To refuse to pay school fees having withdrawn my dc because..

[bluestrawhat]

the person we were told would be the dcs' form teacher did not actually perform this role and instead left the class with a TA. This happened for 7 months without parents being informed and without the knowledge of the head teacher but with the knowledge of the deputy head. Mean time pastoral issues have been passed on by the supposed class teacher variously to other members of staff and TAs and there has been bullying which we think has not been dealt with adequately because the children are not clear who their form teacher actually is. Having tried to deal with these issues and received an apology from the head but not from the other teachers involved we decided to move schools and have not paid fees which the school is now pursuing. What is our position? TIA

I guess if the head agreed it wasn't acceptable then the situation was going to be resolved and the proper teacher would have now been taking the form?

But you withdrew dd anyway?

Were the bullying and pastoral concerns made by you and abut your child?
Do you have a paper trail of your contact with school?
Did you follow ALL grievance procedures according to your contract?
Was your child put at risk or danger, or were they not safe, whilst at the school under their care?

Morally I don't think you are being unreasonable in paying up until they left. In reality though, it'll come down to contracts' law, whether they or you broke the terms of the contract first - get legal advice

'Presumably you had no pastoral issues otherwise you would have found out before 7 months had passed.'

There WERE issues which were passed on and were or weren't dealt with by other staff members. Things came to a head when these issues i.e. bullying were continuing and it emerged that the form teacher was not actually doing that job.

You need to be very clear in your reasons for not paying, with a paper trail to back up what you are saying.

Is it the fact that a TA was left in charge? Or would it have been an issue if it had been another teacher?

Or is it the pastoral issue?

Or something else?

The form teacher was made to resume his role but by this point it was clear that there were also problems at management level i.e. how was it possible for the head not to know who was supervising the form and how was it possible for the deputy head to know but not to pass on this information to his line manager or parents. At this point we could not have confidence in the managemetn or pastoral system of the school. This is bearing in mind that the same teacher was reinstated after 7 months of not doing the job and not seeing this as a problem.

Did the school tell you that the problems with the form teacher had been resolved and wouldn't happen again? If so I think yes, YABU in not giving the proper notice and/or paying up to take the children out earlier than contracted.

Yabu you should pay your fees

'Were the bullying and pastoral concerns made by you and abut your child?'

Yes. Other parents had similar concerns. It would probably be possible to get evidence of this.

Do you have a paper trail of your contact with school?

Oh yes.

Did you follow ALL grievance procedures according to your contract?
Yes. But withdrew children before going to governors.

Was your child put at risk or danger, or were they not safe, whilst at the school under their care?'

It's hard to know. There was at least one example where we raised a concern about the dts being bullied and there was no response. This is in breach of the school's anti bullying policy. It is very likely that there was no response because the cocnern was raised with the class teacher who was not actually fulfilling this role.

I think you do need to be very clear on your actual reason for leaving and have that paper trail of evidence.

Your posts do sound to swap and change the reasons why you left.

If this went to court you would need to have this much clearer in your head and be able to back it all up, showing evidence of your contact with school.

Part of your issue may be that you didn't take it to the Governors, so did not follow all grievance procedures.

As I said before - the school may well take it to court. Many have done. They need to show others that they will, else others may simply choose not to pay either.

Do you mean the named teacher was not dong the job, or that the job was not being done?

And have you an email trail from all your discussions with the school at that time?

This isn't going to be about whether the school is any good. It will be about whether you can demonstrate a prior breach sufficient to mean you need not fulfil tyour contractual obligations. Have you got a contemporaneous paper trail?

You will need to consult a lawyer experienced in contract law (ideally with schools related experience). But remember that as teachers can have absences or altered duties at any point, it is really unlikely that the fact of her change of duties will be even close to sufficient. And I expect that failure to inform, though lamentable, is far from adequate too.

'oh, but the bullying wasn't dealt with' and 'the pastoral care wasn't good' are the stock excuses of those who are trying it on. It is vital to have good contemporaneous evidence to show why your case is different.

'You need to be very clear in your reasons for not paying, with a paper trail to back up what you are saying.

Is it the fact that a TA was left in charge? Or would it have been an issue if it had been another teacher?

Or is it the pastoral issue?

