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ANNEX F
Placing Requests: Additional Options for Parents of Recorded Children
1 Parents, within certain limits, have a right to make a placing request, choosing a school for their child. When a child has a Record of Needs, education authorities have a more extensive duty to comply with parental preferences in school placements. Schedule A2 of the Education (Scotland) Act 1980 sets out how the provisions in section 28A of that Act apply to recorded children and young persons.
2 Under the placing request arrangements, a parent of a recorded child may make a written request to an education authority to place the child in any mainstream or special school under their management. There are, however, additional options available in relation to recorded children. It may be appropriate for some children with Records of Needs to attend an independent special school, a grant-aided special school, or a self-governing school in Scotland and the arrangements set out in section 28A enable parents to make a request to the education authority for the area to which their child belongs that their child should attend such a school. Before making such a request, however, parents must ensure that the managers of the school they wish to nominate are willing to offer the child a place there.
3 Parents of recorded children may also make a placing request, to the education authority for the area to which the child belongs, for a school in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, that makes provision wholly or mainly for children with pronounced, specific or complex special educational needs. Before doing so they must establish that the school is willing to accept the child.
4 In general terms, education authorities must, subject to certain limitations, comply with a placing request. The general principles are the same regardless of whether or not the child or young person is recorded. Special considerations are involved, however, in the case of a recorded child or young person. In such a case, an education authority does not have to comply with a placing request when one or more of the following circumstances obtain:
a) where placing the child or young person in the specified school would make it necessary for the education authority to take an additional teacher into employment;
b) where placing him or her in the specified school would give rise to significant expenditure on extending, or otherwise changing, the accommodation or facilities provided there. Note: it is not expected that a placing request will be rejected on this ground in cases where reasonable expenditure is needed to make a school building suitable for him or her;
c) where placing the child or young person in the specified school would be seriously detrimental to the continuity of his or her education;
d) where placing him or her in the specified school would be likely to be seriously detrimental to order and discipline there;
e) where placing him or her in the specified school would be likely to be seriously detrimental to the educational well-being of the other pupils there;
f) where the education normally provided at the school is not suited to the age, ability or aptitude of the child or young person;
g) where the education authority, for whatever reason, has already required the child or young person to discontinue attendance at the specified school;
h) in the case of a special school, (or a school in England and Wales or in Northern Ireland which makes provision wholly or mainly for children, or young persons, with pronounced, specific or complex special educational needs), where the child, or young person, does not have special educational needs requiring the education or special facilities normally provided there;
i) in a case where the specified school is a single sex school where the child, or young person, is not the sex admitted there.
5 Additionally, an education authority does not have to comply, in certain circumstances, with a request for an independent, grant-aided or self-governing special school in Scotland (or a school in England, Wales or Northern Ireland making provision for children, or young persons, with pronounced specific or complex special educational needs). These circumstances are where the authority is able and willing to make provision for the special educational needs of the child or young person in one of its own schools and has offered a place there, and it is not reasonable to place the child or young person in the specified school, having regard to the respective suitability and cost of the provision for his or her special educational needs there and in the authority's school which he or she would otherwise attend.
6 Under certain circumstances an education authority may also be able to refuse a placing request if to accept it would prevent them from retaining places at certain schools for incomers to the area served by the school, who are likely to move to the area during the school year to which the placing request relates.
7 Fuller guidance on the circumstances in which an education authority can refuse a placing request for a child, or young person, with special educational needs is given in the Scottish Executive Circular 4/96, Children and Young Persons with Special Educational Needs: Assessment and Recording.
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