Taxi question, no-one home after school.

[beautifulgirls]

DD gets a taxi to and from school. The taxi driver changed recently. Her previous driver was happy to drop her 2 days a week to the after school club she goes to which is one road down from us. The new driver has done so for a couple of weeks and now said he is not allowed to drop her anywhere other than at home. During the week on my non work days she lets herself in and I get home from getting her sisters within 5 mins. On my work days she can still let herself in but clearly I won't be home. She can walk to the after school club from home too without needing to cross a road. Wwyd? I can't come away from work to meet her and I am worried they may now insist on someone being here to meet her as well, though so far that was not mentioned. To complicate things her sister is likely to change schools soon and add an extra complication to child juggling!

Who has told him he is 'not allowed'?

If it is school transport eg sn, then talk to the LA and find out why he is not 'allowed'? Surely the taxi goes to where the parents have told the LA the child needs to be?
What if parents have split and the child goes to one parent's home sometimes and sometimes the other? What if sometimes the grandparent has the child?

Are you sure that the rules say that it must be the same location?

Phone the LA and clarify. Then you can call the taxi company, or they can, and give them instructions.

If it is a private arrangement, then call the taxi company and give them the instructions. Taxi drops where you tell them to drop.

and it's in sn, so clearly it is. gah. I clearly haven't had enough ruddy coffee.

Phone the LA.

We have the same rule in our LEA - drop offs must be to home address AND taxi-driver should hand over to an adult. Some of the driver's do not check the second one as long as the house is open but they are meant to. Sorry, not what you wanted to hear. It's worth a phone call to the transport team to check but they are not known for their flexibility round here.

We have the same rules in our LA too. Very occasionally I've managed to get drop-off at grandparents but only as a one-off and it is officially against LA policy.

Working Families can give advice on your rights to flexible working, you should be able to leave work early to meet her if it's because you have a disabled child.

I work for myself and distance is an issue to get home. We can't afford for me not to work unfortunately. DH may however be more able to do this sort of thing so will look more into that, thank you.

I have all of this to come. Toddler will be going to a speech unit 15 miles away and need a taxi. My boys go to school fives miles but in the oppersite direction. I simply won't be home in time from the school run so one of my sn kids is not going to be safe. I have mentioned this and I get the impression rules can be bent ( but that's just hearsay at this point) as there's a real safeguarding issue for me. Neither of mine can be alone, it's far to dangerous as there is zero common sense in either of them

We have that rule in our LA but one of the kids in my ds taxi gets picked up from a breakfast club and dropped off at an after school club. Does seem a rule that should be up for challenge, not sure exactly how though.

Same rule in my LA. If no one is home then taxi driver will wait a short while before dumping the child at social services!
You can't use a childminder or after school club because the LA won't allow the taxi to pick up or drop off elsewhere, it's very frustrating.

Could it be disability discrimination? If she was at a local ms school she would be able to attend so lea policies are effectively excluding her because of her disability? Especially when you consider how small/nonexistent the extra cost to them would be? I can understand them not wanting to drop off at half a dozen different places on different days but it is not like that is it?

I agree Bilberry, certainly could be case to argue there. For now we have a sort of compromise in place with the taxi that is working so will see how things go for now.