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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to expect DS to not be brought home early on bus and left on own?

132 replies

wangle99 · 02/02/2009 19:49

DS is 5. He attends local primary school which has a bus service due to location of where we live. DS goes on bus and comes home on bus.

Today because of weather the bus turns up early, leaves DS at end of our lane (by busy main road) on his own.

Luckily my PIL were home (they meet DS every day at 3.35pm) and DS walked straight to their house (we live next door to them).

The school phoned me at 3.30pm (I was picking DD up at school 30 mins away) and said 'just checking DS got home safe' I nearly crapped myself at that point. Luckily he did.

AIBU?

OP posts:
wheresthehamster · 02/02/2009 22:17

It would be interesting to know what the normal policy is if no one is there to collect a child. Does the driver/escort have a list of contacts for the child? Do they wait a set length of time to see if anyone turns up? If not - do they keep the child on the bus and come back later?

Agree - I'd have been horrified and I consider myself a very laid-back parent.

dangfando · 02/02/2009 22:33

That's completely outrageous! You have got to follow this up. OMG, that's made me feel quite ill, being the mother of a 5yo.

ChippingIn · 02/02/2009 23:11

Ditto what Leo9 and most everyone else said...

FFS and today of all days! (Not that it's ever remotely acceptable, but today? WTF were they thinking????????????).

kitkatqueen · 02/02/2009 23:23

This is absurd! No school would send a 5 yo out into a playground and shut the door if a parent wasn't there to collect him so how can it possibly be ok to "abandon" a 5 yo near a main rd?

Rules and policies on this one need sorting out ie what is the bus driver supposed to do if there is no-one to collect at the stop and how should the school contact parents if changes in length of the schol day are made?

When I was a child some of the school buses had younger children on them and there was always a teacher present on each bus to ensure the kids got home safely.

I think I would write out a list of exactly why I was pissed off and take it in to the head.

And then go ballistic!!

elmajo · 02/02/2009 23:25

My 5 yr old gets the bus to/from school (rural school, more than 3 miles away) and they will not drop him off if I'm not there. Was 3 minutes late once and they'd already called the school to say I wasn't there
They have missed his stop on more than one occasion but that's another story!

You should take this up with the County Council, there is no way that should have happened.

elmajo · 02/02/2009 23:33

DesperateHousewife - sadly it is now very, very rare for there to be an escort on a bus other than one going to an SN School. They have the driver and only the driver with the bus full of children. Hence my reluctance to send my 4yr old on the bus when he first started, and why he gets the bus to school most days (driven by a County Council employee whose name we know and who drives it every day) but the bus home infrequently (driven by whichever random driver the commercial company that run the service chose to put on the route, high chance of it being a non-english speaker, and equally as high a chance of them taking completely the wrong route and missing my son's stop completely, leaving a 5yr old very scared he won't get home)

scaredoflove · 02/02/2009 23:37

""They usually drop DS at the end of the lane and MIL is always waiting for him, I have a nasty feeling they would just leave him there on his own.""

What does that mean? did they leave him alone or not??

LadyGlencoraPalliser · 02/02/2009 23:55

I think, SoL, that the OP was answering a question from another poster about what the bus driver would do if there was no one there to meet her DS when he was dropped at the normal time.

HerBeatitudeLittleBella · 02/02/2009 23:57

scaredof, they left him on his own today. The OP is saying that normally, her MIL is there to collect him, but if she wasn't, she has a nasty feeling that they would simply leave him there alone.

If you had done this, the school would be filing a Child Protection report on you. Raise merry hell. And I think you should get clarification on what would happen if for some reason your MIL wasn't there one day in normal circumstances - like if she were taken ill, for example. What is their procedure in that event?

lisalisa · 03/02/2009 00:13

So let's get this straight - bus dropped off your ds aged 5 without making sure there was an adult receiving him at the other end. Your dc then walked down your road unaccompanied to your PIL. If your PIL had not been in ( presumably you weren't in) your dc would have been in the street, in the snow and in teh freezing cold for however many hours till you or PIL returned home. And at risk of hypothermia or kidnap or of wandering off thinking inhis 5 yr old mind that he would walk to someone's else's house instead.

I would go BLOODY MAD!!!

And that is the first time I have ever used caps on MN in 7 years.

that is bloody appalling. They should be hung drawn and quartered for this the bloody lunatics.

