A Johannesburg mother has criticised officials at the New Model Primary School in Doornfontein claiming they failed to respond properly to her daughter’s disappearance.

Adelaide Banda’s daughter, Chantal Russell, was found on Thursday, after she took the wrong bus home on her first day of school.

A woman found her and took her to the Brackendowns police station where she spent the night.

Banda said that when she had first informed the school that her daughter had disappeared, they gave her the run-around.

“At first the school’s response, it wasn’t okay to me. I’m reporting my child didn’t get off the bus. The receptionist there tells me, "no," contact so and so, said Banda.

The school has refused to comment.