This appeal case centred around whether a local education authority has a minimum legal obligation to provide all children with an effective education, taking account of their special needs and regardless of the demands that this has on resources.A’s case raised the following important issue of principle. Does A2P1 impose a minimum obligation to provide a child with an education that is effective having regard to his special needs, regardless of the demands that this makes on resources? A argued ...
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This is an appeal from the Court of Appeal of Northern Ireland. The issue is whether a pupil was unlawfully suspended from his school in County Antrim. The appellant brought proceedings for judicial review, contending that his suspension was unlawful and denied him the right to education guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights, contrary to the Human Rights Act 1998.The Court was unanimous in holding that the suspension did not amount to a denial of the right to education guaranteed ...
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Parental Wishes – Funding Arrangements - Section 9 and Section 348(2) of the Education Act 1996
S, a young girl with cerebral palsy, had been educated at an independent non-maintained school since an early age. The parents, and the school, wished her to complete her primary education at the school by remaining there for two more years until her transfer to secondary education. The appellate local authority wished to amend the child’s Statement to specify a publicly-maintained school which it believed would be able to meet her special educational needs.In accordance with section 9 of the Ed ...
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The issue was whether the phrase in s28B of Disability Discrimination Act 1995 Act that a body “discriminates against a disabled person if…for a reason which relates to his disability, it treats him less favourably than it treats or would treat others to whom that reason does not or would not apply…” was to be interpreted in the same way as the House of Lords interpreted the same phrase in another section of the Act in London Borough of Lewisham v Malcolm [2008] U ...
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A 12 year old boy with Asperger’s Syndrome began proceedings for libel and slander after his school’s headmaster had wrongly claimed that the police had arrested the boy at his father’s house for violent and dangerous behaviour. The claim was included in a written report prepared by the head as part of his evidence to support a decision to exclude the boy from school. At a hearing before a statutory appeal panel the headmaster amplified the claim by stating that others had witn ...
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School Transport
A fairly rare example of the High Court disagreeing with a decision by SENDIST: The Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal had erred in law in concluding that the provision by a local authority of school transport to a disabled pupil at a later time than usual to enable him to attend after-school activities would amount to the provision of an "auxiliary aid or service" within the exception to the duties in the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 s.28C(2)(b) and s.28G(3)(b) of the Act, ...
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The decision in this case calls into question the correctness of the reasoning in Novacold on the proper approach to the statutory comparator in cases of disability discrimination. In the education context the decision is likely to have significant implications for parents bringing claims of disability discrimination on behalf of their children. Mr. Malcolm had sub-let his Council flat in breach of the express terms of his tenancy agreement with Lewisham at a time when his schizophrenia was not ...
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In two recent reported decisions parents have sought unsuccessfully to compel their local authority to place their child in residential schools for care reasons as well as educational considerations.In R (H) v London Borough of Barnet [2008] EWHC 1294 (Admin) a mother, who had health needs of her own, considered that her son – a 15 year old boy who had been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome - should be accommodated in a residential school for both his benefit and her own. She sought to challeng ...
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This case raised the question whether a local authority is entitled to refuse to comply with a direction of SENDIST on the basis that it considered that to do so would be adverse to the welfare of the child. The appeal also revisited the issue of the rights of appeal to SENDIST of the natural parents of a child in care.HELD: (1) Section 22 of the Children Act 1989 was general. The educational best interests of a child, where that child had special educational needs, were to be dealt with, in the ...
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The Local Authority had failed to comply with a direction made by SENDIST to make the child available for assessment by both a psychologist and a speech and language therapist. It did so, on the grounds that such assessment would, in the circumstances of his case, be intrusive, unnecessary and abusive. The authority stated that to do so would conflict with its general duty, by section 22 Children Act 1989, to promote the welfare of children in its care. HELD: Parliament had set up speci ...
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