bloody council transport.

[borderslass]

ds goes to school 40 miles away and has had the same driver and escort since day one who he gets on brilliantly with and trusts, he starts back next week for his final year and today we received a letter stating that his transport was changing. dh knows the firm involved as he's been a taxi driver for over 30 years and has already said hell will freeze over before they take him. criteria for taking special needs is that you must have had council contracts for at least a couple of years this firm hasn't even been around for a year he has been in touch with his previous transport and they have told him that they have taken over a lot of contracts.Last year ds went off the rails becoming very violent on occasions and locked in on others after the council tried to add a child into the car with him and the other boy, he can't deal with changes and we're not prepared to put him through this again. do other councils mess about with kids routine like ours?

sorry just needed to rant as i'm so annoyed.

DS3 has been at his SNU just over a year (Easter start in 2009) and has had 2 drivers and a few escorts; the pair he has atm are great although whilst the escort is wonderful we have had better, in terms of friendlier, drivers.

The first pair were godawful (we saw another child- both autistic- crawling unnbelted and ignored around the car on a drop off).

And every summer they review contracts and we don't ever know who will turn up; we also get no warning of sickness cover etc- even a call to say P couldn't get in so someone else was there so wecould talk to him, you know?

So yes sadly other councils do it, its not nice though. Am dreading not getting P and we wont know until September.

Not dentiely unusual Riv; Powys has been forced to bring much SN education back into MS becuase of chidlren facing similar and longer drives (big county + low population levels).

It's the same here ds's escort has told me that the council are trying not to send any more kids out with the region the primary he was at has boys in cumbria, at the moment all the boys who where at his primary are outwith the region for secondary it was the city or residential for ds.The residential school was fantastic unfortunately it was full 4 years ago.

Are you inCumbria? I know the criteria for transport isn't that tight on SN transport. Friend set up taxi business and mainly does school transport as it is lucrative. He is experienced in SN & recruits escorts from experienced friends but he had his first contract within weeks of setting up.

Lots of contracts up for renewal locally this time though I think they are usually on 3 year contracts excepting single child taxis

ds starts back on wednesday and his school is merging into another one so a huge upheaval on the cards.
i got the Ed psych and social worker to write to the Transport dept requesting that he keep the same driver and escort for familiarity, i also emailed everyone in the transport department (and their bosses) and thankfully it paid off! enough will be changing for him next week never mind that as well!

following with intrest as ds is starting at school and will have transport he is about 30 miles away but will be through heavy traffic i dont even know how there going to tie his chair down on transport yet .Guessing wont find out till the 6th

be simple here Riven no transport no school ,I dont drive plus to do on public transport will involve a bus train journey including a change and then anoter bus about 2 hrs plus or so .So if ds has appointments to that will mean a day of as well ,

Can see his attendence going down ,

It'c awkward when things don't run isn;t it?

DS3's school is compeltely outside walking distance, would take about 3 hours and he coudln't do it himself, and in September we ahve the wonder that is The Ryder Cup being run between here and his school. They've already started setting up, been doing it a onth, and we are dreading it! We have set a limit of an hour for the jurney and when it exceeds that we pull him as he would get exceptionally distressed by that. Am not making ds3 unhappy so a laod of posh people can fly in and play goldf for a few days, especially when they will as per usual be hovering their bloody copters overhead and distressing ds3 anyway (always happens when there's a big tournament on there).

In the snow we always pull ds3 on first flake, becuase most kids walk very short distances and the school decisions are made on that; by the time snow falls, transport is called or we get to him our village becomes very treacherous (accessible only by road with freefall into a river- 3 to choose from but all have same wories) so we just make our decision and go for it.

yes me thinks any sign of snow he wont be going either as yes some bits main roads so might be clear other bits are more country lanes

nymphadora no were in the Scottish borders and the criteria for special needs was always strict .Escorts are employed directly from transport dept.

