Sorting the Buses: A Victory for St Bonaventure’s Community Organising Team

First published in April 2020 on 

The Iron Rule: A blog about power, organising, institutions, faith and social justice

The Students on their trip to the TFL Main Control Centre

Sorting the Buses: A Victory for St Bonaventure’s Community Organising Team

For around 6 years, St Bonaventure’s school, a Catholic School in Forest Gate East London had tried to engage our local bus companies to sort out an issue with one of our local bus routes. The buses sometimes departed early (meaning students missed the bus), or late, or just didn’t turn up. Only one bus would stop and so it became very overcrowded at times.

The route is a school service that picks up students from our school, and our sister girls’ school, St Angela’s. However the published departure time for the bus that started nearest us was 3.30pm – just 5 minutes after the end of school. The other two buses that started at St Angela’s were already packed when they departed and didn’t stop as they went past. Tomas, one of our students on the organising team, used to have to run outside straight after school and he still often missed the bus along with many others.

After an extensive listening campaign with our newly formed Year 8 organising team in autumn 2018, it was clear that many students felt anxious about their journeys home due to a variety of reasons, grooming, fear of assault as in winter it gets very dark and more.The 678 bus came up a number of times as an issue. 

The 13 year old students then planned their meeting and invited in the Engagement Manager from Stagecoach London and a TFL Partnership Advisor. However when they arrived they were quite shocked that Tomas, a Year 8 student was chairing and leading the meeting, he welcomed them, explained who he was and offered them a seat. 

They listened to the problems and promised to come to the bus stop to see what happens in action. They quickly agreed there was a problem and would find a solution. They proposed alterations to the timetable so that drivers would not leave as quickly, and address the departures from St Angela’s so that students who missed the first bus would be picked up. The bus leaves just 5 mins later so Tomas doesn’t have to run for it anymore.

The students also got a clear understanding of how TFL works – the very high cost of adding a new bus, why timetable changes need to take time, and how the services are run and monitored. TFL invited them to visit the main control centre in Southwark which was an incredible experience for the students. 

Since this initial meeting, there have been far few problems with this bus route. Students are happier and more confident knowing they will get home safely.

We have also developed our relationship with TFL and are now involved with their STARS ambassador scheme. After years of the school trying to fix the issue, by getting students involved, they were able to articulate their issue with real authenticity, demand a quick and suitable fix, and continue to monitor and feedback on the changes.

They have developed a skill set and expertise way beyond their years. They have learnt how to run meetings with professional adults, making requests, and following up on these. They have been organised, strategic and uncompromising (but reasonable) in their asks! Telling their own story and articulating why this is important to them has enabled them to build meaningful relationships and bring about change.

This is a fantastic example of why community organising is an important part of our school life and why we work with Citizens UK. The win here is small but, negotiating positive change is a life skill, one that may well be transferable when young people are faced with housing, employment or any other issue students face in later life. They are change makers, determined to improve their lives and that of their communities.

100 Ideas: RE

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Back in March 2019, I met with Chloe from Bloomsbury to start work on a plan for this book... just over a year later the book has been published (May 2020) and I have been overwhelmed with the response. Thank you to every single person who has purchased a copy - I hope you enjoy it, and find it useful.

I had worked out a clear idea in my own head about what I did, and did not want to do with this book. I wanted it be filled with the things that would genuinely improve classroom practice in RE. I wanted to avoid fads, gimmicks, things that generated the wrong kind of "engagement". I wanted to look at the best ways to teach certain things.  I also wanted to share some of the things that I have found really effective in my 15 years in the RE classroom.  

However, I was also aware that the way I teach RE will not work for everyone. I reflected carefully upon the fact that most of my lessons would fit the Tom Sherrington / Barak Rosenshine model of review and recap, questioning and modelling, followed by practice. However I am also certain that all of these things can be done in different ways. Just because we do something, doesn't mean we do it well, or in the most effective way - and I've always included myself in that.

As such, I reached out to the RE community and listened carefully to what people thought should be in the book, what should be avoided, and what would give the book a universal appeal. Therefore I do hope this book genuinely has something for everyone, both those new to teaching RE - and those who have been doing it for a while. It was brilliant to see the first Amazon review that said, "[it] reminded of some past gems that I have not done for a while and [I was] inspired by some new ideas to use.".

A few weeks before actual publication date, I tried to generate a bit of discussion about the best bits of RE with a couple of competitions - both on Twitter and Save RE (Facebook group). As with a competition I had co-run previously for copies of my GCSE quiz book (<here>), I didn't really want to a "Likes & RTs" kind of thing, so I asked a simple question - about teacher's favourite things to teach in RE and I loved reading all the responses - check them out <here>. RE is a great subject - we get to teach some amazing things to young people in our classrooms:

On a personal level, I am genuinely humbled to have been asked to write this book. The RE community is genuinely like a family - there are frequent squabbles, a few vested interests, some little cliques, but equally a lot of people who care deeply and genuinely want to make RE better. When Mary Myatt described the book as a "gift to the RE community", I was quite overwhelmed. It was exactly what I set out to do - to give something back - and for that to be recognised made the many (many) hours writing worthwhile. It was great to hear Tom Bennett liked it and felt it deserved a big audience. 

The week of the book's release, I decided to do a short "virtual book launch". If you want to me talk about the book for 30 minutes, you can do so here:

Finally, one of the most amazing things was the number of people who took a picture of the book and tagged me on Twitter... I've saved them all! For me, it was reassurance that this book was getting out into the world, particularly during this strange time of lock-down. Thank you to every single one of you who bought this book, and keep the photos coming!