LadyGlencoraPalliser · 03/02/2009 00:18

It is really incredible that they could fail so badly in their duty of care. What are you going to do, Wangle?

Gettinthehangofthisatlast · 03/02/2009 00:40

"Thats a point, perhaps I was the only forgotten and everyone else got phoned. I don't know any of the other parents whose children use the bus so I could ask them."

Sorry, but I think the point has been well made by those above here that this would not change the fact that they left your son alone, without ensuring his safety.

I hope that you do feel confident to take it up with the school, and agree with those who suggest informing the governors. My DH was a governor for years and I do not believe they would know about an incident like this if a parent did not contact them directly. The school are certainly not going to tell them (and I think you're right about the feeling that they realised afterwards it was a 'dodgy' thing to do).

I hope you can get some good answers/ actions from the school, so that you can feel secure enough about his future transport home from school!

Good luck!

TinkerBellesMumandFiFi2 · 03/02/2009 01:24

I agree with the advice you've been given make all the calls and complaints you've been told to! Another phrase to quote at them is "Loco Parentis" - "What would you do if I did something similar?"

There are no excuses, they messed up BIG TIME!

Lemontart · 03/02/2009 09:20

Just wanted to add to my post from yesterday: when I worked in a secondary school and we had to send the school home (happened fairly frequently as we were a rural area known for flooding potentials and closed roads) it was a HUGE phone round exercise. Nobody left the school premise without parental/guardian contact and knowledge. Even 15/16 yr olds who lived less than 5 mins walk had to wait until they were given permission to go home from parents. We had a ring round system for parents, some local ones would vouch for each other (pre written agreement on their records) so we got through classes fairly fast. It was a bit of a nightmare each time and took a couple of hours but it was the only way to do it safely. No permission meant they stayed at school until end of the day.
If we could do it for a school of several thousand kids and all a lot older than your child, then there is no excuse for your school at all.

warthog · 03/02/2009 09:24

i would be spitting with rage, i really would.

yanbu

troutpout · 03/02/2009 09:28

...oh my word. They messed up.. big time

wheresthehamster · 03/02/2009 09:32

I don't think 'they' messed up big time. It was an oversight on the school's part. They would have had to phone every parent, not just the bus parents so sometimes pieces of paper get lost etc. BUT THE DRIVER SHOULD NOT HAVE LET THE CHILD OFF THE BUS!!!!! So HE/SHE is COMPLETELY to blame. It MUSTN'T HAPPEN AGAIN!!

wheresthehamster · 03/02/2009 09:33

Ok - just seen that it WAS only the bus children who they had to phone.

StayFrosty · 03/02/2009 09:39

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

welshdeb · 03/02/2009 09:45

A friend of mine works in a school with a bus service similar to yours. She was saying that in her school that if they send the children home early they have to ring the parents of each child to tell them. If the can't contact one child's parents the whole bus stays at school until they get in touch with one of their contact numbers.

skramble · 03/02/2009 09:50

I had a similar situation in Dec, due to flooding they decided to send all the bus children home early as some roads were getting bad in the rural areas, we are not that far out so I was oblivious that there was anyconcern or likelyhood of children arriving home early. This was just after lunchtime.

Ok it is secondary school and DS is 12. But if I hadn't found out, through the grapevine, i could quite easily have been out and DS would have had to hange about outside for at least 2 hrs. I am lucky I too have PIL nearby and DS would go there if the doo was locked, but MIl could quite easily been out with me that day, what was DS to do sit on the door step.

I think there were many children that day in the village that did not have a parent in, and they were all running feral for a few hours in torrential rain, I think it must have been the same in all the villages.

Millarkie · 03/02/2009 09:58

Slightly off subject, but we do have an escort on our primary school bus, but she is there to 'protect the driver (!)' and not to help the children, or make sure they get into school or home safely.

BoffinMum · 03/02/2009 13:20

It's a funny old world when at nursery at the age of four there is supposed to be a ratio of 8 children per adult and they are supervised at all times, whereas at school at the age of four or five they can just be left by the side of the road in the snow by a bus driver.

snice · 03/02/2009 13:26

I am very keen to read an update from the OP as to the school's response today. I was astounded that the driver of the bus could behave so irresponsibly

Leo9 · 03/02/2009 13:40

Me too snice! Please up-date, OP!!