Parent power

How can you protect your school from actions led by parents? Anita Chopra explains how

Independent schools are finding themselves increasingly embroiled in battles with parents over the quality of education provided to their children, failure to comply with policies and procedures, and with debt recovery proceedings for non payment of school fees.

Given that we live in a consumer society that is becoming more litigious as we expect value for money for whatever service we buy. If parents at independent schools do not get they expect, they are less inclined to stay silent and will take the matter up with lawyers.

So what can independent schools do to safeguard against parental complaints?

It is too common a complaint that parents have spent thousands of pounds sending their children to independent schools, to get a high level of education but are disappointed. This could be for a variety of reasons: quality of education, negligence, breach of contractual terms expressed or implied.

In practice, what independent schools often lack are policies and procedures that are made available to parents and – when they are made available – that they are complied with in full. Information can and should be provided to parents through the school’s prospectus, on-site for inspection, within the terms and conditions of the contract or on the school’s website. If policies and procedures are available, they must be in writing. Although independent schools enjoy relative independence in devising the curriculum, how policies are drawn up and what they say, must be fair and comply with the requirements of the Education (Independent School Standards) (England) Regulations 2003, as amended by the 2008 Regulations. It is important that all schools meet standards on which they will be inspected.

How to cope
If a complaint is registered with the school, it should ensure that its own policies are complied with and that they are clear and concise. Detailed records should be kept once a complaint is made by a parent, together with what action has been taken and by whom. This should then be communicated to the parent. A main bone of contention for parents is that there is a lack of communication between the school and the parent, information is not made readily available to them and this leads to distrust between the parties.

If a complaint is made by a parent, the school should ensure that its policies are complied with and that the matter is thoroughly investigated.

Challenges brought by parents in matters of removal or exclusion of pupils from school on the basis of procedural unfairness can lead to parents relying on principles analogous to public law and natural justice as it can and has been argued that these are implied in the contract. For that reason, it is important that these schools comply with their own policies and within the rules of fairness, and act fairly and in accordance with good practice in all circumstances.

Sometimes, parents instruct lawyers because they do not believe they have been dealt with fairly on appeal. The appeal procedures at any independent school should set out the constituency of the appeal panel, a reassurance that the members of the panel involved in the appeal will not have had any dealings with the complaint in hand prior to the appeal, and that they will approach the appeal in a fair-minded manner.

Anita Chopra is a partner with Match Solicitors. Anita can be contacted through www.matchsolicitors.com

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