Education and school complaints
Education complaints
You can make a complaint about Education Health Care Plans, Special Education Needs and school admissions through the council. Information about making a complaint against a school is below.
The process
We aim to resolve all complaints at the earliest opportunity. Complaints will be acknowledged within 3 working days and stage 1 responses provided within 10 working days. This may be extended to 20 working days for more complex complaints.
Our complaints procedure for education has 3 stages.
Stage 1 – resolution stage
It is important for you to try and tell the people working with you or your family if you are unhappy with what is happening. This could include talking to the member of staff. You can also make your complaint to the complaints manager using our online form. This will be sent to the team manager for resolution.
We can try to explain, put things right, apologise if appropriate and learn from what you tell us. We will try to do this within 10 working days.
Stage 2 – formal complaint investigation
If you are not satisfied, you have the right to ask for a formal complaint investigation.
The formal complaint goes to the director of the service area concerned. They will allocate it to an appropriate officer to deal with.
Any complaint based on discrimination, victimisation or harassment will go straight to stage 2.
Stage 3 – Chief Executive’s investigation
The Chief Executive will consider whether the complaint has been dealt with properly. If not, they may set up a review panel.
Make an education complaint
To submit your complaint please complete our complaint form.
School complaints
Schools and academies have their own complaints procedure. If you need to make a complaint about a school or an academy, you should approach them directly.
The process
Most schools' complaints procedures have 3 stages, which should be followed:
Stage 1
Speak or write to the Headteacher (or, in some schools, a designated senior member of staff), who will investigate your concern.
Stage 2
If you are unhappy with the Headteacher's response you should write to the Chair of Governors.
Stage 3
The schools' procedures normally also offer an appeal to the governing body's complaints review panel. This panel consists of 3 governors who have no prior knowledge of your complaint and will consider written and verbal submissions from you and the Headteacher.
Stage 4
If you have followed stages 1 to 3 but still feel that the school has not handled your complaint in accordance with its own published complaints procedures, you are able to ask the council to examine how it was dealt with. The council will not re-investigate the original complaint, only the manner in which it was dealt with by the school.
Make a complaint about a school
To make a complaint, please complete the online school complaint form.