To refuse to pay school fees having withdrawn my dc because..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

`"trained, qualified form teacher"

This part is irrelevant. Independent schools, free schools and academies do not have to employ qualified teachers. Most do, but they don't legally have to.

"in our view, the school is to blame for our decision to withdraw them because they failed to provide adequate pastoral care and there is evidence of serious failings in the management and pastoral system of the school."

So - you need to find where in the contract this comes under and build a case for yourself around that, with full evidence.

As you are so sure of the strength of your case, then 'see you in Court' is your way ahead.

But I hope you don't completely ignore the posters who have pointed out the (potential) weaknesses in your case.

The school should have a work-around for an underperforming teacher who they are managing out. That those circumstances have arisen is not in itself a breach. The timelines of when you complained about what, whether you could have given notice in a timely fashion, what remedies were put in place and whether these were given a fair chance, whether/when you eventually completed the grievance procedure (eg going to governors and/or inspecting body) and what they found; all see etchings will matter.

One email - the school will be able to say it was a genuine missed email. You need the paper trail to build a case.

It isn't enough to just say how you felt.

It has to be a proper breach of contract. Legally not morally.

OK Hula.

Also have the whole of dts' file. With documents and no response. And correspondence that has not been in the file but should have been.

Meditrina, the irony is that we had had no problem with the teacher until and except for the fact that he simply didn't fulfil this aspect of his job which was then evidently not done adequately by anyone.

It is exactly this evidence you need to keep and work on then. Build your case and highlight which aspects of the actual contract you feel the school have broken.

If school see you have all this written don and the case built and that you can say to them you will see this through to the end, including court, then they are more likely to come to a compromise.

I mean this teacher was perfectly competent but made a catastrophic, career ending error of judgment. I think the fact that the deputy head covered it up and that the head didn't know and initially denied it are also sackable offences.

Good advice Hula. It is a big decision whether it's worth the stress to pursue. And how it would be perceived which is why I'm here. Think next stage is to try to put everything together for a response.

Thanks very much all. Off for the evening now.

The head teacher did not know who was providing care for these children? How do you even know these children werent left unattended at any point? Is that safe?

On the other hand, the school said we would get a particular class teacher and we didn't. It is also in breach of its anti-bullying policy. This is surely evidence of failings in pastoral care and management.

Maybe, but that doesn't necessarily constitute a breach of contract. Unless the school's lawyers are dingbats, the contract will allow them to vary which teacher runs any given activity. And any contract for a complex service like education will allow a certain level of underperformance without breaching the contract. Think of an employment contract: it may well specify that you have to turn up at 9 am but, if you're half an hour late twice in 6 months, would you expect to be sacked?

I'm sure everyone sympathises with your irritation and frustration at what has happened but, if you're asking whether the law is on your side, the answer is probably not. And I doubt that the school will let it go as they will then have everyone else in your DCs' form wanting to be let off their fees too. I think you would be wise to contact a solicitor and look at reaching a settlement with the school.

NB As someone else said up thread, this is not about who is in the right morally; it's about what the law says. The quickest way to lose a lot of money in a really stressful way is to confuse the two.

this is not about who is in the right morally; it's about what the law says. The quickest way to lose a lot of money in a really stressful way is to confuse the two

Very well put.

Loads of tas fulfil the role of a form tutor? Why would you need to be informed? It's not a teaching role? In fact independent schools don't have to have any qualified staff. Yadbu.

maddy the OP has explained numerous times that while TAs took the refister nobody fulfilled the pastoral aspects of the form tutor's job.

*register

But the head of year will have fulfilled the pastoral role

The OP said the pastoral role was not fulfilled by anyone, least of all head of year. Different concerns were handed off to different members of staff such that pastoral care was not be provided as no one had sight of the whole picture. Parents were kept in the dark about who was dealing with issues and some issues were, apparently, not dealt with at all.

But that is just hear say. There is no way a school would be able to ignore pastoral roles. It's just wouldn't happen. Sorry to sound doubting but it honestly wouldn't. I have working in I do schools and stae schools. The powers that be prioritise the pastoral side over everything. The op may be misguided here.

To simply assert that no school can fail to provide adequate pastoral care seems absurd on the face of it, and far more hearsay than the OP recounting her experience of the incident she is asking about. Whole schools are marked down by ofstead for having inadequate pastoral care, so of course it is possible for one class. It may be that what the OP experienced would not reach the definition of inadequate in everyone's opinion, but that is different from telling her that something happened that you have no evidence of.

Trouble is while there may have been breeches of internal policy and indeed communication , these are not necessarily relevant to the fact that you have broken the terms of the contract , typically to give a full term's notice or pay in lieu. Terms can be varied by mutual consent but by not following through your complaint to the governors (and you could have still done that having withdrawn your children) you have forgone that opportunity. Your issues about safeguarding, ongoing unaddressed bullying etc may be of interest to whoever inspects ie . ISI or Ofsted if we are talking Early Years, or in serious instances your council Child Protection/Safeguarding team, but this is separate to the legal situation.

"BoomBoomsCousin Thu 15-May-14 22:20:21
The OP said the pastoral role was not fulfilled by anyone,"

The OP said that one email was not answered. That is not the same thing.

From the OP "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". bluestrawhat went into more detail further down the thread.

But there is never only one person responsible for bullying issues in a school . If there was no response from form tutor then you would pursue it higher through the routes outlined in the policy, as would the children - as bluestraw appears to have done. If it were that serious you would visit the school anyway.

Sounds very much like OP wasn't expecting a bill when she walked away and is now clutching at straws to avoid being out of pocket. I would be very surprised if the school agree that a change of form tutor counts as dereliction of their duty of care. I started this year with one tutor group and moved to another because the school wanted stronger tutors with yr 11s. The parents of my original yr 9 group were not informed.

The OP has said her understanding of the pastoral care system was that the form teacher was the point person - much like a key worker in a nursery might be. That parents treated the form teacher as though she were the person responsible for pastoral care and we're not disabused of that idea, but that there was no point person who had knowledge and direct responsibility for that pastoral role. She provided the example of bullying and said that various issues were passed off to different staff people, but that the teacher did not act as the lead person responsible for the children's pastoral care, rather no one acted in this role. She goes on to say that the head did not know of this but on discovering it agreed it was not acceptable.

Now you could say that this isn't what happened, that the school actually hired the Archbishop of Canterbury to come in to make up for the form teacher not fulfilling that role. Or you could claim that the TA or some other teacher picked up the role and became the go to person with oversight of the whole situation. But if you read the OP's posts that isn't the situation she described.