Supervision Ratios and Seating Plans on a School Charter

NSW departmental policy sets no numeric supervision ratios for K-12. Under Excursions and variations of routine (PD-2005-0290-04), the principal determines staffing, using average class sizes as a guide, informed by the risk assessment. Numeric ratios exist only for public preschools. So the honest answer to “what is the ratio for a school bus” is that your principal decides it. What a transport operator can help with is the seating and supervision plan that makes whatever staffing the principal sets actually work on board.

Where the ratio myth comes from

Search for a school excursion supervision ratio and you will find “one adult to ten primary students” or “one to fifteen secondary” attributed to the NSW Department of Education, frequently on bus company blogs.

Those numbers are not departmental policy. The current policy, PD-2005-0290-04, version 01.1.0 dated 6 May 2025, says the opposite: staffing is determined by the principal, using average class sizes as a guide. The old PD/2004/0010 was consolidated into it on 30 January 2025 and no longer stands, so a school template citing the 2004 policy number is out of date.

This matters practically. If you put a ratio into an excursion file and attribute it to the department, your approver cannot source it, and a ratio that sounds official can crowd out the assessment the policy actually asks for: what this particular group, on this particular trip, needs. If a transport supplier hands you a ratio, treat it as their commercial preference and keep it out of the departmental section of the file.

What determines staffing instead

The policy points to the risk assessment plan, which is mandatory for every planned excursion and takes transport as an express input. In practice the staffing conversation runs through questions like these.

• How many vehicles, and does each vehicle need its own supervising staff on board?
• What is the age and stage of the group, and are year groups mixed?
• What support does any individual student need, including medical, behavioural and accessibility support?
• What happens at the venue, and does the group split there?
• What is the journey length, and are there stops?
• What happens if one adult has to leave the group to deal with an incident?

That last one is the question that usually settles the number. A plan that works only while every adult stays with the group is not a plan.

What the driver is responsible for, and what the school is

Be precise about this with your staff before the day, because the assumption that the driver is a second supervisor causes real problems.

The driver is responsible for driving the vehicle safely and for the vehicle itself. The driver is not a supervisor of your students.

Two NSW rules make the boundary sharper than people expect.

On seatbelts, where belts are fitted, wearing them is mandatory in NSW for every passenger aged 16 or over, and the duty is enforceable against the passenger. NSW did not reproduce the bus-passenger carve-out other states rely on. The NSW driver-responsibility rule expressly excludes bus passengers, so the driver does not commit an adult passenger’s offence. Nobody on the vehicle is going to police belts for you.

On younger children, the enforceable restraint duty for under-16 passengers also sits on the driver and expressly excludes bus passengers. The net effect on a vehicle meeting the Road Rules definition of a bus, meaning more than 12 adult seats including the driver, is that the driver is not required to ensure a child under 7 is in an approved restraint. Read that as a gap in the liability rules rather than as a safety statement. And note the trap in the other direction: there is no equivalent relief on a vehicle seating 12 adults or fewer, which is not a bus for these rules. A small excursion in a 12-seat van sits under different obligations from a coach.

On screening, transport services especially for children are child-related work, so a dedicated school run should be run by a driver holding a current Working With Children Check. Sydney Buses and Coaches states its drivers hold a current Working With Children Check plus a Driver Authority issued by Transport for NSW, and that check numbers can be supplied to a school office before the day. That is a screening credential. It is not a supervision credential.

The seating plan that survives contact with the day

A seating plan is worth the twenty minutes it takes, and it is worth doing before the morning rather than at the kerb.

Work through it in this order.

