School Complaints

Certain education issues are the Council's responsibility. If you want to complain about any of the following, please contact the Response Service:

  • school curriculum
  • admission to a school
  • failure to assess a child's special educational needs

Academies

Academies operate independently of local authorities. If your complaint concerns an Academy, you will need to contact the Young People’s Learning Agency (YPLA) at:

YPLA Academies Central Unit
Cheylesmore House, Quinton Road
Coventry, CV1 2WT

Tel: 0845 337 2000

Email: academiesenquiries@ypla.gov.uk

You can also follow the link: Procedure for dealing with complaints about Academies.

If your concern or complaint is regarding any other issue please follow the procedure below.

Procedure

From 1 September 2003, governing bodies of all maintained schools and maintained nursery schools in England are required, under Section 29 of the Education Act 2002, to have a procedure in place to deal with complaints relating to the school. The law also requires this procedure to be published.

All maintained schools within the Royal Borough are managed by governing bodies. Governing bodies are generally made up of parents whose children who are attending (or have attended) the school. 

Head teachers are therefore directly accountable to the governing body of a school and not the local authority. If a complaint about a school is received by the Response Service, which is outside the Council’s remit, it will be forwarded to the school to process under their own complaints procedure. The responsibility will remain with the parent to follow up their complaint with the school.

Please note that all schools do not use the same procedure. You should ask your school for a copy of their procedure, so you are informed of the correct steps to take and the timescales the schools needs to respond to you by.

There are generally three main stages in making a complaint to a school:

Stage One - Informal

If your child has a problem at school, you should first try to address it through an informal discussion with the class teacher or an appropriate member of staff. In primary schools, this could be the class teacher; in secondary schools this would be the form tutor or head of year. You may be requested to make an appointment to discuss the matter fully.

Stage Two

If you remain dissatisfied with the outcome at Stage One, or your complaint involves your child’s class teacher or tutor, you should raise your concerns with the head teacher. 

You may be asked to put your complaint in writing to the head teacher or Chair of Governors (if your complaint is concerning the head teacher). This should be acknowledged; however, you will have to refer to the individual schools complaint procedure for confirmation. 

The head teacher or Chair of Governors will investigate your complaint and write to you with the outcome.

Stage Three

If you wish to take your complaint to the next level you will be required to put your concerns in writing, addressing it to the Chair of Governors of the individual school, unless otherwise stated in their procedure.

Your concerns will be investigated by the Chair of Governors or the governing body as a whole, depending on the individual schools complaints procedure. It would be advisable to send any previous documentation from your Stage Two complaint so the governors are fully informed.

This is the end of the complaints procedure that is managed within the school or by the schools governing body. 

Local Government Ombudsman

If you remain unhappy with the outcome at Stage Three, you may raise your complaint with the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO). The LGO investigates complaints about most Council matters including housing, planning, education, social services and council tax.  

The Ombudsman will only investigate where there has been a fault in the way the process was handled by the school. They can investigate complaints about how something has been done

This could be:

  • giving the wrong information
  • not dealing with letters
  • taking too long to take action.

The Ombudsman cannot investigate how schools are run and will not intervene until the school has been allowed to investigate the complaint through their procedures.

The Local Government Ombudsman Advice Team can be contacted:

Tel: 0300 061 0614 or 0845 602 1983
Email: advice@lgo.org.uk
Fax: 024 7682 0001
Web: http://www.lgo.org.uk/

You can also text the word 'call back' to 07624 804299, or write to:

The Local Government Ombudsman
PO Box 4771
Coventry CV4 0EH