Our Community - Our Future

Buses…..

Being a headteacher can be a strange existence at time. We have this amazing, huge, complicated job with many moving parts, and we spend a lot of time and effort trying to clarify complex situations and steer our schools on a steady and sensible path. But on other days we get obsessed by small things. Often with me it’s toilets, a subject I never dreamed I would spend so much of my working life thinking about. Sometimes it’s the weather that takes over, but this term it’s the buses. I mentioned this briefly last week, but if your child catches a school bus there is a chance that something has gone wrong at least once since we came back in January. The Bee Network took over the school bus services this term and it’s an understatement to say that they are having some teething issues. I am sure they are working hard to fix them, but the service so far has not been good enough. We have had:

  1. Many late buses, often over 30 minutes late both in the morning and the afternoon. In particular the 844 in the morning has been very badly impacted, as have the 806 and 808 in the afternoon.
  2. Buses not turning up at all, despite appearing to be on their way on the apps and then vanishing without trace. Or, as happened this week, school being informed that an afternoon bus was not going to arrive at all and then turning up 10 minutes after the poor kids had all left to walk home.
  3. Buses getting lost on the way to and from school, and relying on our students to direct them. Some have stayed on the bus well past their stops on the way home to help the drivers work out where to go.

I don’t underestimate how complicated it must be to run a bus network and I am sure that colleagues at the network are working flat out. But, the service at the moment is not good enough. As a school we have raised numerous complaints, and you can see a copy of the response here. I’m glad that they acknowledge the issue, but I’m not sure there’s a recognition about how much this is disrupting children’s education. If you’d like, then parents and carers are welcome to also complain via this email address: hello@beenetwork.com

As you know I’m proud of our school and all the staff and students in it, and the hard work and effort that so many put into doing their best every day. School isn’t always easy and we’re good at overcoming challenges where we need to, but being able to get here and then home again shouldn’t be one of them.

Have a great weekend when it comes,

Joe Barker

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Marple Hall School
Hill Top Drive
Marple
Stockport SK6 6LB Headteacher: Mr Joe Barker
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