1. Start with need, not with rows. Any student who needs to be near a door, near an adult, or in an accessible position gets placed first. If any student or staff member needs a hoist, that changes the vehicle, and Sydney Buses and Coaches has wheelchair-equipped vehicles available, but the vehicle has to be booked that way, not requested on the day.
2. Place the adults second. On a full-size coach in the 50 to 57 seat band, spread staff along the length of the vehicle rather than clustering them at the front. The back third of a coach is the part an adult sitting in row two cannot see, hear or reach.
3. Keep one adult free. At least one supervising adult should not be assigned to a specific pastoral group, so there is somebody who can move.
4. Fill the students in named seats. Named, not “Year 9 down the back”. Named seats make the return roll call fast, and the return roll call is the one that matters.
5. Print it twice. One copy per vehicle with the supervising staff member, one in the coordinator’s folder.
6. Use the same plan both ways. Students who sit in the same seat coming home are counted faster and lost less often.

Give the driver a heads-up on anything the driver genuinely needs to know: a student with a medical condition who may need to move, a planned toilet stop, or a group that will be boarding in two waves. Do not hand the driver the pastoral detail.

Splitting a year group across two vehicles

Two vehicles is not one group in two halves. It is two groups that have to arrive, count and leave together.

• Split by pastoral group, not by seat maths. A roll call works when the list matches an existing class list.
• Staff both vehicles independently. Each vehicle needs enough adults to function if the other vehicle is delayed.
• Write the vehicle onto the roll. Each student’s name should sit against a vehicle, and it should be the same vehicle on the way home.
• One coordinator on the ground. Somebody has to hold both headcounts and be the single point of contact with both drivers.
• Count at four points. Leaving school, arriving at the venue, leaving the venue, arriving back at school. The count that catches problems is the one leaving the venue.

Sydney Buses and Coaches sends the driver name, mobile and vehicle registration twenty-four hours before travel. On a two-vehicle job, put both drivers’ numbers into both supervising teachers’ day plans, not just the coordinator’s inbox.

Frequently asked questions

What supervision ratio does NSW require for a school excursion?

There is no numeric ratio for K-12 in NSW departmental policy. The principal determines staffing, using average class sizes as a guide, informed by the excursion risk assessment. Numeric ratios exist only for public preschools, so a K-12 excursion plan should not quote a ratio as departmental policy.

Can the bus driver help supervise students?

No. The driver’s responsibility is the safe operation of the vehicle. Plan your staffing on the assumption that the driver supervises nobody, and brief supervising staff the same way.

Where should supervising staff sit on a coach?

Spread along the vehicle rather than grouped at the front, with at least one adult who is not tied to a particular pastoral group so they can move. On a 50 to 57 seat coach, the back third is the part that needs an adult in it.

Are students required to wear seatbelts on a NSW coach?

Where belts are fitted, passengers aged 16 and over must wear them in NSW, and that obligation is enforceable against the passenger rather than the driver. For younger students the enforceable duty does not extend to bus passengers, which is a gap in the liability rules and not a reason to tell students belts are optional.

Does a seating plan need to go to the driver?

Not the whole plan. Give the driver only what affects the drive: boarding arrangements, planned stops and any student who may need to move during the journey. The pastoral detail stays with the supervising staff.

Next step

If your excursion file still has a ratio in it that came from a supplier blog, take it out and put the staffing decision back where the policy puts it. Then build the seating plan around the vehicle you have actually been allocated.

Sydney Buses and Coaches handles school and excursion transport across Greater Sydney and can supply Working With Children Check numbers, Driver Authority confirmation and the Certificate of Accreditation for your excursion file before the day. Call 02 9469 6600.

Sources

• NSW Department of Education, Excursions and variations of routine (PD-2005-0290-04), https://education.nsw.gov.au/policy-library/policies/pd-2005-0290-04. Accessed 7 September 2026.
• NSW Legislation, Road Rules 2014, Part 16, https://legislation.nsw.gov.au/view/whole/html/inforce/current/sl-2014-0758. Accessed 7 September 2026.
• Transport for NSW, Seatbelts, https://www.transport.nsw.gov.au/roadsafety/topics-tips/seatbelts. Accessed 7 September 2026.
• Office of the Children’s Guardian, Who needs a Working With Children Check, https://ocg.nsw.gov.au/working-children-check/who-needs-check. Accessed 7 September 2026.