Communication issue with school, feel like I am in a twilight zone, advice appreciated

[sicily1921]

Hi all,

I am at a point where I am thinking 'ok, I really don't know where to go with this one now' and feel totally flummoxed.

Will try and put it in a nutshell. Just prior to DS starting high school 3 years ago the local authority decided to scrap the school bus that he would have used (this means he walks home approx. half hour.) At the time I was livid as neither the bus company or the school had seen fit to inform parents about the service cut and I made my voice of complaint known to both parties.

Roll on just over 2 years to last October and I am now enrolling my DD for same high school and she starts next week. A letter is sent home from this school head teacher asking which parents would be interested in re-instating the school bus as she is trying to get the service going again. I tick and sign the form and return. Further to that I draft a letter of support to her for her to CC to the bus company, saying I have worries for my DD walking home (potentially alone) and add further issues about why I think it would be a good idea.

IF YOU'VE STAYED WITH ME THIS FAR WELL DONE !! READ ON!!

Roll on to Christmas ish time, I've heard nothing from the school as to what is happening so I phone and ask the state of play. Staff ( not sure, office staff?) verify that the bus service is to be returned for this Sept and possibly before! 'Great!' I am thinking...

Roll on to May/June time and nothing has happening, no bus service, no letter, no update on school website (the website just says 'we are trying to get a bus service up and running blah blah). I email the school but there is no reply so I phone again and ask to speak to Heads PA, she tells me yes the bus service will be returning for Sept.

Roll on to July and parents' information evening for new starters. Nothing said about would be school bus in the talk so I ask the lady who is to be DDs form teacher. She goes to find out and comes back having given me impression she has spoken to HT, she says letters will be going out to parents in the hols with the details of the service.

Guess what....I have not had a letter. In desperation I emailed the bus company to ask what was happening. They told me that they have not had a request from the school to start a service but they then emailed the HT and copied in my email (to them) to her!!

I am just left thinking have I just spent the last 8 months being told a pack of lies? But why? What the f*ck is going on here. I am so fed up with it I am so far beyond livid I am numb and the thought of DD walking on her own at times scares me to death.

If anyone has got to the end of this you deserve a medal. Any ideas appreciated. Thank you

Unbelievable.
How far is it? I thought they had to provide transport if it was over 3 miles? Is there public transport? We have school buses for primary and secondary from where we live but there is no public transport.

Is it possible that they are using a different bus company?

Mmm. Like cocky said - could they have contacted a different bus company? General incompetence wouldn't surprise me tho - not deliberately telling you lies but everyone thinking someone else is sorting it out.

Secret - 3 miles would be much more than a half hour walk, I think.

OP - is there no-one DD could walk with?

Good point.
I rang bus company to complain about them going early and DS missing the bus, only to find the council had a new contract with a different company

Thanks for your replies, much appreciated, I'm guessing it's about a mile or more at least if it takes half an hour (as crow flies).

The reply our main bus company sent me mentioned the possibility of the school using a different company but I've no idea which it could be. Plus, it still doesn't explain the lack of communication. If it is being sorted out why no letters to parents to verify this with details of bus number and timetable etc ( you know just the trivialities).

As far as I know other children do not walk that way, most either live nearer the school or much further, we are sort of inbetween but IMO far enough to justify using a bus. DD can walk with her brother but there will be times when he is not there (perhaps poorly or has an after-school activity). Not only that, the last 3 years that DS has been going I have lost count of the times he has come home soaking wet after a half hour walk in the pissing rain, plus bag and books damp

Secrets why does that not surprise me?!!

I am sorry but what on earth is the issue with an 11yo walking half an hour, unless she has severe learning conditions or a physical disability you haven't told us about? Surely that is just a normal healthy thing to do? Even ds manages that and he has a joint condition. If it rains she can wear a mac and put her books in a plastic bag inside her book bag, can't she?

(not surprised there is an obesity crisis if people generally think this is too much effort for a child that age)

There's presumably more than one bus company operating in your area?

I agree absolutely that a half hour walk seems pretty standard to me. My DCs have all done it - and some of their friends have further to go.

Is there no pavement, or no lighting or something that makes the walk harder than a mile would normally be?

For comparison, ds age 4 will be walking over a mile to school in Sept, and kids go alone from y4 if not younger. The communication sounds crap but suspect it's not a priority, just a nice to have maybe, and seems to be typical of schools in the holidays.

