To be cross with school bus leaving

[Pineapplepink]

DD12 attends a private school that has a bus service. Due to various reasons, I asked school if she can get the bus for the rest of this week. All confirmed and ok. DD went to the meeting place, bus arrived and said there’s no space for her, then drove off. Amazingly a child who always gets the bus got off with DD and took her to their house and asked the mum to give them both a lift. I am so cross that school haven’t contacted me and I would be none the wiser had this other parent not let me know. Have left a message with school but I’m so cross and wonder if I’m unreasonable to be so cross. I’ve got a very stressful week so unsure if I’m over reacting and anyway not sure what they can do to rectify it now.

For one thing there were six dedicated school buses serving my route and they always turned up. If I was late I could get the service bus. Same with getting home. And there was a public phone box up the road and I could let my mum know if I was going to be late.

Now public services have had cuts in the last 30 years and buses are not very reliable. Plus we live in a more rural place now and there are no buses except the school ones. And there are no public phone boxes as everyone has phones. We are living and dealing with the time we are in, not the one that existed 30 years ago.

Have you been beyond your front door for, oooh let’s say, the last two decades @AuntAgathaGregson ?

If she was meant to be getting the bus home... how were you anticipating her getting into the house? You said you were at work anyway!

Sorry, slight tangent.

In all honesty though, she's 12. Not a toddler. She needs to learn a little self-sufficiency, in that she should have gone back into the school office to ask for assistance.

But yes, I would be complaining. You booked a seat, so she should have had a seat.

I think there's a typo by Soontobe60: "... the girl could *not have got to the school office ..."

The OP was clear.

I think you've handle it well and it's now one of those hard learnt lessons learnt though experience - to have a plan b. It was lucky and lovely the other girl stepped in.

However given the school runs the bus service themsleves it's even less clear how this happened or why the driver thought it appropriate to leave her rather than take her in and sort it all out later.

So frankly I don't blame you for being really upset with them and I hope they respond soon with some sort of explanation or better yet with a plan that this can't happen again to any other child.

Phone boxes,
And children would have tended to be at school locally walking distance to home.

Yes but there will be another bus coming along later in that instance.

In the OPs situation the bus is provided by the school for its own pupils. It runs a specific route stopping at pre-arranged locations, not public bus stops. It is the only bus that runs that route.

@zingally can you read like a 12 yo and understand she was going to school, not at school coming home?
Stranded at school would be a whole lot less worrying than being stranded in a village.

I think Zingally is referring to the journey home later, perhaps not realising that the OP or another household member would have returned by then. We all seem to have lost the ability to communicate clearly.

Are you serious? Is this mass trolling?

Your DD and her friend are amazing, what an absolutely wonderful thing to do. If I was head of their school they would be getting some kind of award/reward

I'm rarely furious about things, but this is totally unacceptable and I'd report the school to whatever body oversees them for this. Really awful.

How lovely that a friend stepped in who could help though.

I think that's it exactly, why did the driver think it was appropriate to leave her?

At first i thought the bus was possibly full and no spare seats, so i could understand the driver being loathed to risk his licence with over crowding the bus.
But leaving her because of the fare just isn't right. The Op was hardly not going to pay up.

@Pineapplepink
What have school said?

The driver should have phoned the school, straight away and explained. The school should have sent someone to pick her up. All school staff will be DBS checked and safeguarding in place.

Can’t if the bus was full. If bus not full and driver didn’t know about a child, there’ll be a system to deal with that.

I think the driver meant there was no paid space for her. If there was literally no space the school would have said no when OP first asked.

And it appears that the ‘system to deal with that’ is to drive off 🤷‍♀️.

No OP. This is a MASSIVE safeguarding problem. Do not leave a message because there is no trace of it. Send a strongly worded email (including all the what if and worst case scenarios) citing safeguarding concerns and raise absolute hell. I haven’t been to school in 20 years and the bus driver back then would have NEVER left us at the stop unattended. Please update us on their response. Also…this concerns me about who they’ve hired to drive the kids 😬 - a little present for friend would be nice too (what a lovely child).

In which case, absolutely not acceptable. I worked for a long time in a school with a fleet of buses picking up children from roadsides and car parks. If there was space, they'd never leave a child. If there was a child and no space, the driver would contact the transport manager, someone would pick up the child asap.

Screw ups do happen with transport for sure when communication has gone wrong but no child should ever, ever, be left at the roadside.

You are right to be upset - it’s not good enough. A similar thing happened to my eldest a couple of years ago when he was 11 in year 7. The minibus had somehow been overbooked and my son was the last pick up, so instead of abandoning him the driver sensibly got two year 10/11 boys to hop off the bus and wait with / look after my son, while he drove the other boys to school. He phoned the school before setting off so that another minibus could be sent straight out to get the 3 boys left behind.

My son also got left at school once at pick up time but that was my fault as I forgot the collection time. luckily it’s a very small school with a strong ethos of looking after each other, so when an older boy spotted my son standing by the driveway forlornly, he went and got the secretary to phone me and then waited with him until I arrived.

If I were in your position I would be writing a strongly worded email to the headmistress!

Had this many years ago, daughter attended a private school here in Surrey, I dropped her off at bus stop to find that the coach driver had just driven off, we were there just over 15 minutes early, three school mates turned up shortly afterwards. I gave them all a lift to school, the next day I waited at the stop and pulled up the driver (female who happens to own the coach company) . I asked her why she’d left so early and not waited around, no apology nothing, just a snarling rude response. To this day, it gives me the rage seeing those coaches.

To this day I bitterly regret not having sent a letter of complaint to the school, even though it’s a private company.

In this case the girl wasn’t yet at school, she was at a village green several miles from either school or home, at the place the school had agreed she could catch the private bus service, with neither phone nor house key. Op was referring to how the child would get home at the end of the day, having been ultimately been given a lift to school.

PS @zingally I expect that Op was going to g to be home by the time the child gets home from after school clubs etc, hence not worrying about how the child would get into the house at that point.

I’ve finally had an email from the dep. head and it’s lacking to be honest. No response to my safeguarding concern or explanation, just that they have sorted a space now so she can use the bus (not very helpful after 9am friday and I only needed the space this week).
To clarify again- the bus driver said there was no space - it was not a ticket or payment issue. It’s all run by the school-their own buses and their drivers - not a separate company. DD said there were spare seats but perhaps there were other children yet to pick up.
My lesson here is to ensure she always has her phone, key, and bank card. Bit sad really but previous posters are right that times have indeed changed and you can’t rely on others.