Education Law

Our specialist education law solicitors practice solely in this niche area of law and have extensive training and experience providing SEN advice. We understand the difficulties you are facing and will provide the expert legal and practical advice you'll need.

We provide education law and SEN (Special Education Needs) advice for the following:  

• Advocates
• Autism & Asperger's individuals
• How to appeal school admissions
• Case managers
• EHCP appeals
• Experts
• Parents
• Solicitors and deputies
• University students
• Young people

In the first instance we would suggest you either call, email, or visit our offices and an Education Law specialist will discuss your circumstances and how we can help.

Please note that your location is no obstacle to our acting on your behalf, we can support your needs wherever you are in England or Wales. 

We look forward to hearing from you. 

Every child deserves the chance to achieve their potential. Education funding cuts are making this increasingly difficult as local authorities and schools struggle to balance the books.

With increasing pressures on budgets and a lack of professional time, decision-making can suffer. This means that incidents of a lack of adequate support for special educational needs, disability discrimination, and unlawful exclusions increase. It can also mean that school admissions are not handled properly, especially as that process is increasingly handed over to schools and academy trusts.

We help parents redress the balance. Our specialist education law team can provide advice on all issues parents may face including:

• securing additional support for special educational needs (SEN)
• claims for disability discrimination
• exclusion appeals
• admission appeals
• school non-attendance
• disputes with schools, including bullying
• out of education
• home tuition
• school transport

The biggest problem is that whilst parents deserve to get the best advice and support they are often let down by an increasingly complicated system. At HCB we can help guide you through the increasingly difficult procedures that exist in education. This is particularly true for securing additional support for special educational needs. 

Our focus is to resolve your dispute so that your child receives the education they deserve in an environment they feel comfortable with.

Your child’s needs must come first.

How we help university students

In our experience universities are becoming increasingly over-subscribed and they seem to have less and less time to consider individual circumstances.

Students are not numbers, they are individuals who sometimes need more pastoral support to make the grade. We have helped many students appeal against unfair classifications or exclusions from universities. Our expert higher education law solicitors can help you by assisting at university hearings if necessary or pursuing court proceedings.

Overall, remember that you are paying for a service via your student fees - don’t let your university let you down.

We can help you with any area of education law but a non-exhaustive list includes:

How we help Case managers

We understand the difficulties that case managers face. In many cases, funding is extremely limited. So is your time. We understand that you will want to try to resolve any difficulties yourself, but there is a point where seeking specialist education law advice is necessary.

Case managers play a crucial role in ensuring that their client’s needs are fully catered for. You will likely be acting for severely disabled young people who need substantial additional support. All too often, the most disabled young people also face the greatest difficulties in accessing education or staying in education.

Issues that we help case managers with often include:

• securing additional support for special educational needs
• claims for disability discrimination
• exclusion appeals
• admission appeals
• out of education
• home tuition
• school transport

The temptation can be to use funding secured through a negligence, or personal injury claim, rather than to resolve a dispute. This is not a long-term solution, especially when the claim has not secured 100% liability.

We start a case by assessing the benefit to your client compared with the cost. This can often include an assessment of what savings your client can make by ensuring that their legal entitlements are secured, rather than privately commissioning the support. Our involvement is focused on ensuring that there is a cost-benefit. If we think that instructing us will not result in financial savings for your client, we will tell you.

If your client is facing difficulties, or you are not sure what they might be entitled to, our specialist education law solicitors are happy to help.

Young People

Our education law team has substantial experience in providing advice and support directly to young people.

Often, if a young person is looked after by their local authority, or is in dispute with their parents, they need impartial advice. It is always important that any young person is given clear advice, without any jargon, so that they are able to make informed decisions about their own education. Of course, it is important to always bear in mind that a young person will benefit from adequate education and all should be done to enable that.

If you have been mistreated at school, discriminated against, excluded, or require additional support, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Solicitors and deputies

We provide specialist education law advice for claimant solicitors, including personal injury and negligence. We also support deputies, whether they are professional deputies or lay deputies.

For claimant solicitors, our support tends to focus on special educational needs. We can help with valuing a claim and securing additional support for your client without their compensation having to fund it.

In our experience, young people who have suffered negligent treatment, or personal injury, especially later in childhood, struggle with their acquired disabilities or learning difficulties. This can expose them to social difficulties and problems remaining in education. It is important to ensure adequate support is available and to ensure that schools and local authorities are acting appropriately.

We act for both professional deputies and lay deputies.

For all deputies, we understand the responsibilities you have to ensure that funding is used appropriately and to ensure 'best interest' decisions are made. We often work with the Court of Protection and understand the limitations that you may face.

Lay deputies are often parents of severely disabled young people. This means that you also have a personal reason for wanting to ensure that the young person’s best interests are promoted.

In all the work that we do, we work to ensure that the child or young person’s best interests are promoted. We do this by ensuring that the child or young person is able to access education, with the support they need, in a caring and supportive environment.

Advocates

We support advocates throughout England and Wales.

There are hundreds of advocacy groups that provide invaluable support for parents and carers of children and young people. These groups provide support on most education law issues, including special educational needs, disability discrimination, admissions, and exclusion appeals.

Increasingly, local authorities employ solicitors and barristers to provide legal advice. This means that special educational needs appeals, discrimination claims, and appeals regarding admissions and exclusions can become very complex. It also means that there tends to be a legally qualified representative acting for the local authority or the school.

Advocacy groups do excellent work to support individual rights, however legal experience and training can often be necessary. That is where we can help. We provide guidance advice and assistance at hearings that have become complex.

Experts

Often, education law matters require expert advice. This is particularly true in cases involving special educational needs.

As parents become more informed about their children’s rights, they are seeking advice from independent experts. This is usually because parents are not satisfied with the advice that they have received from statutory services.

All too often, NHS or local authority experts refuse services because a certain threshold is not met. The thresholds that are being applied hold no foundation in education law.

As parents increasingly seek independent expert advice, we are finding that local authorities are implementing policies to refuse independent expert advice. This advice is then provided to schools.

Experts are becoming more involved in disputes with local authorities and schools. That is because parents increasingly look for your guidance in how to resolve disputes, as well as your advice on what support their child needs. If that happens, you should recommend that your client take specialist education law advice.

We have strong relationships with several experts who trust us to help their clients. We have developed these links by providing excellent education law advice.