school transport refusing to take a child to an afterschool activity

[donkeyderby]

Until now, our school transport from special schools have agreed to take children to places other than home and respite, for instance, an afterschool club, as long as it's pre-arranged.

Now I hear that they are refusing to take them anywhere other than home or respite.

I thought there was a test case about this one a few years ago and I didn't think they were allowed to refuse to take a child, if it stops them accessing leisure opportunities.

Does anyone else have information about the test case or our children's rights on this one?

bump as interested

different situation, slightly, but my dd's special needs transport from mainstream school will take her wherever I want provided it is organised in advance. Ditto pick her up late if at after school club. Transport supplied by local taxi firm, paid by ed dept. Any help?

It seems a lot of councils are doing this in the name of cost cutting, our LA are in consultation to abolish sn transport for any child that lives within 3 miles of school regardless of their disability to save money, they have already done it in one area of the county we will find out in the new year weather dd will have transport to her sn school or not. I dont drive and because dd is severely autistic with many sensory issues public transport or a two mile walk is just not possible so she wont be able to go to school!

They agreed to take dd to childminders on condition it came not more expensive. Which was easy to prove in our case as CM lived along same route, just closer to the school.

same here, sn transport drop my ds at childminder, had to be in same council area tho. and as long as i tell the transport escort where i want him dropped off in the morning they can usually do this for me

We have got 2 SLD schools in our City and it used to be that you could chose between the two. Now, you have to go to the one in your half of the city, just on transport costs alone. If you can transport the child there yourself, you get to go to either. Seems a bit crazy to have just one choice of school.

The access to leisure opportunities is different though - I really thought it was protected by law but I can't find anything about it online. Anyone?

I always understood that they would take a child to another address IF and only IF it is in the same County or, in our case, London Borough. In London that can mean not being able to go to something fairly nearby that happens to be over the border. I think it has also been the case that LAs are entitled not to give transport to children with SNs within a set area. They tried it here a few years ago under the guise of "independence training" but had to go back on most of it. A few kids did learn to travel by public transport using their Freedom Pass but most are not capable of it.