This seems to be common, but is it legal (school/SEN related)

[drspouse]

DS is at a specialist school and broke a laptop screen while "in crisis". School have said we must pay for it.
We are both professionals and we could afford it, we personally use either insurance or replace with really cheap options if things break at home (he's 10 and we are up to about 4 tablets plus 3 TVs but TBF DD broke two of the TVs when a toddler so you can't really blame him for all of that).
We were clearly not in charge of him when he broke it.

Apparently many specialist schools and PRUs require children's parents to pay for broken items. He was previously in a PRU and we were told that children earned money for good behaviour but their school banked money was to be used for breakages. As we have always understood that positive reinforcement works for behaviour issues but negative reinforcement does NOT work, we said we refused to allow this to happen (he never broke anything serious, and earned enough money to buy two of his favourite toy so that was all good).

But is this legal? Can they pursue us? What would they do with a family on benefits?
Thanks in advance.

No they can’t he is Sen and it should be covered under their insurance

Do you have a source/qualifications in this area?
I mean obviously that's what I want to hear but I also need to be able to back it up!

I'd be surprised if they had that level of insurance. The likelihood is if you don't contribute they just have one less computer in his classroom.

I work in SEN Ed and I've never known a parent be charged for broken equipment that has occurred in crisis.

One student destroyed 5 computers in one go many years ago. 🫣

That was an insurance job and a half

It's an independent specialist school. They charge the LEA upwards of £40K for him. They have 5 children maximum per class. I think they can replace one laptop screen.

What type of school do you work in, PRU/SEMH/generic specialist/independent etc.?

I suppose it depends how often they get broken.

Not your responsibility, that's what insurance is for.

Do you have anything I can quote at them?

Ask to see their insurance documents

ask what the staff ratio was at the time?

ask what de escalation techniques were applied?

ask if they have followed his EHCP to the letter at all times.

ask why they weren’t able to prevent it from happening and what they are going to do to ensure it doesn’t happen again

Parental Liability
This brings us on to parental responsibility. How much should parents be made
accountable for their child’s actions? The law in England and Wales states that parents or carers cannot be held responsible for the damage that their children cause.

However, parents may feel a moral obligation towards the injured party. This does not however, mean that parents or carers are personally negligent because they have failed to control their children.

Where the incident occurred in the presence of an adult, it may be that the adult could face partial or full responsibility for the situation.

Where the child was accompanied by an adult at the time of an incident, it may be possible, depending on the scenario to take legal action against the adult, provided that sufficient proof can demonstrate that the adult acted in a neglectful manner by failing to sufficiently control the child.

In fact you could counter argue that any injuries he sustained as potentially legally their responsibility and their potentially could be argued to have not met his needs

but as a starting point I would ask for the insurance documents, the exact staff ratio for the 4 weeks prior to the incident and if the staffing ratios were as recommended by the EHCP and framework within the SEN provision including all times that the ratio was less than that and why

I don't think they can make you pay, but don't be surprised if they use RPI/ move him more frequently/ at an earlier point in future to prevent serious damage to property.

Yet again we have people talking about insurance as if that magically makes liability go away. It doesn't. If you are liable for damage to the school's property, all the school's insurance does is mean you will have to pay the insurer rather than the school.

The question, therefore, is whether the OP is liable. The basic principle is that parents are only liable for their young child's actions if they were able to prevent the incident and failed to do so. In this case the OP was clearly not in any position to prevent the incident. So no, the OP is not liable.

My sons last special achool sent a home school agreement home where I was supposed to sign that i would pay for stuff like this and it even had a clause saying i had to pay for problems caused if my son downloaded a virus on school equipment. i actually crossed sections out and amended the wording on some of it.

I assume you havent signed something like that, although i dont imagine it would be that enforceable.

I think we'll need to see what we've signed again.
They aren't following all the therapy in his EHCP or his academic targets though they have the required ratio.