Riven If the weathers bad there is always the chance ds is off for several days at a time.On several occasions he has been picked up at normal time [7.15] and I've received the phone call just after 8 to say their on their way back and he's home again by 9am.On one occasion the boys where picked up by the other mother as the taxi boss refused to allow them to travel up despite them being ready to go as soon as school called to say school was closing, I was ill and she has a 4x4 car as she lives up in the hills.
I got myself a part time job 4 years ago it only lasted 6 weeks because of being late due to ds.

sancti ,riven

what happens about attendence in these case ds will be in speech unit of 10 dc and stays in the unit but it is ms school just dont want educational wefare breathing down my neck ,

ug walking distance me thinks I win ds school would take 7 or 8 hrs

RTB its never been an issue but generally he doesnt get ill which keeps attendance up on the whole. School gets it though; as soon as we say @we're in caerleon' whichever receptionist we get says 'Ah yes, in that case come right over' LOL, (I have manhed to work out a non river route now but even that is very steep in places and I woudln't want to do it even in my (non 4x4 but damned loveable if ancient)) mitsubishi.

I don't care if they annoyed over Ryder Cup: council shouldn;t have agreed to it if they didn't want disruption . Apaprenlty carries second alrgest number of travelling hordes after olympics and we are a wee place.

DS1's school is over the road but if he gets his AS unit palce it will be the same distance as ds3's in the complete opposite direction. Maybe they ought to stop whispering about and ASD unit locally and actually do it? they ahve premises and a team lined up I know b ut never actually do it.

ah see im thinking of all ds routine apponments that see sme travelling here there and everywhere September he has 6 and times are not negotiable if say cant attend could be waiting months even any local to me will not be local to the school iykwim

lane i live on has only about 10 houses so were not exactly top priorty apparetnly did not get dont at all last year and then if get out of lane wer ein a dip between 2 hills ok hills by English standard slol not welsh standards

yeah we have local ms but ist not approaite for ds3 and becuase of its age its actually exsusced from being adapted , did have discussion with them but ds really does need the access to salt that speec unit will give him

mind that shuts fast as most kids not local yet the school is full and over subscibed yet 25 houses here and theres only 6 kids of primary age yet i had to appeal to get a place for dd and no teachers are

We have also had a nightmare with transport changing DS has had the same transport since nursery but this year P2 they have changed it. We only found out when we phoned and said we were concerned we hadnt heard who was taking him to school, no letter or contact from them. We asked the new transport provider to come out and meet him before he goes to school on Monday. They reluctantly came on Friday, and they do NOT have any oxygen training. They claimed they did to get the contract but have no certificates and didnt even know how to check if his bottle was on - WTF! We informed them and transport services no way could they take him to school.
Now we need to take him until the council sort something out. (not easy we have 3 kids all at different schools all in different directions too) This is Lanarkshire.
They cant give it to his previous providor now as he has his contracts in place

yep same here its school/home or 999 depending where nearest

The primary is excused from being adapted (and fairly, as its a very specific set of circs- 250 years old and built over an roamn barracks that has just been shown to be part of a massive roman city, fairly extreme circs)

There was talk of building at the comp, to rpovide a unit 9think LEA are a bit as lack of one here emans we can choose any resource base in the area and they ahve to finance LOL, so kids going off in all directions) but that was before last week's new archaeologiocal finds so think that will be out of window agin as area of interest will now cover school too.

I guess we are slightly lucky then in that they have agreed that the transport providor needs to have the oxygen training.

If he couldnt start school until they had had the training and I couldnt bring him home from hospital until I'd had the training - no way is he travelling for 35 minutes in a car with someone who doesnt know what to do if he has breathing problems/has a seizure. Surely they wouldnt be insured? I have had to notify my car and home insurance that we have oxygen and carry a trans card at all times.

Luckily I do have the full support of the school nurse and the respiratory team on the need for them to be trained, it was put in the requirements box so only people who had the training could apply. (& those who lied?!) But the problem I can see next week is that there is no one to take him and the training cant be organised for about 8 weeks due to the caseload the respiratory team have.

Again luckily it is a special needs school and is adapted, although they are building a new school at the moment beside it, so parts of the school are inacessable. His classroom was upstairs but he couldnt get there when the lift was broken But the new school will be finished in a year and will be worth the wait I hope!

I did get really stressed on Friday by it all but he loves school so I will take him until its sorted.

Sane here sacti no roman remains but it's postioing in top of a hill and the fact most of it is 17/18 centuary but was never going be suitable for ds3 anyway

no o2 needed but think will need check they had at least basic seizure training .do know school organised there own ready fir ds3 coming