My child has been permanently excluded, and I am going to challenge the decision. I want the exclusion to be deleted from their school record. Is this possible?

It is possible, but only in certain situations.

If your child has been permanently excluded, the governing body must meet to consider this and will decide whether your child should be reinstated (allowed back to school). If they think the decision to permanently exclude your child was made lawfully, reasonably, and fairly, they will uphold the head teacher’s decision to exclude. Following this, you can ask for an independent review panel (IRP) to review the governing body’s decision not to reinstate your child. If the IRP decides that the governing body’s decision was faulty, it can tell the governing body to reconsider its decision.

If the governors decide your child should be reinstated (whether following their meeting or following a direction by an IPR to reconsider), this will not lead to the exclusion being deleted from your child’s record. Instead, the record should be updated with the outcome, and the related paperwork will be attached their educational record.

However, there are a few ways in which the exclusion can be deleted from their record.

One way is by making a claim for disability discrimination in the SEND Tribunal. If it agrees that the exclusion was discriminatory, the SEND Tribunal can order that the record of the exclusion is removed (known as expunged). You can make this claim if you think your child:

• is disabled and was unfairly excluded, or
• isn’t disabled but was discriminated against because the school followed a policy which unfairly disadvantages them in the same way as it disadvantages disabled pupils.

Another way this could happen is if you apply for the decision to be judicially reviewed by a court. The judge could use their discretion to make an order that the exclusion is removed from the record. So, if you want the exclusion deleted from your child’s records in either of these situations, you should ask for this when you make your claim/application so that it is considered part of the order that you are seeking.

Please be aware that you can bring a claim of disability discrimination to the SEND Tribunal against any type of school, including an independent school. However, you can only ask the courts to judicially review a decision made by a public body. This means you cannot ask a court to judicially review a decision to exclude made by an independent school or non-maintained special school, for example.