Can any ESF (Kennedy School) parents help?

I have some concerns regarding my daughter, who will be in P1 at KS, taking the school bus.

Can anyone tell me...are Y1 students escorted by their teachers/bus mothers from the classrooms to the doors of the buses when class ends? My reason for asking is that while at the interview few months ago, I noticed that there were a lot of buses and when school was out, kids were wandering out of the school gate not in a very orderly fashion. And to think that kids as young as 5 are expected to be out on the street looking for their bus makes me nervous, especially when mine is the very active type who runs around a lot.

My daughter will have the familiarization day next week at KS and I guess I will get all the info regarding uniforms and school bus then. But if anyone here can share, I'd greatly appreciate your time.

Thanks,

A paranoid mom

Don't worry, the Y1 kids are paired up with a Y6 who is their bus buddy. The Y6 child, will come to their classroom and walk with them to the bus. This happens for the first few weeks of school. After which the kids know who else is on the bus from their class and they tend to walk over together.

Thanks for your reply. Much appreciated.

hi bbky
you aren't paranoid at all! the concept of sending your child on the bus for the first time is daunting.

wednesday should alleviate a lot of our fears. elspeth penny, who handles adminstration for the pta will make a presentation to parents and explain a bit about buses.

each bus also has a bus mother, who has a list of students who are on the bus each day. every day the bus mother goes into the pta office to pick up messages like - anjali peters from bus three is sick today, won't be on the bus, so the bus mum knows not to expect anjali. however, if any kids aren't accounted for and are not on the bus, the bus won't move.

as well, all kids have "bag tags" according to whether they are "walkers" or "bussers". kids who take the buses can only exit from one gate, and there are teachers posted at the gate who will stop and re-direct the kids if they somehow veer away from their year six buddy and try to take another exit.

hope this helps and see you wednesday!

dimsum mum,

Thank you much for your detailed reply. I really appreciate it. Do you have a child at KS already or one going there this year? My daughter will be in class 1C, how about yours?

Actually, my daughter is currently taking the school bus to Woodland every day so it won't be her first time. But because the routine at Woodland is a little different whereby there are 4-5 teachers at the entrance along with 2-3 teachers walking the bussers out in a file and the bus is only a few steps from the entrance, I'm not as nervous.

With KS, however, there are a lot more kids and buses and to not have teachers walk them out kinda freaks me out since my daughter is very playful with her friends and there's a chance that they might run off the curb and into the streets without any grownups watching. I wouldn't mind taking her to school myself but cars and taxis can't even make their way in with all the buses on that narrow street. I do sound paranoid, don't I? It's just so different from what I'm used to in the US.

Anyway, like you said, we'll know more on Wed. See you then!

actually my daughter IS in 1c! (great teacher, by the way!)

i will be helping out at the desk taking cheques for the pta so if you like, we can have a chat.

see you soon.

Great! Look forward to meeting you and your daughter.