Complaint to school: deadlines?

[Isabel1066]

Serious issues re school arose last year and into this holiday. DD leaving (end of her AS year) - neither us nor school have put this in writing yet but it is very likely.

School complaints procedure - can we still use it? We need some answers and this is looking to be the only way we may now possibly get them.

If your concern is that the complaints procedure may not be open to you if DD has left the school, then you are ok. from your opening post, she is not officially off role yet as you have not had anything in writing. I would have thought that her leaving should not have an impact on using the procedure if you have a legitimate case.

If you do feel you have a case then it's worth checking out what you will need to do.

I am assuming from your last sentence that you have tried the tutor, Head of Sixth form and Head of school. So I won't bother suggesting those!!

Thank you - this is helpful. We've certainly been in touch with the Head - have seen him a couple of times but have, each time, met a brick wall. I wonder if we need, though, to write to him rather more formally so that we are, at least, following the procedure to the letter. The matters are serious - if they weren't, I'd let them go.

You need, I think, to write to the Head and also the chair of Governors setting out all your issues.

here might be more useful than I can be though

You need to establish the complaints procedure for the school, which should be on the school's website or available from the school office. You need to follow it to the letter but based on your posts the complaint has to be that the head teacher has failed to take your verbal complaints seriously. As such it is likely that your complaint is about the head teacher and therefore should be to the Chair of Governors, but check for the official line on this.