Local government

Statement of special educational needs - requirement to specify school 'appropriate' to child - appropriateness to be determined by reference to considerations wider than child's special educational needsW v Gloucestershire County Council and Another: QBD (Scott Baker J): 14 June 2001The father requested an assessment of his son's special educational needs.

The local education authority named a school in the statement of special educational needs as appropriate to the child's needs pursuant to their duty under section 324 of the Education Act 1996.That school differed from the one preferred by the father which the child had been attending for some time at private expense.

The father appealed on the grounds that a transfer when the child had already commenced one term of his GCSEs to a school with different courses and syllabuses would be detrimental to his educational progress and was therefore inappropriate.

The Special Educational Needs Tribunal dismissed the appeal.

The father appealed.Clive Rawlings (instructed by Ashok Patel & Co) for the father.

Clive Sheldon (instructed by county solicitor, Gloucestershire County Council, Gloucester) for the authority.Held, allowing the appeal, that 'appropriate' in section 324(4)(b) of the 1996 Act was not confined to considerations of the child's special educational needs, but had a wider meaning which included consideration of work actually undertaken, such as syllabuses and courses already embarked on and the difficulty a move would cause; that with modular examinations and coursework the applicant could have serious difficulties in trying to catch up and change to different syllabuses; and that, since the tribunal had erred in law in failing to adjourn the hearing to obtain information concerning the different syllabuses and work already undertaken necessary properly to determine the appropriateness of the school, the case would be remitted for redetermination.