TEACHERS, pupils and parents are hoping a busy road outside a special school is made safer.

Uplands School wants to see the 60mph speed limit on Tadpole Lane reduced, or more signs put up to warn drivers.

Uplands teacher Lorna Breslin said drivers often tried to overtake cars and minibuses turning into the school campus, which it shares with fellow special school Brimble Hill on the North Swindon Learning Campus.

She said near misses were a weekly occurrence and pupils, who all have severe learning difficulties, had to be kept away from the road for safety.

She said: "The speed limit is 30 further down the road but the stretch of road which passes the entrance to the campus is the national speed limit, so you can imagine how dangerous this is when transporting pupils and students with severe and profound multiple learning difficulties in the back of the minibuses, some of them wheelchair users.

"Some motorists seem oblivious to the fact our school entrance is where it is, even though there is signage directly opposite to say it's there.

"When the minibuses and cars indicate to turn into the campus, some impatient motorists speed along the road and instead of slowing down, they just pull out and overtake just as we are turning on to oncoming traffic on the other side of the road."

Teachers and pupils at the school are appealing to drivers in Tadpole Lane to slow down as part of National Road Safety Week this week.

Staff have also been appealing to the council to make changes to improve safety on the road.

Lorna has compiled a log of every incident to help the council understand the scale of the problem.

"There have been quite a few near misses," she said. "We try to make sure the children don't go near the road, but because we take pupils for off-site activities, there could easily be a crash when we are coming back.

"Some of our pupils are in wheelchairs that have to be at the back of the bus. If a car was coming up the road and hit into the back the injuries could be quite nasty.

"And with the weather turning wintry the chances of an accident are even greater.

"We asked for temporary measures, but the council didn't think there was any point as they were hoping to make a decision soon.

We are asking drivers to take a bit of extra care until then."

Coun Peter Greenhalgh, Swindon Council's cabinet member for planning, highways and transport, said the council had been aware of concerns with the road before it received the petition and had already been liaising with the school's governing body.

He said Tadpole Lane was among a set of roads having their speed limits reviewed and that junction warning signs on the approach to the school entrance and increased signage had been installed in the meantime.