Transport to School

[yomellamoHelly]

So we've heard through the grapevine that ds will have the school we've requested named in Part 4. (Deadline Saturday) Nothing in writing yet.

Had a call from transport today and the only car seats they have are for what I'd consider NT children who don't need additional support. The consequence is that we've been told we need to either purchase a suitable car seat for him for them to use (or give them money to purchase one on his behalf) if the taxi driver agrees to carry him or buy a crash-tested buggy or wheelchair if they won't carry him.

My gut reaction is that this is outrageous, but am wondering if in fact this is just another of those things that we have to accept as transport were telling us.

Would appreciate your experiences.

(Was one of the points we raised on the Proposed Statement which was "overlooked" on the Amended Proposed Statement and which I don't expect to see in the Final Statement either.)

Ought to be pleased he's got this school, but shine going already. LA already booked a review of his full-time 1:1 one month after he starts. Therapy already less than it needs to be.

We've never had to pay for ds's seats for the taxi. When he was still in a proper carseat with support they asked us to purchase the same one as we were using in our car and then refunded the money when we gave them the receipt. He now uses a harness and booster provided by the transport service. They even reimbursed me when I got them a cover from Halfords to stop ds undoing the seatbelt.

When ds got too big for the taxi driver to carry him safely (he refused to walk from taxi into school) I would just send his buggy with him and they would bring it back with him at the end of the day, it was no problem, they didn't expect me to get one specially.

Sorry, just re-read and realised you meant that your ds would stay in his buggy or wheelchair while in the taxi, hence crash-tested. I'm not with it today (or any day ).

I would expect Transport to pay, if only because then they can ensure they are meeting their own safety regs and I would have thought equipment was part of their budget. My ds has always had car-seats and harnesses supplied and I thought this was normal. I have noticed with our school transport that they will do the minimum they can get away with regarding spending money (though I do accept they have to budget carefully) and only address issues when you nag them senseless or they reach crisis point. (Perhaps it's just ours though)

Thanks. Of course you're all right. It's the sensible way to approach it. Will have to have another chip at it next week.

we had to supply a car seat then wheelchair.

It varies from LEA to LEA ime. And I think it depends on how much support etc. You may be in a bit of a grey area - here the LEA provide seats, but only for kids who can have a "standard" SN seat - ie a 5 point harness suffices, whether that's a britax of some sort or eventually just a crelling in the car/bus. If you need more support than that, the assumption is that your child ought to be in a wheelchair, which is wheelchair services' (ie NHS) responsibility to provide, not the LEA. Chair will have to be crash-tested of course and for that reason WS are reluctant to fund non-tested chairs/buggies because they hand one out and then a year later the child needs a crash tested one to get to school. Because school will refuse to lift/support him in and out of transport for health and safety reasons anywhere between 16 and 20kg. So it's not unusual for the child to turn up at school in a car seat but very soon find they can't get in or out of it. Hence if there is any chance of the child needing lifting/supporting to use the seat, you'll struggle to get anyone else to pay for it.

I've had a HUGE fight with our LEA to keep DD1 out of a wheelchair on transport. I figure the more she walks/climbs/whatever, the more she remains able to do so, iyswim. But the school and LEA transport had to hold some sort of major risk analysis meeting about how to get her in and out of the bus in order to agree it, and the hoo-har they made about writing her up a special non-standard handling protocol you would not believe. Well, OK you would. And this is a child who can walk (if you hold her left hand) and step in and out of the bus (if you hold both hands) and climb up into her seat (if you provide a step which cost me £5 from Ikea and nearly kiboshed the whole thing because apparently if the driver brakes it is highly likely to ricochet about the bus in a flubberesque manner and we had to get a special health and safety retaining strap fitted which presumably cost ten times as much as the step) So it's not like I'm asking for them to give her a fireman's lift.