Helping to improve discipline in Schools
New guidance has been published by the Department of Education on helping to improve discipline in schools. Quite a change in tone (with emphasis on good behaviour and respect and appropriate use of force) although much of it is a summation of earlier guidance (reducing the page count from over 600 to just 52, apparently). The Guidance covers a number of areas:
· ensuring good behaviour
· searching pupils
· the use of reasonable force
· schools behaviour policy and powers to discipline
· dealing with allegations of abuse against staff
One area that has always been a source of some contention is the power of the Head to discipline pupils where misconduct has happened outside of School. The general view is that the power is limited and has to used where the misconduct is closely connected to the School. So, for example, if children get into a fight on the way home from School then the Head can discipline. Alternatively, if they were caught shoplifting on a Saturday morning, then the Head would not have jurisdiction to deal with the matter as a School discipline problem.
The Guidance suggest that the jurisdiction of the Head may be wider than originally thought suggesting that if the pupil is in school uniform or identified with the School in some way or acts in a way that affects the reputation of the School then a Head could impose the School’s disciplinary sanctions.
EH -v- Kent CC (2011)
In Special Needs cases where parents want their child to go to a different school than the local authority, the issue often boils down to one of costs. Where the costs between the respective placements are small, then parents should be permitted to send their child the school of their choice subject to the issue of suitability.
Much litigation has been expended on how you calculate the costs of the placements – with parents seeking to inflate the costs of the maintained provision and local authorities seeking to minimise them.
The Kent case provides a provides a useful summary of the arguments in the case law in this area restating, firstly, that it is only the additional cost of provision which can be taken into account when making the comparison. (So, if a taxi was transporting other children to the School then the addition of another child would not be an additional costs because the expenditure would be incurred in any event.)
Secondly, the case confirmed that the Local Authority budget arrangements for an individual school was the appropriate starting point for calculations of comparable costs. Where these made provision for the payment of the Age Weighted Pupil Unit (the amount of delegated budget each School gets for each pupil) then that figure, together with any additional therapy or transport costs, would be the basis of the calculation for the purposes of a tribunal.
SG -v- St Gregory’s Catholic Science College (2011)
School uniform disputes continue unabated. In this case Mr Justice Collins determined that the school uniform policy was discriminatory where it barred a child from having a ‘corn-row’ hairstyle. There are two interesting points in the judgment. Firstly, the Judge found that social customs can form part of ethnicity. The School had argued that the corn-row hairstyle was not linked to any aspect of ethnic origin and the Judge rejected that point.
The second issue was that the School argued that if the uniform policy was discriminatory it could be justified on the grounds that distinctive haircuts can bring conflict into the school when they are linked to gang identities. The Judge accepted that but indicated that the School could make an exception to the policy in relation to a given style where there was a genuine cultural and family practice which made conformity with the policy impossible.
R(G) -v- Governors of X School (2011)
This case concerned the disciplinary proceedings in relation to a teacher. Earlier Court of Appeal authority had established that where a doctor had been before a disciplinary panel then he was entitled to legal representation because, so held the Court of Appeal, the impact of the decision could be a career-ending type decision and this would breach his Article 6 rights.
In the G case the Supreme Court rejected that argument indicating that where a teacher had been before a disciplinary panel it was not that panel that was determining the teacher’s future career, rather the appropriate regulatory body would determine whether that teacher worked in the future or not. Accordingly there was no right to legal representation at disciplinary proceedings
Consultation: School Admissions and Appeals Code
The Department of Education is proposing changes to school admissions and school appeals. The highlights included changing the Admissions Code 2009 to give schools greater ability to increase their published admission number; to ensure service children and multiple birth children could be added to the list of children that may be accepted over the statutory limit of 30; academies and free schools being entitled to give priorities to children which attract the pupil premium and schools being entitled to give priority to children of school staff as part of the over subscription of criteria.
Changes to the Appeal Code also included moving to a three stage process of determining:
1. The lawfulness and correct application of the arrangements.
2. Whether prejudices arise.
3. The panel balancing the respective arguments.
which seems to be in line with the case law on the matter.
Revised Health and Safety guidance for Schools
In the same vein as the Behaviour guidance, the new guidance for Health and Safety in schools has been stripped down to its common sense minimum. Again, the tone is interesting – advising schools to encourage children to get involved in activities and learn to manage risk themselves. Also suggesting that a risk assessment is not necessary in every scenario that children might be involved with. Guidance here.
