Safeguarding on school buses: checks, registers and rules

The bus is the part of the school day with the least oversight. A group of children sits with one or two adults, away from any teacher.

In many international schools the driver and monitor work for a separate bus company. They may speak a different first language from the children, and a substitute can arrive without warning.

Your school still answers for the children's safety, whoever employs the crew. The International Taskforce on Child Protection (ITFCP) expects contractors to get regular safeguarding training.

The World Health Organization (WHO) lists road traffic injuries as the leading cause of death for people aged 5 to 29. Seat belts and calm behaviour rules belong in the same plan.

Run the checks you would run for a teacher. The ITFCP safer recruitment checklist is a good base. It asks for identity checks, references and criminal record checks for each country where the person lived for six months or more in the past ten years, where possible.

In England, Department for Education (DfE) guidance asks councils to run an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check on school transport drivers and passenger assistants. The check includes the children's barred list. It is written for English councils, so check what applies in your country.

Ask the bus company for a file on each person, and follow the steps in safer recruitment for international schools. Look for these items.

• Photo identity and driving licence, seen and logged by the school.
• Police or criminal record certificates for each country that counts.
• Two references, with a question about working with children.
• Written confirmation from the bus company that every check is done.
• A named list of approved substitutes, so nobody arrives unchecked.
• A signed code of conduct and a record of safeguarding training.

Put safeguarding in the contract. Ask for the right to see the checks, to approve every driver and monitor, and to have a person removed from your route when you ask.

Add a duty to tell you the same day about any complaint, accident or allegation involving your children. Agree that no substitute drives your route until you approve them.

Then go and see. Ride one route at the start of term, meet the crew, and check that the register, code of conduct and emergency card are on the bus. The rules for any contractor on your campus apply here too.

Give every route a named list of children and stops. The monitor ticks each child on at the stop, counts again on arrival, and hands the list to a named adult at the gate.

In the afternoon the same list works in reverse. A child is ticked on at school and ticked off at the stop, in front of the adult who collects them.

Before locking up, the driver and monitor walk the whole bus and check every seat and the floor. A sleeping child is easy to miss. Do this after every run.

Name one person in the school office to match each route list against daily attendance. A child who is on the list, did not board and has no absence note triggers a call to the parent before first lesson.

Keep lists to names, stops and essential numbers, and keep them out of messaging groups.

Write one rule and use it for every child. A child leaves the bus only to an adult named on the list, or alone if a parent agreed in writing and your policy allows it. The age for travelling alone differs by country, so check local law.

If nobody is at the stop, the child stays on the bus. The monitor phones the parent, then the school. The child is never left alone at the roadside or dropped at another address.

Changes of collector go through the school office only. Give the crew a standard reply, such as: "I can only hand over to the adults on my list. Please call the school office."

The monitor stays on the bus until the last child leaves, so no child is alone with the driver. If a route has no monitor, ask your designated safeguarding lead (DSL) to risk-assess it. Nobody on the crew gives lifts or gifts, or contacts a child by phone.

Treat the bus as part of school in your behaviour policy. Give children and parents the bus rules in writing, in the languages families use.

The DfE guidance asks for clear seat belt rules, and says some councils found seating plans and older student "bus prefects" helpful. It lists pushing, bullying, distracting the driver and refusing a seat belt as unacceptable.

A monitor needs to know when a rule break becomes a safeguarding concern. Pushing in the queue is a behaviour matter. Sexual comments, unwanted touching, filming other children or picking on one child day after day belong with the DSL.

The crew never shout at, hit or shame a child, and never remove one from the bus mid-route. They report to the school the same day, and the school applies any sanction.

If your buses have cameras or tracking, tell families, decide who can view the footage and for how long, and check local data law.

Give the crew the same simple rule as teachers. They write down what they saw or heard, in plain words, and tell the DSL the same day. Keeping children safe in education (KCSIE) asks all staff to report concerns to the DSL or deputy without delay.

Put it on a card in the crew's own language, with the DSL's number. "If a child tells you something worrying, listen, do not promise to keep it secret, and call the DSL today."

Follow your school's child protection procedure. If a child is in immediate danger, call local emergency services first, then the DSL. Your country may add legal reporting duties, so read about mandatory reporting laws.

A worry about a driver or monitor goes to the DSL before anyone at the bus company. See safeguarding training for non-teaching staff for how to brief people outside classrooms.

Write this procedure before you need it, and rehearse it each year. Keep it to one page that a monitor can read in a hurry.

Cover three cases: a child who did not board, a child who cannot be found on the bus, and a child who got off at the wrong stop. When the crew calls, they say: "Route 4, one child missing, last seen at the school gate at 15:10, the others are safe."

• Count again and search the bus: seats, floor and luggage space. Never leave the other children alone.
• Call the school's named transport lead and keep the line open.
• The school checks the register and attendance, finds the last sighting, and phones the parents.
• Tell the DSL and the Head at once.
• Call local emergency services at the time limit your procedure sets, or straight away if there is any sign of danger.
• Log times, names and actions as they happen.
• Afterwards, meet the family in person and review the procedure.