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8. Provision of Travel Assistance

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Provision of Travel Assistance

  1. For children attending school on a daily basis, travel assistance will only be provided for the timetabled beginning and end of the school day. We do not make arrangements for an individual school’s staggered start times, provision of extra-curricular activities such as sports or homework clubs, or to access other childminding arrangements before or after school.

  2. For children attending school on a weekly boarding basis, travel assistance will be provided at the beginning and end of the school week, and before and after other periods of closure only. 

  3. For children boarding on a termly placement where the school is not closed at weekends, travel assistance will be limited to the start and end of the school term, half terms and for periods of whole school closure only. 

  4. Where a child attends planned respite provision, we can arrange for travel assistance to collect or return them to the respite provision. This should be arranged as soon as dates are known, to minimise disruption to other children. 

  5. Any other journeys required will be the responsibility of you, the parent or carer - typical examples are given below (non exhaustive). 

  • Breakfast and After School clubs - travel assistance will not normally be provided to enable children to attend such clubs, which do not form part of the National Curriculum, unless this travel assistance can be provided at no additional cost to the Local Authority; 

  • Attendance at annual reviews or parental meetings - travel assistance will not be provided to enable you to attend such meetings;

  • School trips - schools must notify the Local Authority of any changes to curriculum times to allow for adjustments to be made. Where additional costs are incurred by the Local Authority, such costs must be reimbursed by the school; 

  • Examinations - home to school travel assistance timings may be adjusted to enable early departure from school when your child is undertaking national examinations. However, to avoid unnecessary additional costs, it is expected that such journeys will be coordinated and schools may be asked to retain children for reasonable periods at school after examinations to enable this; 

  • Work experience - travel assistance will not normally be provided to enable young people to attend work experience; 

  • Induction days / observation days / taster days - travel assistance may be made available to allow children to attend Induction (or similar) days at special schools, resourced provision, independent schools and post 16 placements (for young people  in year 11), which the Local Authority is considering naming in the child or young person’s EHC plan; 

  • Curriculum appointments - travel assistance will not be provided to enable you to attend such meetings; 

  • Doctors, dental or hospital appointments - travel assistance times will not be adjusted to enable children to attend such appointments;

  • Clinical, psychiatric or therapy appointments - travel assistance times will not be adjusted to enable children to attend such appointments;

  • Illness - travel assistance will not normally be provided to collect children who are ill at school; 

  • Detention - travel assistance will not be provided to a child home after detentions; 

  • Any other similar circumstance.

Pick up and Drop off arrangements

  1. Transport providers are authorised to make pick-ups and drop-offs at authorised points only. The authorised points will be those specified on the parental agreement letter (in the case of central pick up points / bus journeys, an allocated pick up point or bus stop, otherwise this will typically be the home and school address). 

  2. Transport staff will assist your child to board a vehicle by steadying them, but cannot lift your  child into the vehicle. If your child cannot board without such assistance, consideration must be given to whether they would be more able to travel in a crash-tested wheelchair or similar. It is unlikely that you would be allowed to lift your child into the vehicle as most schools also operate a ‘no lifting’ policy which would cause the child to be unable to exit the vehicle, or to board for the return journey. 

  3. Your child must be handed over to a responsible adult at the authorised point. Drivers and PAs are not permitted to leave your child with any person under 16, or any person who is not an ‘authorised’ adult. You are expected to bring your child to the vehicle/drop-off point (whichever is applicable) in the morning and collect from the vehicle/drop-off point in the afternoon.

  4. Where your child is picked up or dropped-off at home, you are responsible for accompanying them to and from their door to the vehicle. You should keep a lookout for the vehicle’s arrival since the vehicle will not sound its horn. It is against the law to sound a horn from a stationary vehicle except when another road user poses a danger. In exceptional circumstances (for example, where your child travels alone in a taxi with a PA) the PA may call at the door or telephone ahead, although this is at the discretion of the transport crew. Any variation to the usual procedure must be agreed with the controller.  

  5. You must ensure there are no delays in making your child available for the journey (or collecting them in the evenings) as this is one of the main factors affecting total journey times and can have a detrimental effect on how other passengers manage the remainder of their journey. 

  6. You are asked on the application form to provide two alternative addresses, to be used in the event you are unable to be present to meet your child. Any changes to these addresses, whether permanent or temporary, must be communicated in writing to the Council’s Assisted Travel Team who will make the necessary arrangements. Until such communication is received, the only other authorised place will be the nearest place of safety; see below for details. 

