On 5 August 2026, the High Court allowed a claim for judicial review brought by “Henry”, a 10-year-old child with complex special educational needs and disabilities (‘SEND’) who was permanently excluded from primary school. The High Court quashed Henry’s permanent exclusion and provided important guidance about the need for schools to undertake a “careful assessment”, including consideration of the proportionality of a permanent exclusion decision.
The case concerned an incident in July 2025 in which Henry brought a replica butterfly knife to school and handed it to another child during an altercation. The school’s Principal decided to permanently exclude Henry, and a Governors’ Discipline Panel (‘GDP’) declined to reinstate him. An Independent Review Panel (‘IRP’) later upheld that decision by a majority, while criticising aspects of the GDP’s recorded reasoning.
The High Court addressed the core principles underpinning the law on permanent exclusion, explaining that “the legitimate purpose of a permanent exclusion is not punishment but protection” and that permanent exclusion is a tool of last resort, to be used to “protect the pupil and/or other members of the school community from serious harm that is likely to result if the pupil remains at the school” (paras 36-37).
The claim was brought on two grounds of challenge (1) Inadequate assessment of proportionality and (2) Inadequate reasons.
Proportionality
The High Court’s judgment explains that a GDP must undertake its own careful assessment of whether the statutory threshold for permanent exclusion is met: namely, whether allowing the pupil to return would seriously harm the education or welfare of the pupil or others at the school. In particular, the Court held at para 8 that:
“…in my judgment, it is essential that the GDP’s contemporaneous reasons demonstrate that it has made its own careful assessment of whether the threshold conditions for permanent exclusion have been crossed, including the condition that allowing the pupil to return to the school “would seriously harm the education or welfare” of the pupil or others at the school. Such an assessment will necessarily involve considerations of proportionality and, specifically, of: (a) the likely impacts on the pupil of being unable to resume attending the school; (b) the nature of the harms that could be suffered either by the pupil, or by other members of the school community, if the pupil were allowed to resume attending the school, and the degree of risk of those harms occurring; and (c) the sufficiency or otherwise of any potential lesser measures under which the pupil would remain on the school’s roll and ultimately be able to resume attending the school, for protecting against the contemplated harms. Such lesser measures could, for example, include a fixed term suspension or an “off-site direction” (a requirement that the pupil attend another setting for a fixed period before returning to the school).”
The High Court held that the reasons given by the Principal and the GDP did not show that those matters had been properly considered. Notably, the decision did not provide a reasoned assessment of the serious harm said to arise if Henry returned, the likelihood of that harm, the harm to Henry of permanent exclusion given his SEND, or whether alternatives to permanent exclusion had been adequately addressed.
The Importance of Reasons
Ground 2 was allowed on largely the same basis as Ground 1. The Judge added a further observation on the importance of reasons in this context, noting at para 56 that:
“there is a further reason why the giving of reasons is important: it assists in providing individuals with a basis for having confidence in the decision making process and that they have been treated fairly. This may be of particular value to individuals who are of minority racial or other backgrounds, or who have faced discrimination in the past. Henry was a Black child attending a school in which Black children were a small minority. He and his mother believed he had, earlier in his education, suffered racial prejudice. A key driver of his mother’s determination to pursue these proceedings on his behalf appears to have been a concern that he may have been treated less favourably because of his race. For my part, I have not found evidence that this was so. But the lack of reasoning in the Principal’s exclusion letter and the GDP’s decision letter is likely to have contributed to her lack of confidence that Henry was being treated fairly.”
Independent Review Panels (‘IRPs’)
The High Court also gave guidance on the role of IRPs, observing that where a GDP’s reasons and contemporaneous records do not show that it approached its task correctly, quashing will generally be the appropriate outcome unless the matter has become academic or the same result was highly likely in any event. Otherwise, a school would be allowed to “succeed in sustaining poorly reasoned written decisions based on undisclosed reasons, and/or self-serving ‘retro-reasons’, in a way that would not be possible in proceedings” before the High Court (paras. 60–63).
The judgment also demonstrates that it is possible to judicially review a GDP decision rather than an IRP when an IRP has upheld a GDP’s permanent exclusion. This issue was addressed by a different Judge in granting permission, who rejected an argument the Claimant was out of time in circumstances where he had pursued an alternative remedy of going to the IRP.
CCTV
The Judge recorded “misgivings” about the fact that, although the CCTV footage of the incident was viewed by the Principal and informed her decision to permanently exclude Henry, it was not shown to Henry’s mother or to all members of the GDP on the basis that the footage of other children.
The Judge at para 59 observed that “if a school has a genuine concern about sensitive information being revealed by showing a parent or the GDP members the CCTV footage, then the school may choose to use software to blur the faces of some children shown in the footage, provided that this does not materially impede a proper assessment of the footage for the GDP’s purposes. It will often be the case, however, that the pupil whose proposed exclusion is in issue will already know the identities of the other children who were involved in, or who saw, an incident, and that attempts to anonymise those children will therefore be unnecessary or serve no practical purpose.”
Does the Statutory Guidance need reviewing?
The judgment concludes with an observation that the Statutory Guidance, “Suspension and permanent exclusion from maintained schools, academies and pupil referral units in England, including pupil movement” might be unclear or incomplete and the Department for Education might consider updating in the future.
Those aspects include: (a) the need for a GDP to assess the proportionality of refusing to reinstate a pupil; (b) the responsibility of the GDP to take its own decision as to reinstatement, based on the circumstances as they appear at the time of the GDP hearing, rather than merely to review the headteacher’s exclusion decision for ensuring that it was, or remains, reasonable and fair; and (c) the full scope of the public law standards properly to be applied by an IRP when deciding whether a GDP’s decision should be quashed, applying judicial review principles.”
Overall, this is a significant judgment that emphasises the importance of clear, contemporaneous reasoning when schools and academy trusts decide whether permanent exclusion is justified, particularly where the pupil has SEND.
Ollie Persey and Rosa Thomas of Garden Court Chambers’ Education Law Team appeared for the successful Claimant. They were instructed by Angelo Monni of Duncan Lewis Solicitors, who was assisted by Nadia Roberts and Freya Wainstein.
