School children have devised safety tips for their peers.

Pupils at St Philomena’s Catholic High School for Girls in Carshalton investigated the impact of children using buses at the end of a school day.

The girls carried out their research talking to bus drivers, elderly passengers and police officers from Sutton’s Safer Transport Team.

A police spokesman said the girls found police and bus drivers want pupils to use the top deck of buses to avoid crowding the lower deck to prevent elderly passengers from feeling hemmed in.

He said it would reduce the chance of the driver being distracted and help the driver to have an unobstructed view across the entrance platform to the kerb Dave Hannam, Deputy Operations Manager, at the bus garage in Beddington Lane, Croydon, said young people should report an incident of criminal or anti-social behaviour to a driver.

Children that don’t feel they can report the incident at that time, can make a note of the running numbe’ of the bus, which is either on the windscreen in front of the driver or on the window to the right of the front passenger doors – and report the matter to police when they get home.