School Transport policy and guidance

You will need to complete an application form. The form provides you with an opportunity to tell us more about your child’s needs and allows us to determine your child’s eligibility status to receive transport.

The transport will be designed to meet the requirements identified in your child’s transport risk assessment. Transport will usually be shared with other pupils unless specified in your child’s risk assessment. Your child’s journey to and from school should not exceed 75 minutes each way. However, there may be some exceptions if your child attends a school some distance from your home or out of county or where a shorter journey is specified in your child’s risk assessment.

Please note: that no assessment or transport arrangements will begin until a completed application form is received.

Should your child’s special circumstances require it, we will arrange for an introductory home visit (meet and greet) by the intended transport provider before the transport commences.

The decision on eligibility will be communicated to you either by email or letter to confirm the outcome of the assessment and a risk assessment is undertaken to make sure appropriate travel arrangements are provided.

This may take a number of days and we advise parents to make sure the application reaches us at least 15 days before the transport is required (much more during the summer peak).

We will:

• Provide a door to door service, whenever appropriate
• Provide an escort on the transport for all children attending specialist nurseries, or attending primary placements, or for other older pupil’s if deemed necessary in your child’s risk assessment.
• Employ escorts of all genders and will only provide a gender-specific escort, if your child’s risk assessment requires this.
• Provide safe and secure seating as required, with specialist seats or restraints as detailed in your child’s risk assessment.
• Provide transport to meet the normal school/college start and finish times (transport will not be arranged to meet individual student timetables).
• Respect your confidentiality at all times and ensure that any information you provide to us is only used for the intended purpose.
• Tell you as soon as possible about any issues which might affect your child’s transport, for instance, a change of operator or service breakdown. Sometimes this may have to be at short notice.
• Provide you with follow up details, if transport is refused for any journey if your child is in an unfit state to travel.
• Make sure all drivers and escorts:
  • are vetted through the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS)
  • carry identification badges at all times
  • can converse in English to a reasonable standard  
  • are suitably skilled and have appropriate training
  • treat you and your child with dignity and respect
  • will wait up to 5 minutes for your child to board the vehicle for occasional delays
  • provide a good level of general customer service
  • provide a service that meets your child’s travel needs in accordance with their risk assessment
  • communicate to you any information regarding your child’s well-being while on the transport
• Make sure that the vehicles we use:
  • are suitably licensed, roadworthy and fit for the intended purpose
  • are in a clean and tidy condition

It may be necessary to review transport on occasions when your child’s transport requirements change, or if there is a problem with the transport.

In such cases it may be necessary to temporarily suspend transport, while we evaluate the information and consider a revised transport offer and this may take up to 15 working days and possibly longer if there is a specialist training requirement to meet your child’s needs.

You can help to make sure transport operates smoothly and effectively, by:

• treating transport staff with dignity and respect. Working in partnership with the operator to support the successful delivery of  transport
• making sure that your child is ready for travel at least 5 minutes before the transport is due to arrive
• making sure your child is in a fit state to be transported safely (please note that the transport provider has the right to refuse to transport your child, if they believe they're not well enough to travel, or are a risk to themselves and/or others)
• having a responsible adult at home when your child is due to arrive home from school
• not contacting the operator, unless there is a delay of more than 20 minutes, based on the proposed collection time.
• reporting an issue you may have about the transport directly to the council
• understanding that drivers and/or escorts may change at short notice
• letting us know if your child is going to be away from school for a planned period of time, or letting the operator know directly if they are unexpectedly absent from school, eg. sudden illness in the morning
• understanding that the transport provider and/or pick up times may change from time to time, particularly at the start of the academic year, when the service is allocating transport provisions for new pupils on existing arrangements and we will try and give you as much notice as possible.
• assisting us and supporting with transitions or changes of transport provider
• advising us if any information we hold about your child changes eg. a change of address, contact phone numbers, seating requirements, medications etc. using the School Transport contact form

The council only has to legally provide transport to and from a child’s eligible home address.

However, we recognise that some working parents and those with other children of school age may find it difficult to always be at home at the time when transport is due to arrive.

While it's not possible to arrange transport to meet every parent's individual circumstances, we may consider requests for transport to/from alternative addresses, where parents have made childcare arrangements for their child, and where both of the following criteria are met:

• there is no additional cost to the council
• there is no impact on the journey of other pupils on the transport

Due to the high volumes of transport request for new pupils at the start of the new academic year, we're unable to consider any alternative address until October half-term and parents will need to make their own arrangement to ensure a safe handover. Transport will continue to be supplied from the eligible address.

Any transport provided to an alternative address is at the council’s discretion and is not guaranteed for any length of time.

Should the current transport arrangements change in the future and the alternative address no longer meets the criteria above, transport to the alternative address will be withdrawn, we will provide you with as much notice as possible.

You can request an alternative address using our contact form - alternative address.

Regrettably we are not able to meet the following transport requests:

• extracurricular activities or journeys between institutions within the school day (for journeys of this nature the organising school or institution will be responsible for transport arrangements)
• induction days, taster days, open days or interviews
• assessment days (except when required by the SEN Assessments Service)
• work experience
• school trips (for journeys of this nature the organising school or institution will be responsible for transport arrangements)
• dental, medical or hospital appointments, or other non-educational appointments
• children taken ill during the day
• children that are excluded during the day
• exam timetables – transport will not be tailored to exam timetables: it will only be provided at the standard school/college start and finish times
• before and after school activities – where a family wish a child to attend activities before or after school, then parents/carers, or the school are responsible for making travel arrangements
• where the child is staying in Short Break (respite) care - requests for transport to and from Short Break or residential care should be directed to Social Care within the local authorities Children and Family Services department

In the event that there is a risk to health and safety of staff/pupils and others using the transport from the misbehaviour of a pupil, access to school transport may be suspended and in serious cases permanently withdrawn as set out in the Mainstream Policy (above).

When considering suspension or withdrawal of provision regard will be given to the extent to which the child's disability has impacted upon their behaviour and what steps can be taken to eliminate the effect of that disability on their behaviour.

We have a dedicated Compliance Team to investigate any operational concerns raised about operators providing transport. Please see: Report an issue with transport services. They arrange regular inspections and enforce a set of contract conditions that the operators have agreed to follow when operating our contracts.

In some cases, it may be necessary to suspend transport at short notice due to a complaint or compliance issue. In such cases there may be a delay in replacement transport being organised and a gap in transport provision. We will try and keep this gap to a minimum but parents may need to provide transport in the interim period.