can a school refuse to release a child to parent

[oldstudentmum]

My child dc2 had appointment at dr after school hours, however I would need to take my other young child dc1 with us. dc2 finishes 10 mins earlier than dc1. the surgery were so nice managing to give me the appointment however the time was a mere 10 mins after dc2 official end time. so I left a message with school that I would be pickin up dc2 10 mins early in order to attend appointment.
Well I turned up at school to be told that they would not release my young child to me as it wasn't dc2 appointment WTF.
what is the legal stand on this a school refusing to release a child to a parent.

I cant respond with the law - prh47bridge clearly knows their law very well.

but I can say that interpretation of the law is not widely used in schools. Certainly advice from the local authority legal team is not to refuse to release a child (with a few exceptions which don't include 10 mins off to take a child to the doctor)

Op aren’t you glad you asked

But the school has rights over the child by virtue of the parents' conferring those rights

No, that is wrong. Parents don't have to send their child to school. They can provide a full-time education in some other way. However, once they have registered a child of compulsory school age at school the relevant law gives the school a number of rights that trump the parents' rights. For example, the school's right to discipline pupils comes from legislation and is not dependant on parental consent. The parents cannot withdraw the school's right to discipline their child.

youarenotkiddingme - A school cannot prevent a child leaving the premises at lunchtime. That is somewhat different to the child leaving during lessons as the child is leaving between the two sessions, not part way through a session. And a school that tried to manipulate attendance statistics by getting children to attend registration but then leave would be in trouble if Ofsted found out.

Certainly advice from the local authority legal team is not to refuse to release a child

In general, the problem schools face is the non-resident parent turning up at the end of the day and demanding to take the child rather than a parent turning up part way through the afternoon session.

Prh you're missing my point. Which is a shame because your a bloody god of school related law!
If a child had an appointment in the morning and the parents sent them in for morning registration but needed to collect at 10am for an appointment - if the school felt they wouldn't return for afternoon registration and had the right to refuse them leaving - parents will start to keep them off for the whole day. That will affect attendance figures.

I can totally understand the 'law' part of them having the 'right' to refuse. But it's a right to refuse - not an order to refuse.

It's worrying when we are getting to the point that parents with PR are having the freedom to make sensible and necessary decisions for the right of all family removed.

Common sense needs to prevail at some points.

we specifically sought advice for this sort of scenario as it happens a lot. Indeed we have this type of request at least weekly.

On a thread in Legal Matters, asking about the law, it's not terribly helpful if people weigh in with (no doubt sincere) opinions or things they've picked up on Google.

ha ha - probably not.

OP you could always ring up the Education Welfare team for your area and ask their opinion. They will be part of the local authority responsible for attendance in your area.

The law is clear.

HT do have the right to refuse but it's not the law they should refuse. It's also not commonly good practice or LA policy for schools to run such dictatorships.

Parents are encouraged to make appointments out of school time.

It's becoming far too much of a dictatorship when children cannot miss the end of day goodbye and coat out of point scoring and point making for something that has no bearing on attendance stats or their education.

I wish their was a law insisting all humans used Common sense

youarekiddingme - I see what you are getting at now.

You are correct that the school has the right to refuse to allow a parent to take a child out during the school day but it doesn't have to refuse.

If it had been me I wouldn't have acted as the OP's school have assuming we know all the relevant facts. I would have allowed her to take her child on this occasion but made it clear that she needs to make appropriate arrangements to avoid this kind of thing happening in the future. By acting as they have they have damaged their relationship with her unnecessarily.

easier said than done getting and appointment after school. You have to ring at the point where you are on the school run getting dc to school on time for registration. (misses point of thread)

interesting law discussion though.

prh47bridge - thanks babe.

School had been informed of appointment. However, left it til I was rushing to get kids and get to appointment on time. They were VERY unhelpful. what annoys me it was 10 mins at end of day - she already had bag etc as did all the other kids in school they were sat in assembly listening to music! not in class.

Yes they have damaged the relationship now.

My youngest has a lot of appoointments at hospital due to have big op in future. In the past I have always arranged school holiday time (cant do after school lol total no go area in to town to hospitals at that time unless you are a ambulance) however I have found it difficult to take two along with me. I will not be doing that again! I wont be rearranging appointments again if its school then sod it.

Schools calling children in for registration then letting them leave immediately happens a lot. I offer paediatric appointments and get annoyed with schools attitude to absence for appointments.

