School complaints policy

The law: section 29 for maintained schools, Part 7 for academies

A school's complaints procedure is required by two different pieces of law, depending on the type of school. Section 29(1) of the Education Act 2002 says the governing body of a maintained school shall “establish procedures for dealing with all complaints relating to the school or to the provision of facilities or services under section 27”, other than complaints that another statutory procedure covers, and shall “publicise the procedures so established”. Section 29(2) requires the governing body to have regard to guidance from the Secretary of State, which in England is the DfE's Best practice guidance for school complaints procedures 2020. That guidance explains that “must have regard” does not mean every detail has to be followed, but that schools can apply alternative processes only “if they have good reason to”.

Academies, free schools and independent schools meet the standard in paragraph 33 of the Schedule to the Education (Independent School Standards) Regulations 2014, which is Part 7. The proprietor – for an academy, the academy trust – must ensure that “a complaints procedure is drawn up and effectively implemented which deals with the handling of complaints from parents of pupils”, and the paragraph lists eleven things the procedure must do, from being in writing to keeping complaint records confidential. The DfE's Best practice guidance for academies complaints procedures explains each one. 16 to 19 academies are exempt from that requirement and have their own expectations.

The two regimes differ on who can complain. In a maintained school, the guidance says “You must not limit complaints to parents or carers of children that are registered at the school”: anyone can complain about facilities or services the school provides, including parents of former pupils and members of the public. The academy standard applies only to complaints from parents of pupils, although the DfE says it expects academies “to handle complaints from people who are not parents of children at the school respectfully and expediently”.

Publishing differs too. Maintained schools must publish their complaints procedures on their websites, a requirement in force since 1 September 2016 under the School Information (England) Regulations 2008; for academies, the academy trust governance guide says the procedure must be available on request and recommends publishing it online.

What the school complaints procedure must contain

A guidance leaflet for parents is not enough: the maintained schools guidance says a school “must have your own distinct complaints procedures in place”, and a model policy adopted from the local authority or the DfE must be tailored to the school, because the duty sits with the governing body. A procedure that meets both regimes usually covers:

1. The difference between a concern and a complaint. The DfE's definitions: a concern is “an expression of worry or doubt over an issue considered to be important for which reassurances are sought”; a complaint is “an expression or statement of dissatisfaction however made, about actions taken or a lack of action”.
2. Who can complain, and how a complaint from a third party acting for the complainant is handled, with written consent before information is disclosed to them.
3. The stages, and who hears each one, including the route when the complaint is about the headteacher, a governor, the chair or the whole governing body, and in a trust, the chief executive or the trust itself.
4. Clear timescales for each action at each stage, and the period for raising a complaint.
5. What is not covered and where it goes instead: admissions, exclusions, statutory assessments of special educational needs, staff grievances and disciplinary matters, whistleblowing, and child protection matters, which are handled under the safeguarding policy, with a referral to the local authority designated officer (LADO) or multi-agency safeguarding hub. The DfE’s guidance opens with the reminder to contact the local council, or the police on 101, if a child is said to be at risk. Complaints about how the behaviour policy was applied, and about how the curriculum is delivered, do stay within the school’s procedure: section 45 of the Education Act 2011 removed the local authority’s duty to consider curriculum complaints.
6. How the outcome is given and what the complainant can do next, including the route to the DfE and, for whole-school issues, Ofsted.
7. Serial, persistent and campaign complaints: the DfE recommends a policy for serial and unreasonable complaints within the published procedure, and a separate process for campaigns, which must itself be in the published procedure.
8. Recording meetings, and the school's position on recordings made without the consent of everyone present.
9. A review date. The maintained schools guidance recommends reviewing the procedure “at least every 2 to 3 years”, and warns that missing the review date the procedure itself sets “could constitute a failure to adhere to the procedure”.

The DfE asks for procedures that are simple to understand and use, impartial, non-adversarial and capable of a full and fair investigation, and that say what the school “will” do rather than what it “should” or “may” do. As the DfE warns, not doing something the procedure says the school “should” or “may” do can lead to further complaints. Where the school does depart from its procedure, both guidance documents recommend documenting the deviation, because if the complaint reaches the DfE it will ask for the explanation.

The stages, and how the panel hearing works

Maintained schools. The DfE leaves the number of stages to the school but recommends two, “where the second, an appeal stage, is heard by members of the governing body who'll consider the complaint afresh”. It does not recommend a second stage that only reviews how the first was handled. Schools should take informal concerns seriously and make every effort to resolve them as quickly as possible, since many issues can be resolved that way. Informal resolution is encouraged first, but a school should not insist on it if the complainant wants to complain formally, and mediation “should not be used as a substitute for an investigation”. The recommended routes are: a complaint about staff to the headteacher, then a committee of governors; a complaint about the headteacher to a suitably skilled governor, then a committee; a complaint about a governor or the chair to the clerk, who arranges for it to be heard; and a complaint about the whole governing body, or both the chair and vice-chair, to the clerk, who may source an independent investigator and governors from other schools.

