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School bus cut


paulb
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Can't they walk over the fields away from the traffic :lol:
Oh do not be silly!. Fields in a wet summer can turn to bogs, can be full of nasty things like ticks at any time and contain livestock that is not always friendly. Not to mention attacks by nesting birds and wandering into school with their feet covered with "manure". Not enough?. Well they might get lost in the mist or injured trying to cross a fence without the aid of a stile.
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What constitutes the "distance" from home to school?. Is it the distance using official roads and perhaps a few footpaths or is it a case of laying a ruler on the map to decide the distance. If it is the latter will the council apply the same method of calculation to claims for travel by staff and councillors.

 

Thinking about the distance and age it is worrying that a child of eight years of age might have to walk 6 miles a day in the worst of the summer weather and 3 miles a day in the depths of winter. And of course a parent/carer who decided the child would not be safe alone might have to walk 12 miles a day in the summer.......perhaps taking a pre school child with them.

 

And we then have the odd situation that the same child walking 6 miles a day at 8yo might well have no walking to do when they moved to the secondary school.

 

And this is all to cut a few pounds off the council budget when there are far bigger savings to be made by trimming office staffing levels and avoiding some of the more spectacular wastes of money the previous council managed to make.

 

Why should anyone else be responsible for safely getting your children to school?

 

The days of 'the Cooncil should do something' are in the past. SIC does not have the money anymore. Saying that the Council should cut something else so they can afford to subsidise your life style cuts no ice with me.

 

If on any particular day the parents feel it is unsafe for a child to travel to school alone, then it is for the parents to make alternative arrangements.

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Why should anyone else be responsible for safely getting your children to school?

 

The days of 'the Cooncil should do something' are in the past. SIC does not have the money anymore. Saying that the Council should cut something else so they can afford to subsidise your life style cuts no ice with me.

 

If on any particular day the parents feel it is unsafe for a child to travel to school alone, then it is for the parents to make alternative arrangements.

 

Sums it up perfectly. Stop whingeing and expecting us to pick up the bill for your kids. You get child allowance. Use it to transport the sprogs, or buy them waterproofs and send them on their way. I remember cycling a couple of miles to school when it was so cold that I was in tears with the pain in my hands by the time that I got there. What is wrong with parents and kids these days.

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People will whinge when the policy is not adhered to uniformly across the board. I know some children who are picked up at their door and others who have to walk to a designated pick up point.

 

The Road Safety Audit looks at traffic speeds, pavements and number of past accidents. It does not take a rural situation into consideration where children are walking with no paths on exposed country roads. The whole thing needs to be looked at again and applied fairly to all children.

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If there is a problem with your fellow contry fok driving too fast you need to educate them.
There is a problem having young kids walking on single track roads day after day in all weathers. I have fairly recently taken to walking on a single track road on a regular basis and depending on the wind is is often impossible to hear a vehicle approaching from behind. And even having heard one vehicle it is quite possible for a quieter vehicle following behind to have its sound completely masked. Could easily have a child step back into what they thought was a clear road just to get hit by the second vehicle.

 

Have already mentioned the wind. Not only has it come close to putting me into the ditch in the past winter but has also come close to blowing me in front of a car.

 

Remember we are talking about single track roads barely wide enough for a Transit van in places. No pavement and in my case no hard shoulder. Just grass and flowers. Nice looking but prone to be slippery. In some places I have to use a passing place to let a larger vehicle get past me.

 

I come again to my point that surely safe transport for primary school kids is something the council needs to afford far more than airport buses on Sundays to which I will add late night drinkers buses and indeed all the blue buses the council has running around Lerwick. Yes I know that is social services money not education but maybe that is one of the things wrong with the way councils work these days. Too many pots of money.

 

But of course if some of you think that dressing up an 8yo child in waterproofs and sending them on an hours walk to school in all weathers is acceptable then maybe you would like to explain your logic to the first parent whose child is killed in an accident on the way to school.

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How come it isn't acceptable for school children to be on roads on their way to school but some school children play on roads during school holidays?
Who says it is?. Where are these children?. Lock them up at once. And their parents.

 

Seriously there is a difference between playing on bits of roads near their homes and having to cover a longish distance twice a day during the school term. Rarely see any children on the single track road near me and then only on days with reasonable weather.

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^ The point I'm trying to make is that children do play on quiet roads during the school holidays. Car drivers are aware that there are children in the vicinity.

 

Accidents occur and probably have occurred here in Shetland involving school children even when there are school buses.

 

As yet, this doesn't appear to be a Shetland-wide cut regarding school buses and for all we know, with regard to this particular bus route, it could be affecting 5, 10 or 30 pupils - we don't know. Now how many of those children do actually live the maximum distance away from the school?

 

To be honest, whilst the maximum speed limit may apply, how many cars (and also bear in mind the frequency/amount of vehicular traffic) do actually travel at 60mph on the stretches of road concerned? Many single track roads, not only have pot holes, but have these great big wool-covered things with horns on at the side of the roads that, more often than not, have this rather 'cute' habit of just wandering into the path of your motor rendering it impossible to go above 10mph, suffer acutely from 'selective deafness' upon sounding your horn ... you get my point?

