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Islington Tribune - by PETER GRUNER
Published: 24 October 2008

Deputy headteacher Danny Coyle

‘Put conductors on buses at peak times’

Plea from teachers who escort pupils after school

AN Archway secondary school which chaperones homeward-bound pupils to buses has called for the return of peak-time conductors to prevent rowdy behaviour.
Teachers at St Aloysius’ College – where murdered schoolboy Martin Dinnegan was a pupil – say that, while they supervise children in the streets, there is always potential for trouble on crowded buses.
The call for morning and evening bus conductors has won backing from Town Hall Labour group leader Councillor Catherine West, who is to press the case with London Mayor Boris Johnston.
After school at least six teachers escort pupils from the Hornsey Lane school down Highgate Hill to Archway in a scheme that has been operating for two-and-a-half years.
Deputy head Danny Coyle said: “Archway is not a particularly nice area, although it is improving. We make sure our pupils get safely on the buses and trains.
“We walk with the boys down Highgate Hill and Archway Road and are with them until the whole of our green blazer fraternity has dispersed.”
Many pupils, who come from all over London, need to take buses and trains to get home.
But Mr Coyle is worried that bus operators are not taking their responsibilities seriously.
He said: “When I was a child if there was an incident on the buses a conductor would sort it out. We are told there are undercover policemen working on the buses but no one knows who they are.
“The problem is that bus drivers stay behind a glass screen and don’t get involved if there is trouble.”
Mr Coyle said teachers regularly board buses when they are crowded to supervise children.
“You get silliness on the buses and we try to shepherd our children to go upstairs so that at least members of the public can go downstairs,” he said.
“We don’t mind doing it but it is not my job. The driver, or better still a conductor, should be doing this.”
He added: “I’m not saying our children are angels but they behave because we are there walking with them. If we weren’t there I expect we would get bother not so much from our pupils but from other youths in the area.
“At the moment we work with the police and the bad guys don’t come up here any more. There’s no easy pickings for them – and if anyone messes around they know we’ll get them.”
Cllr West thought that peak-time bus conductors were a “first-rate idea”.
She said: “Transport for London could employ conductors to work between 7am and 9am and from 3pm to 5pm, which are peak times.
“Properly trained conductors would make sense.”

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