After the story of the 3-year-old child who had been left all day on a bus outside her child-care centre, one newspaper reports that there have been at least 68 similar incidents in the past five years. It's terrifying and, clearly, we might expect more in the future.
In about 1976, when I was working at Friends Junior School in Hobart, I received a 'phone call just after school closed asking if I would drive the school bus that afternoon to take a group of children back to Kingston, south of the city. The normal driver had called in sick and I was the only member of staff who had the appropriate licence.
I turned up to the Senior School where the bus parked and asked for a list of the children. There was no list, nor a map of the route; the usual driver knew where all the kids went and, anyway, the older children looked after the younger ones. There was a mixture of ages, from 3 years to about 13.
We set off and everything went smoothly. The last boy to be dropped off was eager to show me the way and I was soon on my way back up the highway. When I arrived back, I checked the bus for rubbish and found a small child asleep on the back seat. It could have been disastrous but the parents had already been on the 'phone asking where she was and I was soon back on the road to take her home.
Luckily, the situation never arose again but I was adamant that I would never do a similar trip without a map and a list that I could tick off.
CORRECTION: In a recent post I suggested we have been in this unit for 33 months; f course, it's only 21. Old age, I think.
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