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are you serious they dont even slow down for a 14 hand horse with two folks walking it. they are often driving at 50 around us. it would be very unhealthy for kids to play on the circuit.

 

yes there are not many at skeld but if you think this is just our school they nrver work like that. one at a time. they are good at this they have had lots of practice.

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I think the telling thing here is the prevailing attitude that it's up to the Council, rather than the parent, to get their child to school. We've heard trotted out 'wait till a child gets killed' and 'I'll just not send them to school, so there', and various mad exaggerations about the danger of the roads - it's the overdependent emotional blackmail that the SIC has become beholden to by giving in to it over and over again through the years. What we're not hearing is what you, the parents are going to do for yourselves. One argument in favour of keeping these tiny schools open is that bairns can walk to school. If that no longer applies, it is yet another good reason to close them, and not keep them open for the sake of petulant parents.

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I think the telling thing here is the prevailing attitude that it's up to the Council, rather than the parent, to get their child to school. We've heard trotted out 'wait till a child gets killed' and 'I'll just not send them to school, so there', and various mad exaggerations about the danger of the roads - it's the overdependent emotional blackmail that the SIC has become beholden to by giving in to it over and over again through the years. What we're not hearing is what you, the parents are going to do for yourselves. One argument in favour of keeping these tiny schools open is that bairns can walk to school. If that no longer applies, it is yet another good reason to close them, and not keep them open for the sake of petulant parents.

another lerwick voice i assume.

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I think the telling thing here is the prevailing attitude that it's up to the Council, rather than the parent, to get their child to school. We've heard trotted out 'wait till a child gets killed' and 'I'll just not send them to school, so there', and various mad exaggerations about the danger of the roads - it's the overdependent emotional blackmail that the SIC has become beholden to by giving in to it over and over again through the years. What we're not hearing is what you, the parents are going to do for yourselves. One argument in favour of keeping these tiny schools open is that bairns can walk to school. If that no longer applies, it is yet another good reason to close them, and not keep them open for the sake of petulant parents.

another lerwick voice i assume.

 

Yes I would imagine so as it is a voice of sense and reason

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Perhaps you should consider yourselves lucky that you are only losing a bus service to your school. Many areas have lost their schools, and by the looks of it there will a few more closed before the cuts are over.

At least your children will get home every night, and not have to move to the Hostel through the week, only getting home at the weekend.

A sensible option will be for all the parents to get together and organise their own transport to and from the school.

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1.2.3 Comprehensive guidance on school transport is provided in the Scottish Executive's school transport guidance, Circular 7/2003. The current applicable legislation is the Education (Scotland) Act 1980 (as amended). Section 42(4) of that Act on school attendance sets out maximum distances which children can be expected to walk to school:

 

children under 8 years of age - maximum 2 miles; and

 

all other pupils - maximum 3 miles.

 

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2007/03/16091028/2

 

Best take it up with Tavish, the ole SIC are after all only "obeying orders".

 

Seriously though, calling 'foul' on here isn't going to change much, this policy pre-dates the late 60's at the very least, and has caused swords to be crossed previously. The SIC wouldn't shift back then, as it would have involved a policy change, or at the very least have created a precedent that would likely ended up in an enforced policy change.

 

When the new Ness school opened in '69 it created a situation whereby the bairns living within the catchment area of the old Boddam School had their travelling distance increased significantly but it still remained less than 3 miles (just, for many), and almost all of it on the two lane relatively "fast" main road from Robin's Brae to where Mainland's shop now is, a chunk of which is extremely exposed to all wind directions in winter, as it is elevated. Back then it was not the nice smooth flowing straight it is now, with pavements and streetlights everywhere that it is now. It had had a number tight bends taken out, but it still had a blind crest and a hidden dip, varied in width significantly and the verges were minimal and heavily chewed in many places.

 

Meetings were held with the then ZCC Education bods, involving numerous parents many of whom were not reluctant to tell them in no uncertain terms just what they thought of the plan, but they wouldn't shift. After a period of stalemate during which the "threat" of refusing to send their kids to the "new" school because of the dangers of the stretch of road in question were made by some parents, the bus operator who had obtained the contract to run the Bigton bairns, all of whom had well over 3 miles travel, volunteered that the bus they'd be using would have spare capacity, and they were willing to transport the bairns within the old Boddam catchment area on the Bigton loop as long as they were running with spare capacity to do so, which parents accepted as a reluctant compromise, could stand unless and until circumstances changed.

 

Point I'm making, the SIC has only ever transported bairns living closer than the statutory distances as a goodwill gesture, and if times are harder for the authority (they had aways been by the time '69 rolled along), they aren't noted for stocking much in the goodwill department. So, it seems to me having a word with the transport operator who will be driving the same route anyway having come from further afield, if there is one, and seeing if they too like their '69 colleagues would be willing to take a few more as a "goodwill gesture". Or, failing that, offer to pay then a reasonable "fare" if they'll take them, after all a one or two mile trip each way when they're going anyway, how much can it possibly be? Or, if there's nothing from further afield using the same route, do as beachcaster and possibly others have already mentioned, look at clubbing together with everyone involved, and either create an informal arrangement for all to go in one trip, or hire a taxi, minibus or whatever and split the hire cost.

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