School Related Complaints

Since the 1st September 2003 governing bodies must have in place a procedure to deal with complaints about the school and what it provides for its pupils. A separate procedure exists for addressing complaints about the curriculum. If you have a compliant you will need to contact the school for a copy of its procedure.

Complaints about the school curriculum

Section 409 of the Education Act 1996 requires all Local Authorities (LA's) to have arrangements for handling complaints about the actions of governing bodies and LA's in respect of the curriculum in schools and colleges.

You may use this complaint procedure if you believe that either the LA or the governing body are failing:

• to provide the National Curriculum in the school or for a particular child
• to follow the law on charging for school activities
• to offer only approved qualifications or syllabuses
• to provide religious education and daily collective worship
• to provide the information that they have to provide
• to carry out any other statutory duty relating to the curriculum
• or are acting unreasonably in any of the above cases

Other ways to complain

We hope our Complaints Procedure will help you to make your concerns known to us whenever you feel unhappy with our services. As well as using our formal complaints procedure you may wish to write to:

• Director for Children
• Your Local Councillor
• Your Member of Parliament
• The Local Government Ombudsman

Related Documents

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• Curriculum Complaints Procedure
  How complaints about the school curriculum will be handled.  It describes how you can set about having the complaint dealt with and what then happens.
  Last updated: 31/03/2010, 9:41am (246 KB)
• Curriculum Complaints Procedure - Summary
  Summary of the full procedure which explains how complaints about curriculum and related matters will be handled.
  Last updated: 31/03/2010, 9:41am (209 KB)
• Model School Complaints Procedure
  Model guidance and procedure for dealing with school complaints which the governing bodies of Torbay’s maintained schools are recommended to adopt.
  Last updated: 31/03/2010, 9:41am (313 KB)

Related Websites

• Local Government Ombudsman 

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