Absence from school

  1. Where your child cannot attend school on any particular day, for example due to illness, it is your responsibility to contact the passenger assistant or transport company immediately. For long term absences, you should contact the Assisted Travel Team. 

  2. If your child is transported to school, you should contact your respective transport company the night before travel if you know that your child will be absent from school the following day, or as early as possible on the morning of travel if your child only shows signs of being ill on the day they are due to travel. 

  3. All transport which is not cancelled in advance of the vehicle arriving at the home address must be paid for by the Council whether or not your child boards the vehicle. Where parents repeatedly fail to cancel the provision for their child as a result of the child’s illness before it arrives at the home address, or where a child decides not to travel in transport which has arrived on any given day, without any prior notice having been given to the transport company, the child’s transport provision will be reviewed and may be removed. 

  4. If it can be established that public funds are being used inappropriately, as a result of vehicles not being cancelled with enough prior warning, your child may be excluded from transport for a period of time. You will be responsible for transporting your child during any period of exclusion from transport. 

Place of Safety

  1. In the event that you are unable to meet your child at the specified drop off point at the agreed time, transport providers are instructed to take children to the nearest place of safety. Currently, these places of safety are: 

The Grange Play Centre (for children aged under 12), Beddington Park, London Road, Wallington, SM6 7DT

Tel: 020 8770 4300, 07736 338 532 or 07522 219747

Opening hours: Monday - Friday 2pm - 6pm

OR:

Sutton Family Centre (for children and young people of all ages), Sutton West Centre, Robin Hood Lane, Sutton, SM1 2SD

Telephone: 020 8770 5739

Opening hours: Monday - Friday, 8.30am - 5.30pm

Outside these hours, if the transport provider is unable to contact you or your secondary contact, the transport provider must contact the Sutton Children’s Social Care Emergency Duty Team (out of hours service) on 020 8770 5000. 

  1. Parents, schools and the transport providers will receive instructions from the Council on what to do if the transport provider has to drop your child off at a place of safety. Transport assistance may be withdrawn if this happens frequently. Either you or the school should contact the Assisted Travel Team if there are any emergency changes.  

Severe weather

  1. Overall responsibility for the safe running of the transport service rests with the Assisted Travel Manager. However, it is expected that each transport provider and each school or college will assess local conditions and make decisions based on those conditions and their knowledge of the passengers involved. 

  2. Where schools inform the Assisted Travel Team that the school will be closed, transport to that school will be cancelled. For Sutton schools, and those in many other Local Authorities, the school’s status can be checked online. Check a school's status [External Link].  

  3. In cases of severe weather, where you are advised that transport has been cancelled for your child’s morning journey, you should assume that transport will also be cancelled for your child’s afternoon journey, unless you are advised otherwise. If you decide to take your child to school despite the severe weather, you will also need to arrange to collect your child after school. 

Medication on transport

  1. As part of the service, we require that every driver and passenger assistant is able to respond to an emergency situation. 

  2. There is no expectation that a child’s routine medication will be administered on the journey to and from school, or that routine medical procedures will be carried out (for example, replacing gastrostomy or tracheostomy tubes) . However, drivers and passenger assistants are expected to ensure the health and safety of all children in their care. Drivers and passenger assistants will be first-aid trained. This includes: managing the symptoms of shock; dealing with an unconscious casualty; cardiac arrest and cardiopulmonary resuscitation; choking; and seizures. 

  3. It may sometimes be necessary to administer a child’s emergency medication where the child has a known and pre-existing condition. Emergency medication should be administered in accordance with instructions from a health care professional. The driver or passenger assistant responsible for administering the medication should receive training from a healthcare professional.

  4. If there is a medical or mental health emergency on a vehicle, when someone is seriously ill or injured and their life is at risk, the passenger assistant or driver should call 999. The call handler will decide whether an ambulance is appropriate. It may be safe enough for the child to be seen elsewhere, or the staff can be given telephone advice by a medically trained clinical adviser. An ambulance will be sent if it's a life-threatening emergency.

  5. Where it is assessed to be unsafe for a child with complex or acute medical needs to travel with only a passenger assistant, the Council will seek to provide a medically-trained professional to accompany the child on the vehicle. A risk assessment will be undertaken to ensure the correct level of medical support can be arranged.

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