contesting private school term notice

[starmix2]

Dear All,
I appreciate your help with an expensive problem. I enrolled my son into a local independent nursery which is part of a school for up to age 11. My intention was really for him to go to the nursery only but to move on state school at school age. He was 4 in September2015 and as a consequence he could not go to government school. I therefore asked for him to be placed in reception with the intention of repeating this year. He has now a place at the local state school where he will repeat reception . The independent school where he is currently at reception have said that I will need to pay a full term tuition fee as I was short of the term notice. I was shown the contract I signed 3 years ago when my son started nursery. The contract is titled nursery and school. I feel this is unfair as it is a rolling contract being applied for a school which is very different in structure for the nursery which he had started with, different in number of days, fees, hours and school year. There was no reminder given regarding the rolling contract or notice period. Most of the children do not stay on from nursery so the argument that the school mentions that the nursery is a feeder for the school is not realistic.

[Dixiechickonhols]

I wouldn't think best for child to keep him at the school he is leaving but if op is trying to negotiate then maybe helpful.
My 5 year old dd used childcare vouchers and got the 15 hours free in Feb and March. Stopped when she reached compulsory education age after Easter for her as a January born.

[Dixiechickonhols]

He will be 4 at start of Autumn term so still eligible to 15 hours/use childcare vouchers. He is compulsory education age from the January 2017.

[AndNowItsSeven]

Op child will be five not four so moot point.

[Dixiechickonhols]

That's a good point Mildly. Also child will still be eligible for free 15 hours until end of this year if he is not in state school reception. You can use these towards private reception class too. I know I didn't have to pay any actual money for DD's school until after the Easter (Jan birthday) used 15 hours free and 2 lots of childcare vouchers (me and dh) each month.

That said whilst it will save parents a wasted terms fees moving a child in Jan 2017 when he has done a term in Yr 1 presumably (if the private lets him stay out of year) to a state year R class may not be the best thing for him. Better to start with the rest of the class yr r in September I'd have thought.

[MildlyattractiveBetty]

If he is 4 you can use childcare vouchers to pay for reception - in the case you have any saved or are looking for a way to minimise the damage of a term's payment.

[Dozer]

I'd have slightly more sympathy with your arguments if this was about transfer from nursery to reception, although would still think you need to pay, but he already moved up to reception and has been in the main school!

[Dozer]

You need to pay up.

[manicinsomniac]

I'm afraid you are almost certainly legally obliged to pay. You need to give a term's notice.

Even not knowing if you are going to have a state place or not isn't a good enough reason for insufficient notice. We have a few children whose parents have them at our school while they wait for them to reach the top of their ideal state school's waiting list. They are on a permanent 'rolling notice' which means they are off the hook whenever they want to leave - ie you can give provisional notice and not leave but you can't leave without notice.

[LongChalk]

If you can't pay then as was said up thread, you can give notice now for him to leave at Christmas and defer his state place until Jan. Not ideal in terms of his new school but it will all be water under the bridge come Y1.

[prh47bridge]

Just to expand on my comments a little...

It is often said that the aggrieved party (the school in this case) can only recover their losses. This is the argument being made by sirfredfredgeorge. However, that is an oversimplification of the law. This was shown clearly in the case of Parking Eye Ltd vs Beavis. Beavis overstayed in a free car park. Parking Eye sought to charge him £85 for this. The Supreme Court agreed that, although Parking Eye had not suffered any loss, they were entitled to charge £85.

In the case of schools requiring one term's notice the courts have decided that this is reasonable and that the school can collect the fees from parents who fail to give adequate notice. As far as I am aware parents have only been able to escape liability when they have been able to show breach of contract or unreasonable behaviour by the school, e.g. where the school has given inadequate notice of fundamental changes.

[prh47bridge]

As others have said, everyone who has tried to challenge the term's notice provision in the courts has failed. It is the settled view of the courts that this is a reasonable and enforceable contract term, and that whether or not the school can fill the place is irrelevant.