Or something else?'

All of the above really.

The form teacher made the decision to give up his responsibilities without the permission or knowledge of his line manager. Parents weren't informed.

If the school had told parents that the class was being taken by a ta that would have been ok. But parents were never informed.

I don't really understand why you didn't just give the one terms notice and then move. I am not sure the concerns you have raised doing severe enough to warrant withholding I would imagine several thousand pounds. Has anyone else withdrawn their child? Also, do you have any reason to believe the TAs were not competent enough to perform a pastoral role? I know at my daughters independent school that the TA's are all extremely capable, mature, well educated ladies who have worked for many years in education.

"Did you follow ALL grievance procedures according to your contract?
Yes. But withdrew children before going to governors."

Sadly - the answer is therefore NO. You did not follow all of the grievance procedure.

Therefore, if it went to court you would need to provide clear and ideally some evidence as to why you felt the need to remove your children before finishing the procedures, and why you did not give notice of this.

You may also find that although the court may find in favour for the one child affected, it may well then disagree with you regarding your other child - presumably in a different class.

You really do need to be very very clear.

The head didn't know this was going on. The deputy head did know and chose not to pass it on. How can this be anything other than incompetence?

Parents were not getting the service they were promised.

If the head and parents didn't know how the pastroal system was working then it wasn't working but also it wasn't working because our concerns were not addressed.

If it goes further it will be about contract law over anything else.

Can you clarify: when you say you withdrew DC before going to the governors, do you mean you had to withdraw because if sustained thread (evidenced, I hope in emails etc) and then went to the governors? (So have evidence if how they considered the matter)

Or does it mean you have bever taken this to the governors?

'Do you mean the named teacher was not dong the job, or that the job was not being done?'

Both.

And have you an email trail from all your discussions with the school at that time?

Yes. Everything documented.

'You will need to consult a lawyer experienced in contract law (ideally with schools related experience). But remember that as teachers can have absences or altered duties at any point, it is really unlikely that the fact of her change of duties will be even close to sufficient. And I expect that failure to inform, though lamentable, is far from adequate too.

'oh, but the bullying wasn't dealt with' and 'the pastoral care wasn't good' are the stock excuses of those who are trying it on. It is vital to have good contemporaneous evidence to show why your case is different.'

I would say the fact that the school is in breach of its anti-bullying policy by not replying to one of our allegations at all. And the fact that the head didn't know what was going on and apologised makes it different.

The form teacher abdicated his responsibilities but the head didn't know and the deputy head didn't see it as a problem though the head did an didn't pass it on.

We were seriously concerned about the failings in management and pastoral care so removed dts as soon as a place was available. We did not get to the point of bringing the complaints to the governors as assumed it would be easier to make a clean breast of it.

Depends on the competency of the deputy head! I certainly don't tell my manager all the in's and outs of operational issues effecting my project in work. I also don't expect the head of the junior school at my daughters school to be telling the over all head every detail unless there was a real issue or concern. I am not sure this is worthy of note if the TA was competent to fulfill the role. Yes, they should have communicated better, but not sure that is serious enough for complete withdrawal alone.

You need to go through your contract with the school very clearly.

Form tutors quite often have that role taken off them & re-assigned - I know of several incidences of a form tutor being asked to take on an additional whole school responsibility & their form being delegated to, say, an NQT who would not normally take on a form.

It's unusual for a TA to take over that role but perfectly legal if the school is private - they don't need to employ qualified teachers & could hire, well, anyone who passed a CRB check, basically, to act as form tutor.

The lack of communication is obviously crap, but I seriously doubt it amounts to a breach of contract that justifies you withholding fees you owe as your side of the contractual obligations.

I would have thought that a member of staff not fulfilling his duties as a form teacher without the consent or knowledge of the head or parents was serious. The head recognized this as a problem.

Being asked to take on different responsibilities by a manager is one thing. Giving up a significant part of your job without permission is another.

It may well be a serious internal matter, but that doesn't mean it is always a serious external matter.

It also doesn't mean that is always going to be a breach of contract between school and parent.

Whether you think something is or isnt right morally is irrelevant if it goes to court tbh. It is whether it is right or wrong legally that is the issue.

What does the contract between you and school say?