ABSTRACT
In Chapter 3 we saw that the power of exclusion from school is part of the disciplinary framework under statute and the Secretary of State’s guidance. The overall emphasis within this framework is on the maintenance of good standards of behaviour and indeed on the prevention of misbehaviour and disruption likely to necessitate the most serious sanction of all-permanent exclusion from school. In this chapter we examine the present law on school exclusion, under the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, and its evolution. The chapter focuses on the decision to exclude and the procedural steps which must be followed immediately after the decision has been taken. We explain the current legal limits to the power of exclusion, charting their development and considering their rationale. We also consider the DFEE’s revised guidance, issued in July 1999, on the circumstances in which a head teacher should or should not exclude a child. We also look at the process of investigation leading up an exclusion, or the making permanent a fixed-term period of exclusion. Throughout, the discussion is informed by developments in the courts, from which has come important judicial guidance. What is so significant about this area of the law is how new so much of it is-the power of exclusion was more or less completely unregulated prior to 1986 but there is now an elaborate and continually evolving legal framework-and how rarely it was the subject of litigation prior to the 1990s, when the exclusion rate was much lower.