[sirfredfredgeorge]

Lurkedforever1 But yes the limit to the damage in your scenario is the extra cost of the other private school and any additional costs for difference in provision, if it resulted in most costs for transport or wrap around care, or there was no Tuba tuition in new one then you'd need a tuba teacher too. All of that is almost certainly more than the school would pay simply continuing to teach the students - if it wasn't they should just move everyone to the better run school. That's why suppliers routinely don't break contracts. Not because there's anything special about the penalties.

Also remember that most of the protections are only available to individuals and not companies. Things like the unfair terms in consumer contracts act.

[catkind]

Not all just 4 yr olds are the same and not all schools are the same. One of mine wasn't ready for the (small at our school) amount of structure in reception at 4.5, the other would have adored it at 3.5.

[AndNowItsSeven]

Yes I know op ds would have been nearly four. Sadly reception is no where near as play based as it should be, hence why my August born is deferring reception.

[Lurkedforever1]

sir agreed, 'find another private school' would have been a better way to make the point notice works both ways.

[sirfredfredgeorge]

Lurked If you can successfully claim private school and state school education are an identical provision - then there's a good chance that the damages would be quite limited. More realistically I think that would be a difficult case to make so the failure to deliver would be significantly higher.

[catkind]

AndNow, 1) he'd have been 4 at or a few days after starting, and 2) Reception IS play-based learning. Or it should be.

[Lurkedforever1]

Can you imagine if the terms notice wasn't legally upheld? 'Yes Mrs Jones, we understand that December the 19th isn't a terms notice, but you see we've decided to half class sizes from January and your name was amongst those pulled from a hat. But we aren't breaching the contract really because you have a duty to mitigate the damage by finding a state school'.

[carltonscroop]

It doesn't hinge on whether the place was filled (any more than a broadband deal or a subscription with a notice period depends on their total number of other customers).

That one term is a fair notice period in a private school contract has been upheld in court.

OP you need proper legal advice if you are thinking of not paying what you contractually owe. And the stamina to see this right through the courts.

[booface]

sirfredgeorge is right I believe. It all hinges on if the place is filled to my mind. In our case there was a long waiting list for the class and I knew the place had been taken up very quickly when our son left after nursery and didn't attend the prep. An invoice was issued, as per the contract, but never chased.

I know this also happened to someone who accepted a place at a private senior school and then paid the deposit. At that point she legally became liable for the first terms fees, even though they sent their child to a state school in the end and the child never attended. In a similar way, an invoice was issued, but the place was filled and the invoice was not chased.

It must be a bit of a nightmare for the schools, and I am not saying that people should never honour a contact they have signed, I just think a bit of give and take needs to be applied if there is no loss to the school if the place is quickly filled.

[AndNowItsSeven]

I can't get past the fact you thought it was a good idea to start three year old in a reception class. Play based learning at nursery for another year would have been far better.

[sirfredfredgeorge]

Just because it's a contract does not mean it's legally enforceable, people have all sorts of protections against unfair contracts and even if you breach contracts (say by not giving a terms notice) the other side have to attempt to mitigate the damage - which if the place is easily filled will limit the actual damages they suffer. So a full terms fees might be appropriate for a student leaving at Easter if the spot cannot be filled for the summer, it would be much harder to enforce if it could be. They do have to attempt to mitigate their loss though - ie fill the place.

Sufficient information being provided at renewal time, and variation between nursery and reception etc. may also lead to a way out. As booface says, I'm not at all surprised that places are often not chased, and realistically the OP will need some basic legal advice on the exact details of the contract, what information she was provided and the mitigations in place by the school if they lose the pupil. They certainly simply shouldn't just pay it because they signed a piece of paper a few years ago.

[booface]

Hi, I have personal experience of this, and was not chased for the terms fee. If the place had not been filled I would of course have felt morally obliged to pay the fee, but it was filled, so in this case I didn't and was not contacted about it.

[starmix2]

Thank you everyone for the input that was very helpful

[MrsJoeyMaynard]

Also for all any of us know, the school could have turned down a prospective pupil because they were expecting OP's child to be there in September. It might not be possible for them to fill the vacant space by September.

And even if the place can be filled, I don't think the school would want to let OP off and then have other parents getting the idea that school won't pursue the money if the correct notice isn't given.