Education Administration in UK Law

Now whether or not an employer has behaved reasonably in dismissing an employee is a question of fact, and it is a question upon which different people, looking at the same set of circumstances, may reasonably come to different conclusions. If we were to take this course, it would have the very undesirable effect of encouraging innumerable appeals which raised no point of law, but depended upon comparative findings of fact.

All these considerations suggest that the court should take a broad and practical approach to the question whether a school has (in the words of the third proviso) ceased "to be used for the purposes in this Act mentioned" (and that it is not simply a coincidence that all the reported cases are concerned with schools which had closed permanently).

Like Henriques J, I consider that Richards J's approach to the sense to be given to "reinstatement" in the Act of 1998 is correct. The reality is that once he is reinstated, his exclusion is cancelled, and he is to be treated like any other pupil; and in respect of any pupil, special or particular measures or initiatives may be required at any time.

Finally, the point remains whether the breach of the obligation imposed by section 76 enables a parent who has suffered injury to bring a civil action. To do so would be to fly in the face of authority and in particular in the face of the decision in the Gatesheadcase vide spurs, a decision of this Court.

The effect of the third proviso was, so far as material as follows. First, the grantees of the land (the trustees of the school) did not acquire a fee simple absolute in the land but a determinable fee, that is to say an interest which would determine automatically on the reverter being triggered. Second, so long as the reverter had not been triggered, the grantor retained what was technically known as a “possibility of reverter”.

Every element of a maintained school carries a cost in public funds. The recurrent exercise for Tribunals is to calculate what it is, because it is ordinarily only with such a calculation that the protection of public money to which the condition in s.9 is directed becomes possible. If it were not so, a like-for-like comparison between public and private provision could never be made.

It seems to me, having considered the broad picture of the period spent by the claimant at Cyril Burt, as well as the available detail, that the defendants are not shown to have been negligent. On the contrary, they are shown to have approached the claimant's case throughout in a manner which would be regarded as acceptable by a significant body of educational opinion.