WHEN THOSE WHO ARE CLOSE LET YOU DOWN

Little Girl moves up to secondary school in September and today was her induction day. As she was the only child attending from her present school, I had made special arrangements with the teacher in charge of the day (who is also a fellow governor and known to me). He had agreed that the bus would pick her up from our village rather than her school which was more convenient for both us and the bus company; confirmed the time as 9.30 am and indicated that all I had to do was get her there.

Last week another teacher from the secondary school visited Little Girl at her present school and confirmed that she would be picked up by bus between 9.15am and 9.30am.

We duly presented ourselves at the appointed place in the village at 9.14 am and, as you will already have guessed, the bus had been at 9am, picked up two other children and then gone without her. I was furious, not least when I was told that the teacher in charge had been on the bus himself!

Well there was no point me driving the 10 miles to the secondary school, as Little Girl was extremely nervous and clearly did not relish the prospect of being dropped off, with no idea as to where to go nor whom to speak to. Whilst I know that it may not have been like that, I had to agree that it seemed far more sensible for me to take her to her present school for the day. From there the Head Teacher, equally as perturbed as me, contacted the secondary school, calmly ,which was not something that I could have done, and cajoled the person she spoke to into getting a member of staff to drive out and collect Little Girl.

It seems that there are times when you can’t even rely on the people you know; they can and do let you down, even when it's unexpected. However, there’s always another good Samaritan ready to step in and offer help, if you let it be known that there’s a problem.