Academies and independent schools. Part 7 needs at least three stages: an informal stage, in person, in writing or by phone; a formal stage, with the complaint made in writing; and a hearing before a panel “consisting of at least three people who were not directly involved in the matters detailed in the complaint”, of whom one must be “independent of the management and running of the school”. The DfE says the independent member should not be a member, trustee or employee, nor someone with a clear connection such as the school's regular solicitor. In a multi-academy trust it accepts a local governor from a different school in the trust, with no conflict and no prior knowledge, but not the trust's own trustees. The parent may attend and be accompanied, and the panel makes findings and recommendations that go to the complainant and, where relevant, the person complained about, and are available for inspection on the school premises by the proprietor and the headteacher.

Fairness at the hearing. Both guidance documents recommend that neither side brings legal representation, because, in the DfE's words, “These committees are not a form of legal proceedings”, and their aim is reconciliation and putting right what went wrong; a member of staff who is a witness may bring union or legal representation. Anyone with a conflict of interest should withdraw, and the DfE notes that the appearance of bias can be enough to taint a decision. In a maintained school, details of a complaint should not be shared with the whole governing body while it is being considered, so that there are governors left to sit on the panel; if they already know the detail, governors from another school can be used, and the guidance says a school can do this ad hoc without a formal collaboration arrangement. A complainant who believes the panel is likely to be biased can ask for an independent complaints committee, with evidence; the DfE says that where the appearance of bias is enough to taint the decision, the request should be granted. If a complainant will not attend after reasonable attempts to find a date, the panel can meet in their absence and reach a conclusion.

Timescales, outcomes and escalation to the DfE or Ofsted

There is no single statutory deadline for answering a school complaint; the procedure sets its own. Part 7 requires an academy's procedure to set out “clear time scales for the management of a complaint”, and the DfE asks every school for “realistic and reasonable time limits for each action within each stage”. Where further investigations are needed and the published timescale cannot be met, the school should set a new deadline and tell the complainant why. For lodging a complaint, the DfE considers three months from the incident an acceptable time frame, with extra time in exceptional circumstances, and the maintained schools guidance says a school “must not have ‘blanket’ policies of refusing to consider any complaints not lodged, or escalated, within the stated period”.

The outcome should be given in writing with the reasons for any decision and any further rights of appeal, and the DfE recommends sending the complainant a copy of the panel minutes; it notes that a complainant may be entitled to them under data protection law in any case, subject to redaction. The DfE says a complaint should not be marked as serial before the complainant has completed the procedure (the maintained schools guidance makes an exception where the school's published serial complaint criteria apply), and never because the complainant has referred it to their MP.

Once the school's procedure is finished, a complainant who is still dissatisfied can go to the DfE. Its page on how to complain about a state school says the school's procedure should be completed first unless a child is not getting an education, a child has been exposed to harm, or the school is stopping the complainant from following its procedure. For maintained schools the DfE will consider complaints by asking whether the governing body has acted unreasonably or failed to perform a duty under sections 496 and 497 of the Education Act 1996, and for academies it acts under the trust's funding agreement; its role is largely to review how the school handled the complaint. If it identifies serious failings, the DfE may share its findings with the local authority and Ofsted. Ofsted can take complaints about matters affecting the whole school, and records them to inform inspection, but it cannot resolve an individual complaint or change its outcome. The governing body or trust must give Ofsted relevant information about a parent’s complaint if asked, and a maintained school’s governing body must do the same for the DfE.

The complaint record, the file and the panel papers

Part 7 is specific about the record. An academy's procedure must provide for “a written record to be kept of all complaints that are made in accordance with sub-paragraph (e)” – every formal written complaint – showing “whether they are resolved following a formal procedure, or proceed to a panel hearing” and the “action taken by the school as a result of those complaints (regardless of whether they are upheld)”. It must also provide that “correspondence, statements and records relating to individual complaints are to be kept confidential” except where the Secretary of State or an inspection body asks for them. The maintained schools guidance asks for the same in best-practice form: record the progress of the complaint and the final outcome, decide who is responsible for the records, and keep them secure.

