Education Centre in UK Law

In my judgement, it is not equitable to extend the limitation period in this case. The question whether A2P1 confers a right to an education in accordance with the relevant SSEN, and if so, the appropriateness of an award of damages and the impact on the alleged shortcomings of judicial review in special educational needs cases, can be as easily (and more appropriately) determined in an upcoming application for judicial review made by another party as in these very late proceedings.

Secondly, it is clear that the court's approach to an issue of proportionality under the Convention must go beyond that traditionally adopted to judicial review in a domestic setting. The domestic court must now make a value judgment, an evaluation, by reference to the circumstances prevailing at the relevant time ( Wilson v First County Trust Ltd (No 2) [2003] UKHL 40, [2004] 1 AC 816, paras 62-67).

There is no Convention guarantee of education at or by a particular institution. The test, as always under the Convention, is a highly pragmatic one, to be applied to the specific facts of the case: have the authorities of the state acted so as to deny to a pupil effective access to such educational facilities as the state provides for such pupils?

What to my mind is abundantly clear is that the Defendant earnestly and sincerely wanted the Claimant to attend school. The Claimant had a choice, either of returning to school wearing the school uniform or of refusing to wear the school uniform knowing that if she did so refuse the Defendant was unlikely to allow her to attend. In my judgment it cannot be said the actions or stance of the school amounted to exclusion, either formal, informal, unofficial or in any way whatsoever.

She is not suggesting that OXILP should have awarded her a pass. Albeit perhaps reluctantly, she is constrained to accept that she failed the course because she failed Property Law and Practice three times. The classic example of an argument concerning academic judgement would arise if a student sought to suggest that his papers should have led to the award of a first class degree rather than a 2:1. That is a debate in which a court would be very reluctant to engage.

Special educational provision is, in principle, whatever is called for by a child's learning difficulty. It seems to me that to adopt the first approach would be to read into the legislation a sharp dichotomy for which Parliament could easily have made express provision had it wished to do so, but which finds no expression or reflection where one would expect to find it, namely in section 312.

What is I think clear is that measures taken by a local education authority which are subject to appeal before the SENT under s.326 must be directly related to the child's learning difficulties. Problems of this kind, in my judgment, will generally fall to be dealt with not under the Act of 1996, but (so far as they may be met by public provision) under social welfare measures made in other statutes and delegated legislation.