Guidance on using school transport

If a young person is unwell

The parent or carer should use their judgement to determine whether their young person is well enough to travel in transport provided by Oxfordshire County Council.

For general guidance on sending your young person to school, please see: Attendance.

If you need to speak to someone, please contact your young person’s educational provision or the Supported Transport Service, details of which are below. 

Lost property

If your young person travels on Mainstream Home to School Transport, please contact the transport provider directly. Details can be found on the route timetables page.

If your young person travels on SEN or Social Care Transport please contact the Supported Transport Team, details below.

Bad weather

Please refer to Emergency School Closures page to find out if your school is open.

To find out if your young person’s transport is running please contact the transport provider directly or contact Oxfordshire County Council’s Supported Transport Service. If the transport provider deems the conditions to be hazardous it is at their discretion if they operate the route.

Lost travel pass

If your young person has been issued with a travel pass, they must show it to travel on transport.  If the pass is lost it is the parent/carer’s responsibility to obtain a replacement pass.  For further details, please refer to Replacement School Travel Pass page

Concerns about lone travelling

All drivers and passenger assistants working on Oxfordshire County Council School and Social Care contracts must possess a valid Oxfordshire County Council identification badge.  This is in addition to any taxi/private hire license badge or CPC license for PSV drivers.  The OCC identification badge means that the holder has had enhanced DBS checks suitable for the job role, attended and passed the Safeguarding and Disability Awareness Course, and have signed to the council’s Code of conduct for taxi drivers, passenger assistants and coach driver (pdf format, 214KB) which runs in parallel with the School Transport Code of Conduct (pdf format, 184Kb)

If a young person is absent

If your young person is not travelling due to illness or other reason, please contact Supported Transport Service team (see below) so that the transport can be cancelled.  If calling outside of office hours (8am - 5pm Monday to Thursday and 8am - 4pm on Friday) please contact the transport provider directly and follow up by informing Supported Transport Service.

Making a complaint about transport arrangements

If you are dissatisfied with any aspect of your young person’s transport arrangements, to make a complaint please contact Contracts Compliance Team with the relevant details to enable your complaint to be investigated. You will be notified of the outcome. Please do not contact the transport provider as this may impede a complaint investigation.

Updating an SEN passenger passport 

Please note that the Supported Transport Service no longer reviews Transport Risk Assessments and Passenger Passports every 12 months. 

If a review is required following a change in medication, behaviour or any other change then please email the Transport Risk Assessment Team TransportRiskAssessment@oxfordshire.gov.uk with full details of what has changed. Using the updated information a review will then be undertaken. 

Moving address and changing transport arrangements

If your young person has moved address, they may no longer be entitled to free home to school transport. To see if they may remain eligible please refer to Free home to school travel assistance page. If you cannot find the answer that you are looking for please contact the School Admissions Team

Useful information

School Transport Code of Conduct

Details the responsibilities of Oxfordshire County Council, Drivers and Passenger Assistants, School, Parents/Carers and students/passengers.

• Code of Conduct (pdf format, 185Kb)

Supported Transport Team Contacts

Details the email and phone contact details of all Supported Transport Teams.