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Council to apologise, pay £2.4k after teenager with anxiety missed 14 months of schooling

A county council has agreed to apologise to a teenager and her family and pay them more than £2,000 after she missed months of schooling during her GCSEs because it did not find her a secondary school place, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has said.

The girl spent 14 months without formal education after she left her school because of anxiety and other mental health problems.

Oxfordshire County Council said it could not force schools in its area to admit the girl because they were academies, and the special school the girl’s parents wanted her to attend said it could not admit her without her being on roll at one of the academies.

However, the Ombudsman’s investigation found the council delayed finding a school for the girl and should have required the special school to admit her without being on roll at an academy, as it had the power to do so.

The girl is now receiving home tuition, and support from mental health services, but has had to halve the number of GCSEs she will be sitting.

Oxfordshire has agreed to:

  • keep the daughter’s educational provision under review to ensure the number of hours tuition she is currently receiving is a suitable level of support;
  • pay the daughter £2,400 “for the significant loss of education at an important time in her school life”;
  • apologise to her parents and pay them a further £500 for the distress and anxiety it caused them;
  • show how it will work with the family to ensure the daughter receives appropriate education when she begins her A levels;
  • carry out an audit of children missing from education for whom it has a statutory duty to provide suitable full-time education, and submit its findings to the relevant committee.

Ombudsman Michael King said: “Councils have a duty to provide alternative education to children who are out of school for whatever reason. In this case Oxfordshire County Council left a vulnerable teenager without any education at a crucial time in her schooling.

“I welcome the steps the council is now taking to improve its services to children out of school.”