BU Research Blog

BU academic and lawyer Andrea Loux Jarman has assisted Geeta Singh, an NHS Physiotherapist in her fight to secure her daughter a full-time school place from the first day of school.

Geeta contacted Andrea after reading media coverage about an Objection Jarman had made against the admissions arrangements of St Mark’s School, Bournemouth,  before the Schools Adjudicator.  That adjudication forced schools across Bournemouth to either provide all pupils with a full-time place from the first day of the September term or make their part-time induction periods optional.  Geeta was preparing to appear before a school complaints panel to ask them to abandon their unlawful part-time induction programme.

By way of assistance, Andrea sent her one of two articles she wrote after her case against St Mark’s.

I have just finished reading your article “Part-time Places for Reception Children”.  When you gave me the advice to “teach” the Governors about the issue and its historical roots, by sending me your article you have literally thrown the means to do this in my lap. Here is an informed piece of work which I can just regurgitate. Thanks so much.

Despite the overwhelming legal authority Geeta cited in her correspondence (with official sources helpfully highlighted in red!), the school and local authority continued to attempt to pass the buck one to the other and evade responsibility for the unlawful induction period.  Finding no joy with her own authority, a civil servant from another local authority wrote to her to confirm that she had correctly understood the law and suggested if her own LA wouldn’t listen to her to ask them to contact the Department for Education.  This information, together with the suggestion of potential legal liability, appears to have finally persuaded the local authority to tell the school follow the law and either make their part-time induction period optional or abandon it altogether.

The Guardian will be covering the story, and Jarman will do a follow-up academic piece highlighting the implications for the rule of law when parents’ remedies for unlawful school policies in practical terms lie solely with tribunals that cannot make legal precedent that binds other schools. The absence of judicial review has meant that three-years’ on, parents are still having to fight for their right for their Reception children to attend school full time from the first day of school.