The reason that this was such a dramatic change was simple and was revealed in a recent survey of minibus use in primary and secondary schools.

Details are given below, but in summary it can be said that two issues have revolutionised the whole nature of minibus use, and from there the whole nature of learning outside the classroom.

These two issues are the leasing of minibuses and the sharing of minibuses.

First, the leasing of minibuses means that schools do not have to spend years raising money through voluntary donations by parents, fetes, and the like. All that is needed is to arrange a regular sum of money to be set aside each month - with the PTA and other organisations that generously offer their support to the school topping up the fund as and when they can.

Second, sharing of minibuses has become common in some parts of the country - and is gradually being explored throughout much of the UK. In this way two schools may fund 50% of the minibus and have the use of it for 50% of the time. In other cases one school may ask another for the use of the bus one day a week, for specific activities, obviously paying 20% of the cost.

With the lease covering the costs of servicing, etc, all matters related to keeping the bus on the road are already covered.

The second School Minibus Survey was conducted in the summer of 2015 and involved school site managers, school business managers, and selected heads of teaching departments in secondary schools. (The first survey was undertaken in 2012.)

As might be expected the results showed a growth in the number of minibuses being operated by schools and a significant rise in the number of schools that are leasing rather than buying their minibuses, although there is still a sizeable minority (around one third of respondents) who say that they have looked at leasing but decided against it. This is perhaps not too surprising as not every leasing contract on offer is specifically related to the needs of schools.

Among secondary schools it is most common for the school to operate two or three minibuses – around half of the schools completing the questionnaire having this number. In round figures a quarter of schools had more than three minibuses and a quarter had just one minibus.

But as we anticipated, the most dramatic change we found was in the growth of leased minibuses. Just under a quarter of schools now have both a leased and a purchased minibus, and around one in five schools only has leased minibuses – a significant growth in leasing from three years previously.

These figures firmly suggest that as minibuses reach the end of their lifespan, so schools are turning away from the notion of raising funds through the PTA or through a loan, and are instead obtaining a new bus through leasing.

This is indeed an interesting and many would say welcome trend, for this survey, as with its predecessor, showed that three out of four school minibuses on the road are over five years old.

While driving a car that is over five years old is, of course, not a problem, with a minibus this is a more significant issue. Minibuses can be driven by a variety of people, and the reporting of a minor issue (which can later turn into a major issue) tends to be far less common when a vehicle is used by several drivers as opposed to when one is responsible for one’s own vehicle.

Thus the chances of a breakdown or a failure to pass an MOT test are enhanced in older minibuses, leading to far greater consequences than would occur if it were a car that broke down or failed its test.

Perhaps the most worrying feature of the survey comes from the fact that, although so many minibuses are reaching the latter part of their reliable lifespan, getting on for half the schools that replied had no plans for replacing their minibus.

However, where there were plans for replacing a minibus, by far the most common route is now leasing. Indeed three times as many schools are now planning to lease their next minibus as opposed to buying it. Buying a second hand minibus is an option being considered only by a tiny minority of schools.

When asked what the school minibus was used for, four separate reasons dominated the replies, each with similar levels of response: taking students to other educational sites, taking students to sporting activities, departmental visits to places of interest, taking students to events related to music and other arts.

While the government in England fully supports the notion of Learning Outside the Classroom, and while it is a compulsory part of the curriculum in Scotland, the use of minibuses within such a programme within schools was perceived to be low.

However, over three quarters of respondents said that the school would benefit from having at least one more minibus – which suggests that it may well be the lack of ready-to-use transport that is holding back the widespread adoption of Learning Outside the Classroom programmes which enhance exam results, confidence and social skills among students, as research regularly shows.

Clearly leasing is helping schools to expand their minibus fleet and to a certain extent to remove their reliance on older vehicles. However, we can also see that some leasing packages on offer are clearly perceived within a minority of schools as not meeting the needs of the school as it seeks to extend or replace part of their fleet of minibuses.