While all the schools are closed, and teachers starting to say school won’t re-open until all the teachers are vaccinated it seems that most school services are starting to slow down or stop. GoAhead companies are starting to announce that they are moving to a School Holiday timetable starting on Monday.
morebus & Damory
Firstly, if you rely on the school closed contract service in any way, you should check out this morebus page for specific details of your dedicated school bus. it is (and credit to more) clear and concise and broken down by school.
School Holiday Timetable
In Bournemouth & Poole, more are moving to a school holiday timetable on most town routes, presumably as most of the urban school services are being duplicated by other routes or are indeed duplicates run along an identical route.
Services 5 & 6, 8 & 9, 11, 14, 15, 16 & 17, Breezer 60 are all affected.
Services out to Lymington on X1 and X2, as well as the Bluestar 6, subcontracted by their sister company in Southampton, are also moving to school holiday schedules.
School Day Timetable
More rural routes are sticking to a school day timetable, presumably as there would be more key worker children who would not be able to get to their priority school place. These are also the services that are likely to normally supply more rural schools services that are still required to run, for the opposite reason to above.
Services 10, 20, 24, 38, X3, X6 and X8A are all running School Day timetables.
Variations to the Rule
- 3 will remain on school day timetable with the exception of the 08:25 from Wimborne which will leave at 08:17
- 4 will remain on school day timetable with the exception of the 15:25 from Wimborne which will leave at 15:10 via Allenbourn School
- Damory X12 – the bus at 15:43 from Blandford Rosebank Gardens to Weymouth will revert to the school day departure time of 15:13. Additionally, the bus at 15:25 from Weymouth will revert to its school day timing of 15:10 and run via The Thomas Hardye School in Dorchester and will no longer serve the bus stops at South Station, Brewery Square or Trinity Street.
Bluestar
Firstly to schools dedicated services. Bluestar have opted to suspend all closed-contract schools services, with the exception of ones for St Georges College:
- 306 – Revised route incorporating parts of the 301 & 304 (currently run by another operator) and the 566
- 307 – NEW route to temporarily replace parts of the 302 & 304 (currently run by another operator) serving Sholing, Woolston, Peartree & Bitterne
- 512 – Suspended, please use Bluestar 2 instead
- 566 – Suspended, please use revised school bus 306 instead which will additionally serve Winchester Road
School Holiday Timetables
With almost all schools services being suspended, all Southampton City services on Bluestar which have school day variations, will revert to school holiday schedules.
Those that do not have schools variations, such as Romsey, Hythe and Totton local services, are unchanged.
School Day Timetables
Run by sister company Salisbury Reds, services X7 and X7R towards Totton and Salisbury will continue a school day timetable at least until the end of Friday 22nd January.
Southern Vectis
Southern Vectis are only making changes to dedicated schools buses. Many are suspended, so if you use services to any of the following then you are best to check this page:
- Medina College
- Cowes Enterprise College
- IOW College
- Christ the King & Carisbrooke College
- Island Free School
- Sandown Bay Academy
It’s probably worth noting that it wasn’t necessarily Bluestar’s decision to suspend the school services. They will have been in communication with the schools in question who are paying for the services, and it would have been their decision to suspend.