Next time I'd say ok then I'll be back for her at 6pm!

Sorry but at someone saying 'babe' to prh!

I know titchy - I have such a clear mental image of prh and "babe" doesn't fit at all !!!!!

I remember having g such a conversation with DS1 school, I said I'd either pick up 10 minutes early or 1.5 hrs late! They decided on the slightly earlier pick up. However they did suggest that if it were the latter they may phone social services as the child would be 'abandoned' I then pointed out that as I'd offered already to PT k up early that wouldn't be the case.

As a qualified legal person and parent I can clarify that those with parental responsibility have the final say always unless a court as decided otherwise. It's very clear and simple. That is why parents have to give permission for everything from school trips to vaccinations. Unless the child was in danger of harm a school cannot overrule a parent's parental responsibility. The school might not like it and there might be complaints made about the parent but whether the school like it or not it cannot typically stop a parent collecting a child from school early. A school is an education provider it has no parental responsibility or ordinarily a court order empowering it to be able to refuse a parent to take their child out of school early, although as I said above if they felt it necessary they certainly might put in a complaint or attempt to keep the child at the school if they felt the child would be at risk of harm but beyond this sorry no.

Ignoring the fact that this thread is three years old, if you really are legally qualified and know the relevant law you would know that the fact a child is enrolled at a school gives the school rights that are not dependant on parental consent. Yes, separate permission is needed for school trips and vaccinations. However, no parental consent is required to discipline a child, for example. If a parent says they do not consent to the school disciplining their child or to the school requiring their child to obey certain rules the school would be entitled to ignore them. Those with PR do not always have the final say.

Parental responsibility gives parents the right to receive information, participate in statutory activities, be informed about meetings involving their child and be asked to give consent where that is required. It does not give parents carte blanche to disrupt the management of the school by deciding to ignore the start and end times of the school sessions.

Cheers babe

@prh47bridge

Can you show the legislation that confirms this please

There is a whole pile of legislation that confirms it. The School Standards and Framework Act section 61 gives the head teacher wide powers to make and enforce rules. The Education Act 1996 requires pupils of school age to be in full-time education, not full-time less a bit when the parents feel they need to take the children out of school because it is inconvenient. And so on.

Once the school day is over the school would be in trouble if it failed to release a child to someone with PR. During school hours it is the school's decision whether or not to release the child.

Hi -- reading this 3 years later and I simply can't see anything in The School Standards and Framework Act section 61 that gives a school powers to enforce rules or overrule parental rights. At most I can't see how this could be result in anything more than the child being marked as having taken an unauthorised absence. I don't believe the DfE has a legal definition for "Full-time education" although some government departments seem to loosely define it as 18 or even 12 hours per 7-day week.

Section 61(4) gives the head unfettered powers to determine measures to be taken to, amongst other things, promote proper regard for authority and otherwise regulate the conduct of pupils. It is well established that this overrules parental rights in some circumstances. The school does not need permission from the parents to keep the child in school for a detention, for example. There is, in contrast, nothing in law that gives parents any right to remove their child from school part way through a session. Given that a school can refuse to release a child to the parents after the school day has finished if the child is in detention, I struggle to see any way the courts would back a parent who wanted to remove their child part way through a session.

@prh47bridge “unfettered”? Well certainly not. The Education and Inspections Act 2006 (as does the legislation you quoted) make clear that a head can impose sanctions including after school detentions, even weekend detentions. However, such sanctions have to be reasonable and take account of various factors (timing, child’s travel arrangements, SEN etc). The school also needs to give the parent 24 hour written notice of any intended detention outside of normal school time. However, and most importantly, how does this bear any relationship to a parent removing a child from school 10 minutes before the end of the day or at any time for that matter? It’s neither a behaviour or a “authority” issue. At most it would be an unauthorised absence, generally at a parent’s request and not covered by a school’s behaviour policy.

Schools do not have to give parents notice of detentions outside normal school time. That changed a few years ago. See www.gov.uk/school-discipline-exclusions

A parent removing a child from school is arguably not showing proper regard for authority.

I am not aware of anyone taking a case to court but, if they did, I would expect the school to win unless the refusal was unreasonable.

So tradi g between the lines, does this mean that the HT can say no legally to releasing the child early, but if mum comes in, goes in the class, grabs her child and leaves, there's nothing they can do legally and the police wouldn't arrest mum?

Unless of course there's a welfare concern.