Buses the school owns
Harmony Junior School owns buses. They are not a hired fleet that changes with the week. The school uses them to ferry learners to school in the morning and home in the afternoon, on behalf of parents. The same minibuses carry learners to events and to educational trips. They are driven by experienced drivers.
That is the whole of the published transport policy, and it is enough to plan a family’s morning around. The bus is a school service. The child is in the school’s care from the pickup, not only from the classroom door. The driver is a member of that arrangement, which is why the school describes the drivers as experienced, and why a parent should treat the bus list as seriously as the class register.
Morning and afternoon
The morning run exists so that children from the published areas can be at Mabvazuva before the first bell. Gates open at 7:00. The first bell is at 8:00. The general route is built backward from that: it begins at 6:30 in Damofalls and Zimre Park, and it reaches Mabvazuva Residence Complex between 7:30 and 7:50. The stops, in order, are on the bus route page.
The afternoon run reverses the day. The last bell is at 3:30. Children who are on the bus go home in the school minibus rather than waiting in an uncertain line of cars. If your child is sometimes on the bus and sometimes collected, the office must know which afternoons are which. A child cannot be both on the vehicle and at the gate.
Events and educational trips
The minibuses are also how the school leaves the grounds together. The published line is that the buses are used to transport learners to events and educational trips. A choir performance away from school, a sports fixture, a class outing: when the school goes as a school, these are the vehicles. They are the same buses, and the same standard of driver, as the Monday morning run.
A trip can change the collection time. When it does, the change belongs in a message from the office, not in a rumour at the gate. Keep the phone number you gave the school switched on during the day. The office number, if you need to ask, is 077 690 8490.
Who the service is for
The buses run on behalf of parents. They are a service families use, not a public route that anyone may join at the shopping centre. A place on the bus is arranged with the school. If you are enrolling, ask for transport in the same conversation as the fees structure, because the two are not the same question. Email [email protected] or [email protected] and say where you live, naming the closest published stop if you know it: Damofalls, Zimre Park, Winsor Park, Ruwa Shopping Centre, Mutangadura, or Mabvazuva Residence Complex.
If you live off the published general route, do not assume the bus will divert. Ask. The route page is the route the school has printed. Anything else is a conversation with the office, not a guess.
What parents do
Have the child ready before the pickup time for your stop, not at it. A minibus that waits for one house is late for every house after it, and late into the first bell. Name the child’s bag. The uniform for the day should already be on: the bus is not the place to finish dressing. On Tuesday that is sports attire with the house T-shirt. On Thursday it is sports attire with the golf T-shirt. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday it is school uniform, with home clothes on Friday only for pre-scholars.
Meet the afternoon bus, or have a named adult meet it, at the stop you agreed. Tell the office if a different adult will be there. The school’s duty is to ferry the child safely. The family’s duty is to receive the child.
The route, written out
The general bus route is its own page, because a list of times is what families check on a dark morning, and it should not be buried under this explanation. Open bus route for Damofalls at 6:30 through to Mabvazuva between 7:30 and 7:50. Read this page when you want to know what the service is. Read that page when you want to know where the minibus is.