Permanent Exclusion from School
The law and procedure for appealing against the head teacher’s decision.
Case Study:
Q: I received a letter yesterday from my son’s head teacher, informing me he is permanently excluded for stealing money from a teacher’s handbag. My son denies this offence what should I do?
A: Schools don’t always manage to carry out their investigations properly, so if your son is adamant he did not commit this offence, you should consider appealing against the head teacher’s decision.
Q: What does an appeal involve?
A: There are two stages to an appeal against a permanent exclusion from school:
- Appeal to the governors.
- Appeal to the Independent Appeal Panel.
Many parents are shocked to find that these hearings appear quite formal, despite the best efforts of all involved to make them ‘user-friendly’. You are allowed to take along a friend or legal representative to both of these appeal hearings.
Stage 1 – Appeal to the Governors
Once you have received the head teacher’s decision letter informing you of the permanent exclusion, you should write to the governors within 15 days of the date of the head teacher’s decision, telling them of your wish to appeal.
Prior to the meeting, the governors must circulate the evidence the head teacher used as the basis for permanently excluding your son. This will normally consist of witness statements, maps or diagrams of the school, a history of the school’s ethos, and a breakdown of your son’s previous performance and behaviour within the school. You should also submit a summary of your appeal and any statements you intend to rely upon. If the statements are from other pupils, it is good
practice to refer to the witnesses by their initials rather than identifying them. It might be a good idea to check with the governors the format they would like you to use to prevent identification of witnesses. Before taking witness statements from pupils, you should first obtain consent from their parents.
The governors must invite the head teacher and an officer from the Local Education Authority (LEA) to the meeting. Your son is also entitled to attend and is allowed to have his say.
In each case the governors have to decide on the ‘balance of probabilities’ that the pupil committed the offence. In practice this means that after the governors have considered all the evidence about the theft, they must be satisfied that it is more probable than not that your son committed the offence. The more serious the offence, the more sure the governors should be. If no-one saw your son steal from the handbag, or the evidence is just circumstantial, it would be
hard to see how the governors could conclude that he was the culprit. If your son was elsewhere and has an alibi, it is essential that you provide the governors with a witness statement from the people he was with.
Q: What might the governors decide after the appeal hearing?
A: The governors may decide one of two things:
- To uphold the head teacher’s decision
Or,
- To overturn the head teacher’s decision and reinstate your son by a particular date.
Q: What should I do if my appeal to the governors fails?
A: You should consider pursuing the second part of the appeals process.
Stage 2 – Appeal to the Independent Appeal Panel
You should notify the LEA of your intention to appeal against the governors’ decision, within the time limit outlined in the governors’ decision letter. The appeal panel must meet within 15 school days of the date you register the appeal with the LEA.
The appeal panel will consist of 3 or 5 members, and in addition there must be a clerk. The panel consists of a lay member, an independent governor (or former governor) from another school, and a head teacher (or someone who has previously been), from a maintained school.
The panel must invite the head teacher, a representative from the governors, and an LEA officer. Your son is also entitled to be present and can opt to speak on his own behalf. The venue must be neutral, e.g. a council office meeting room or a small hotel conference room.
At the hearing all parties may put forward new evidence about the incident that led to the exclusion, even if this was not available to the head teacher or governors. However the school may not introduce new reasons for the exclusion at this stage. Witnesses may attend but pupil witnesses should have their parents’ consent. Character evidence, usually in the form of letters or statements may also be submitted.
In reaching their decision, the panel must also make the decision regarding your son’s possible wrong-doing using the same ‘balance of probabilities’ test i.e. it is must be more likely than not that your son committed the offence.
Q: After the hearing, what decisions might the appeal panel make?
A: The appeal panel can make one of 3 decisions:
- A finding that the permanent exclusion was the correct decision
- A conclusion that the permanent exclusion decision was wrong, and the pupil should be reinstated immediately or at some future date
Or
- The permanent exclusion decision was wrong, but for exceptional reasons the pupil should not be reinstated e.g. there has been an irretrievable breakdown in relations between the school and the parents.
Q: What happens if the police become involved?
A: The head teacher is likely to notify the police of the incident and your son will be asked to attend the police station and provide a statement. If your son denies committing the offence to the police, the police may refer he matter to the Crown Prosecution Service for a decision as to whether he should be prosecuted. This decision will be based on the strength of evidence against your son.
Q: Is my son still entitled to receive education, he has GCSEs next year, I am worried that he will miss too much work?
A: Whilst your appeal is ongoing, the school must send your son work home and this must be marked. The standard of work set must enable him to continue his courses of study. If your appeal fails, government guidance requires the LEA to provide full-time ‘suitable education’. This does not mean your son will automatically be found a place at another school, education may be delivered in a pupil referral unit.
Q: Do parents have to stay at home while their children are permanently excluded?
A: No, not at the moment, but the government is considering a proposal to force parents to stay at home if their child is excluded from school. In my view this is an unworkable proposal, which places a great deal of pressure on employers, and may discriminate against single parents.