In practice each complaint has a file and the school has a log. The file holds the complaint as received, brief notes of every meeting and telephone call (the DfE recommends notes “to prevent any later challenge or disagreement over what was said”), a copy of each written response, the investigation, the panel papers and minutes, the findings and recommendations, and any recorded deviation from the procedure. The log is the register across all complaints: date received, stage reached, outcome, action taken and date closed, which the governing body can use to see patterns. The DfE suggests holding complaint records separately from the pupil record while a complaint is ongoing, because the pupil file transfers when a child changes school and a complaint may continue after they leave.

Retention is for the school to decide: the DfE says governing bodies, as data controllers, “must decide for themselves how long they keep records, unless statutory regulations apply”, and personal data must not be kept longer than necessary. Set the period in the school's retention schedule, and remember that complainants may have rights to copies under the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK GDPR, and, for maintained schools and academies, under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

The complaint that began as a message

Most school complaints are not first made on the complaint form. They start as a text to the class teacher whose number a parent was given on a residential trip, a message in the year group's parents' chat that the school sees because a teaching assistant is in it, or a long reply at ten at night to a member of staff who had only sent a reminder about kit. The DfE's definition is a statement of dissatisfaction “however made”, and its guidance says a complaint may be made in person, by telephone or in writing. On that definition, many complaints reach a school first as messages, and the school's first reply is often the informal stage.

Those messages matter later more than almost anything else in the file. When a panel asks what the parent was told in September, when the DfE reviews how the school handled the complaint, or when a parent asks for every record about their child, the honest answer is often that the first exchange sits on a member of staff's own phone, in an app the school does not run, and that half of it has been deleted or belongs to someone who has since left. The complaint log begins with the email in week three; the conversation that shaped it began in week one, and the school cannot produce it.

The answer is not to stop parents contacting staff, or to tell them a complaint does not count unless it is on the form; the guidance is clear that it does. It is to give staff a school-run route to reply on, so that the informal stage happens where the school holds it. ComplyChat provides a channel the school controls, reachable from a compatible phone including a personal one, in which everyone added is told it is on the record and can object or leave, and a mobile number verified by SMS is an identity, so a parent with no account on any school system can be in the conversation. On paid plans the lasting record files into the school's or trust's own Microsoft 365 once the tenant is connected, under its own retention rules. It is not a complaints case-management system, it does not run the stages or the panel, and a parent never has to use it to complain.

A question for the next governing body or trust board meeting: for the last complaint that went to a panel, could the school produce the first message in which the parent raised it, and the reply they were given?

Questions people ask

How do I make an official complaint about a school?

Make it under the school's own complaints procedure, which every school in England must have and which is usually on its website or available from the office; GOV.UK's guide to complaining about a state school says to raise it with the school first, then follow the procedure to make a formal complaint if the problem is not resolved. Only after the procedure is complete can most complaints go to the DfE, and Ofsted considers complaints that affect the whole school rather than individual cases.

What is the process for dealing with complaints in school?

The process is the school’s own published complaints procedure, and its shape depends on the type of school: a maintained school chooses its own number of stages, and the DfE recommends two, the second heard afresh by a committee of governors. An academy or independent school needs at least three: an informal stage, a formal written stage and a panel hearing with at least three people not directly involved, one of them independent of the management and running of the school. There is no five-stage rule for schools in England.

How long does a school have to respond to a complaint?

No national deadline applies: each school's procedure must set its own realistic time limits for each action at each stage, and an academy's procedure must set out clear timescales under Part 7 of the Independent School Standards. If a school cannot meet its published timescale, the DfE expects it to set a new deadline and explain the delay to the complainant.

Can I complain to an academy if my child does not go there?

An academy's complaints procedure under Part 7 only has to cover complaints from parents of its pupils, and GOV.UK warns that you may not be able to complain to an academy if you do not have a child at the school. The DfE nevertheless expects academies to handle other people's complaints respectfully and expediently, and a maintained school must accept complaints from anyone about the facilities and services it provides.

Official guidance and your next step

The primary sources are section 29 of the Education Act 2002 and the DfE's school complaints procedures guidance for maintained schools, with its model complaints procedure and model policy for serial and unreasonable complaints; for academies, paragraph 33 of the Independent School Standards and the DfE's guidance on setting up an academies complaints procedure, with model procedures for a single academy and an academy in a multi-academy trust. The DfE's maintained schools governance guide and academy trust governance guide summarise the governing body's duties. The best practice guidance documents were last updated in 2021; check each page's date before relying on a detail. This guide covers England; GOV.UK points to separate complaint routes for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

This guide is a summary of published law and guidance, not legal advice. Local authorities' governor services, your diocese or your trust's governance team can advise on your own procedure, and a complaint that is turning into a legal dispute needs proper advice.

Then do one thing: open your published procedure, find each “should” and “may”, and decide whether the school will actually do it. Change the ones it will to “will”, and remove the rest.