If a school in the maintained sector decides to transfer a pupil to an off-site educational provision, such as a pupil-referral unit, then certain legal requirements must be met.

On 18 February 2016, the High Court upheld a challenge by a 16-year-old boy to his school’s decision to transfer him, and its failure to keep the decision under review, as required by regulation 4 of the Education (Educational Provision for Improving Behaviour) Regulations 2010. The boy had been studying seven GCSEs until being transferred, due to his behaviour, to an off-site educational facility, where he was instead required to do vocational training together with core GCSE-level-equivalent studies in English, maths and applied science. While the boy attended initially, he was unhappy and stopped attending.

Section 29A of the Education Act 2002 provides that, for the purpose of improving the pupil’s behaviour, the governing body of a maintained school in England may require any pupil to attend any establishment outside the school premises. But the governing body must give the parents a notice setting out the address of the off-site provision; name of the person to whom the pupil must report; number of days that the transfer is set to last for; and reasons for, and objectives of, the transfer.

If the school is an academy, parents are also required to consent to such a placement. In this case, the boy’s father was invited to a meeting at the school but was not provided with all of the necessary information, in particular regarding the objectives of the transfer.

The governing body is required to keep off-site placements under review, holding review meetings at intervals that the governing body considers appropriate, given the individual needs and circumstances of the pupil. At each meeting, the governors should decide whether the placement should continue and, if so, for how long. In reaching its decision, the governing body must take account of the views of parents and must, within six days, notify its decision in writing to those affected.

In this case, the fact that the boy had stopped attending the college was an insufficient reason for failing to conduct the reviews; indeed, the judge said that this should have triggered a review.

The court quashed the transfer and ordered the boy’s readmission to the school for a six-week period. It ordered the school to reconsider its decision within the six weeks and, if a further decision was taken to transfer the boy, that decision had to be reviewed regularly, at a frequency judged to be appropriate by the governing body.

Let this be a lesson: when a school places a pupil off site, they must meet the requirements or risk their decision being overturned.

Alice Reeve is a partner at education law firm Veale Wasbrough Vizards