Erm I really can't see the problem with a secondary school aged child walking for half an hour .. Why would there need to be a bus service for that kind of distance

government rules state that children aged 8 or above qualify for free school transport if they live 3 miles or more from the school or if there is no safe route to the school; for children under 8 the distance is 2 miles

the distance given by the OP is only 1/3 of that and I assume that the unsafe route condition does not apply either here since the OP's ds has been able to walk it for years

(an unsafe route here would mean something like down the side of a busy road with no pavement; not the fact that you have to cross roads)

of course the school can organise a bus (to be paid for by parents) as a nice gesture, but seeing that the distance is 1/2 of that the government considers reasonable for a child in infants school you can see why they may not regard it as much of a priority

Is there a public bus she could get?

If it makes you feel better, I walked to and from school with a journey that was about 25 minutes each way from y7 onwards and nothing ever happened to me. The first bit near school at least will be busy with other children, so she will probably not have to walk the whole way alone, maybe just the last 10-15 minutes.

I am sorry but what on earth is the issue with an 11yo walking half an hour and not surprised there is an obesity crisis if people generally think this is too much effort for a child that age) Er that was not the actual issue the issue was communication, or lack of as explained in thread title.

Thanks for taking the time to reply some of you but it never ceases to amaze me how people on here totally miss the point and then steamroller through your thread with a point they want to make which seems to be that I am a horrendous mother who doesn't want her child to have exercise. ?? FYI my children probably get more than the average amount of exercise and walk to lots of places and walk as a hobby. I do not have a problem with them walking the distance I just don't like the fact that she may be alone which I think is perfectly reasonable! I had to get 3 buses to school but was never on my own that much!! My DD also has some kind of autistic tendencies and goes into her own world rather than what's going on around her and is only just getting to grips with roads.

Well said, sicily...

Well, since you did not explain that she has autistic tendencies, I don't you think you could expect us to understand why it would be such a bad thing for an 11yo to walk to or from school alone in the daytime: it's not something that most of us with children of that age would have thought of.

For most of us, a short walk alone or a journey on public transport alone would be considered normal for this age group. I see children doing it all the time. I certainly did it myself at that age. Dh travelled across London on his own. Ds walked alone for the first year of secondary. Dc also walked alone to shops, to the library etc at that age.

To put it in a nutshell: no, your concern about her being alone is not something that would have registered as reasonable with me.

The issue for OP was lack of communication not lack of a bus service?

kilmuir, that was one of the issues: she also says the thought of her dd walking alone scares her to death

which is understandable if her dd has SN

but that was not explained

OP, if your dd is affected by her SN, you might be able to get the council to send her in a taxi. That was what they did for my dd (mobility problems) and it worked very well. You have to apply to the LEA.

Thanks for listening Cory, sorry but it did not sound like you were trying to help initially (which essentially I think is what MN should be about). I just didn't mention this at first because it was the way the school had communicated ( or not) was the problem I was asking about.

I think that people have to consider that everyones' circumstances are different, their kids, the places they live etc. In my heart of hearts I do think that an average child of 11yrs should be able to walk to school (as I said, I got 6 buses a day and had maybe 10 - 15 min walk too) .I am passionate about my children getting enough exercise (where I live it seems that well over half adults people . Hopefully all with work out, I just don't like poor communication on any issue, a school is supposed to be a professional organisation, in theory able to communicate with parents, it's just disappointed me that I've had so much confusion over it.

I can see that you are annoying about the communication issues. School should have been upfront with you and said "yes, we'll see what we can do but don't be too optimistic about this one because it is not a high priority; if you don't hear from us within x date we haven't succeeded".

If it was a question of asking the bus company to change the route rather than running a dedicated bus route, I think it would have been reasonable for them to expect you to check with the bus company if they were prepared to take it further, but they should have said so from the start.

We have just been looking up dd's travel arrangements: what the school did there was basically to give us the email to the bus company and a link so we could check their website. But that was fair enough, because it showed the onus was on us and we knew where to go. Agree that your school could have done better.

If you do think there are special reasons why your dd should not walk alone, you can always contact the LEA about disabled transport. But this is something you have to do yourself; ime schools don't deal with that. And they would require a doctor's certificate.

Cory, good grief, you ought to get a job with our school (!), at least you would have communicated clearly to me!! Yep, that was all I was asking for, not the last 10 months of total wishy washy fogginess ( like I said, am I in some kind of twilight parallel universe and I dreamt it all and totally ). When I ring them next week I am going to say as calmly as I can, could you not have said xyz straightforwardly ( as you've put it in your post) just so I knew exactly where I stood??

Thanks for your help again, I like a laugh, natter and us all helping each other if poss on here, that's what MN is good for.

Rule of thumb OP when communicating with schools. Phoning doesn't work. A short, polite letter, addressed to the head, clearly noting points to be addressed and a reasonable timeframe, is what is required. Send it recorded because schools have a shocking tendency to lose ignore correspondence.

yy to married's post.

Anything you say to one person only will remain in that one person's head until it drops out 5 minutes later.

And don't forget- always keep copies of any conversations.