Council threatened with legal action over Covid-19 school attendance rules
Fiona Simpson
Tuesday, November 23, 2021
A local authority has been threatened with legal action over claims it threatened a family with fines or prosecution if their children did not return to school, despite their mother and younger sibling being clinically vulnerable.
According to the Good Law Project, which is supporting the family, referred to as the Brooks, Mrs Brooks has a serious medical condition and is on immunosuppressant drugs and the couple’s youngest child has a rare form of epilepsy which is triggered by illness and, in particular, fever.
The couple’s eldest children are currently in years six and two and attend separate schools.
They “have gone into school whenever case numbers have been low, but have stayed at home when the risks have been higher to protect their vulnerable family members,” the charity states.
It adds that the schools have been supportive of the family’s decision.
However, according to the schools’ headteachers, Solihull Council has asked them to write to the family insisting the children return or they will face a fine.
The Good Law Project says that “if Solihull Council has acted as the schools allege, it has acted unlawfully”.
Updated guidance for schools and local authorities, published by Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi last month, states that schools can allow Covid-related absences for pupils who are clinically vulnerable because of a health condition, or who have vulnerable family members.
A letter sent to the council by solicitors Simpson and Millar on 17 November states that the family is now forced to choose between “allowing their children to attend school, with the risk that they will catch Covid-19 and transmit it to their mother and sibling”, face a fixed penalty notice, prosecution, conviction, fine and/or imprisonment or “removing their children from the school register, thereby depriving them of their education”.
It also notes that there has recently been an outbreak of Covid-19 at the eldest child’s school.
Solihull Council has until 1 December to respond to the letter.
Jo Maugham, director of Good Law Project, said: “The regulations are clear: absences can be approved by schools for children or families with clinical vulnerabilities. The local authority does not have the power to involve itself in those decisions, or to issue blanket guidance seeking to tie schools’ hands. We are supporting the Brooks family in challenging Solihull Council’s actions. We think some things are more important than attendance stats.”
Solihull Council has been contacted for comment.
