Grrrrrr.....school Transport

School transport....those mere words strike anger and fear into me!

Reuben attends a special school and has done now for the past 2 years. Unfortunately the school is on the other side of the borough, so takes a good half an hour to get to (if the road Gods are on our side)
So, its completely impractical for us to take him and pick him up every day which means he has to go on school transport.

I. Hate. It!!!!!

The whole provision is just not fit for purpose and I can't for the life of me understand why the council/ government are allowing it to be used.

RANT ALERT (be warned).....

The transport do not communicate with parents, they do not communicate with the school and they do not communicate with the IPTU  (Integrated Passenger Transport Unit i.e the people behind the desk that seem like they are organising it all but in fact they are doing sod all!)
No-one has a clue as to what's going on if there is ever a problem which makes it so unbelievably unsafe, it's a joke!

I am basically handing over the care and responsibility of my very vulnerable child to a driver that I know nothing about, an escort that I have no clue about and whether or not they have any experience with children with additional needs. Then, there's the whole bus and whether it even safe to be on the road.

I know you're probably thinking why I send my child on transport...
But, without transport how is my child going to attend the school he feels comfortable in, happy in and where the staff are trained to look after his needs???

At the start of the process of applying for transport, we had to fill a form out. On this form we put the obvious information i.e name, address etc but we also put down what my child's needs were, diagnosis was, what his behaviour is like and all the other information that they would need to be able to care for him and look after him on the journey to and from school.

There are not any forms, information sheets, meet and greets etc for us parents to be introduced to the driver, the escort and for our child to see the bus that he will be travelling on. We are not shown any kind of paperwork to prove that these people are trained, experienced and even CRB (I think the name has changed now for their check) checked.

In the past 2 years, Reuben has had numerous bus changes, driver changes and escort changes. This has completely messed him up and brought his anxiety to a peak, even to the point that he was being sick every morning due to the anxiety of not knowing what bus was going to turn up, who was going to be on the bus. Yet, when we phone the transport office at our local council (the numbers they provide us with) they either don't pick up or have absolutely no idea what's going on.

If an incident happens on the bus, which it has done on a few occasions on Reuben's bus, I have found out about them from Reuben. So, I go back to the transport people at the council and again am met with complete cluelessness as the bus company has not informed them of anything.

How is this allowed to happen???

It seems to me that the bus companies are allowed to do as they please, whether that be changing buses at the drop of a hat, change escorts and drivers with no notice or not report incidents that have happened to school, the parents or the transport office.....Safeguarding is the word that keeps popping into my head!

I really do think that the whole transport system needs to be changed or at the very least updated and someone needs to be accountable. As at this time, no body communicates with one another and that can be very dangerous. Will this ever happen...probably not, well, not until a serious accident has occurred.

So for now, we have to continue to put our trust into the escort, bus driver, transport company and transport office to take our son to and from school in a safe and happy environment.