School fees issue - any advice?

[bluestrawhat]

DTs at independent school. Were told at end of last year name of form teacher. Found out 6 months into the new academic year that this teacher had in fact abandoned his form teacher duties and left them to the TA. When dh queried the situation the school initially denied this was going on, then admitted it and finally apologised. The head teacher claims he didn't know this was going on. The deputy head says he did know this was going on and tried to justify it. In the mean time concerns including concerns about bullying we have raised have been dealt with by different members of staff and in some case there has been no response. All this is documented. As various members of staff continued to defend this situation and dts were unhappy at school we moved them since it was clear the school was not providing adequate pastoral care. We are now being pursued for school fees having not given the required notice. We didn't give notice because we were increasingly concerned about the dts' happiness at the school and the school's ability to provide basic pastoral care. What is our position legally?

Very interesting question. As far as I understand schools have a duty of care and you have entered into a contract with them, they are agreeing to provide a certain standard of education etc. But can you satisfactorily prove that they have not fulfilled their contractual obligations.
A friend (corporate lawyer/senior partner big city law firm) removed her DS after a boarding school (fees then £10 000+ a term) failed to provide an adequate standard of care, the school never pursued her for the fees, but it was a black and white case of neglect, a one off incident and she had the documentation proving it. She also had the resources and knowledge to fight her case through the court if necessary and she made this clear in her parting letter. Do you? Is it worth the fight? If you loose will you be paying more than you owe? Will the school be likely to fight it especially if others feel the same way as it sets a precedence?

It depends on the issues. There was another similar thread here a few days ago. Fundamentally, there is no reason to expect a teacher to be better at being a form tutor than a TA. They have a different contract, but many of the same duties, and who says the TA wasn't more experienced or better suited to the role than the teacher? In itself, this is not a reason for a complaint.