I think they reacted quite quickly so good luck after half term.

Don't worry OP. Brenda is undoubtedly setting up the direct debit, at this very moment , to cover the cost of a separate taxi plus chaperone .

The sort of language would worry me a lot. Surely the kids must have learned it from somewhere. At the least, I would expect social services to get involved to ensure nothing is amiss at home. Abuse happens.

Agree that it’s dangerous- these bullies could cause an accident by behaving like this! Perhaps the taxi driver is afraid to report it? Maybe he thinks he might lose his job if he reports it, thinking he might be told
’these kids have additional needs, be understanding’ etc
Your poor son- report to the school- please.

And to the people talking about taxpayers money: in many LAs (like mine) the transport isn’t free, it’s subsidised. I’d rather my child was able to access mainstream education and not have all the carp that goes with having additional needs- I think a lot of parents probably feel the same

It’s a safeguarding issue. The LEA as well as the school should get involved. I would keep my child at home unless I could arrange something else for a few days till they sort something. You child is being bullied

Please phone the police your son has been assaulted and threatened, sen or not under school supervision or not is irrelevant to the fact that the assault and threats have happened and he needs to be kept safe.
I would keep him off school until this situation is resolved and he no longer needs to travel with them. Your boy has autism he is at risk of this having a long term impact on his mental health. (Anyone would be but it's more likely with autism thrown in)
Absolutely refuse to engage with any solution that doesn't mean your child will be kept apart from these children.
With the LEA and the school it is the squeaky wheel so you will have to keep on.
I would send a daily email (must be in writing as they will deny anything said in a conversation) to the school, the lea and the attendance officer stating your child cannot attend today at school because the lea are incapable of keeping him safe during transportation. It has been ...no. of days of absence now and you are looking forward to them finding a solution so your son can return to education. If after 2 weeks you have no joy contact your mp and the minister of education include a copy of the police incident report

No and nor does the local authority.
Taxis to school is the biggest issue putting a hole in the budgets of local authorities.

Lots of good advice above. Certainly, report to police. Did you record the calls? I would also be informing the parents of the other pupils exactly what their children did.