Lawyers within the Education Pastoral team specialise in all areas of education law impacting on the management of the educational establishment's relationships with parents and pupils.
Veale Wasbrough Vizards clients include independent schools, nurseries and early years providers, special schools, maintained sector schools (including academies and trust schools) as well as further education and higher education institutions.
On contentious matters our lawyers have considerable experience dealing with:
- the resolution of disputes and critical incident management, including liaising with the press
- OFSTED
- the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI)
- the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF)
- the Learning and Skills Council
- local authority departments.
Such cases may involve child protection, sexual or drugs offences, cyber-bullying, and serious pupil assaults which can be extremely resource intensive for the school.
We also provide bespoke and niche advice on all aspects of:
- admissions
- discipline and expulsions
- child protection
- special educational needs
- disability discrimination - including preparation of complex disability discrimination defences
- parents' and students' complaints
- regulation and inspection
- human rights
- judicial review.
For almost 25 years, the team has continually developed specialist template agreements, policies and procedures which pave the way for models of best practice and excellence within nurseries, schools and colleges. These documents include the flagship Veale Wasbrough Vizards Parent Contract, which is now used by over 700 independent schools throughout Great Britain. Our contract is sufficiently robust to withstand scrutiny by the courts and provides schools with the leverage that is required in complex cases such as pupil expulsion and the recovery of unpaid school fees.
Our comprehensive templates include the mandatory documents required by OFSTED, ISI and the DCSF for registration and inspection. These documents comprise of regulatory policies on: admissions, child protection, statutory complaints, disability accessibility, anti-bullying, school trips, discipline and behaviour and first aid. Complementary policies cover drugs and substance misuse, the use and abuse of information technology, data protection, together with policies on special educational needs and expulsion, removal and Governors' review. Our template documents are frequently reviewed to ensure compliance with legal developments and best practice.
Our template bursary policy enables charitable schools to fulfil the Charity Commission's public benefit test requirements. Some clients instruct our lawyers to conduct an annual review of their policies and procedures to ensure they are operating to high standards, which can result in "outstanding" ratings on inspection.
For further information please contact Yvonne Spencer
