MADAM,

I might have been alarmed by children denied access to the school bus, had I not seen the age of the pupils. The article said they had been using the school bus service for three years so being organised enough to remember bus passes should not have been difficult and if it is, then parents need to check such things before the children leave their home. Perhaps a simple case of human error but pupils are more likely to learn from mistakes if it causes a problem for them.

One can hardly be described as stranded in Trellech, given that the village has a school, surgery, shop and public house where at least one of them would have been able to provide assistance in the event of poor mobile reception. If remembering mobile phones is no problem then why should bus passes be one?

Perhaps they had also remembered to have money on them and could have caught a service bus albeit arriving later in school and perhaps not having so much to spend on lunch. Thinking of solutions to a problem, which was of their own making, would have been a very useful educational exercise in itself encouraging independence and self-reliance.

(Name and address supplied)