Exclusion - school breaching policy

[Mallenstreak]

Bit of a long story. Ds has SEN (BESD)with statement and we felt that after Sats HT would try and exclude him as she had threatened him with it a couple of times.We had a call last week to state he was excluded following 3 incidents. We feel all these would have been avoided if his needs were being met and have a history of complaints with school failing to do what they should so have submitted another complaint. Deputy dealt with all the incidents but HT signed letter. According to exclusion policy HT has to undertake full investigation and allow pupil to give their version of events - exclusion should not be decided in the 'heat of the moment'. We now realise that the 3rd incident happened at around 10.25-10.30 am and we received 'phone call to advise at 10.40. There is no way HT could have investigated this and also she did not ask ds what happened, just took the deputies version of events. Does this mean exclusion is illegal? Would add that they advised us it would be a day and half external exclusion then changed it to the same days but internal then back-tracked ut to just an afternoon internal exclusion. Any advice appreciated.

It is certainly not how a school should be handling exclusions.
An internal exclusion is not a formal exclusion as such, it is simply an internal school mechanism for poor behaviour, so i do not think that you can term the exclusion illegal because it does not exist.
However I do think that you have a good case for a formal complaint around the rather swift decision making and the fact that they have clearly not taken into consideration your sons SEN statement, plus the ever changing punishment. The complaint as it is effectively about the headteacher needs to be addressed to the Chair of Governors.

Thanks Admission. I have sent complaint to the Chair (I am gov.myself) so will see what develops.

THe letter given is not even correctly worded. It says that he would be excluded for the rest of that day and not allowed on school premises. Also said that work would be given and needed to be returned for marking (this only applies for exclusions over 1 day). Think they back-tracked after we complained and told them there was no way we could take time off work. They knew I was going away for an interview that day and this had to be cancelled leaving us several hundred pounds out of pocket for rail fares and hotel.