Appeal over classroom exclusion

The mother of an allegedly violent pupil banned from his classroom by teachers was today appealing against her son’s exclusion in court.

The woman failed to convince the High Court in London that the refusal to have her son in the classroom was unlawful and was today due to take her fight to the Court of Appeal.

The teenager, known only as Pupil ‘P’, is being taught in isolation at Bonus Pastor School in Lewisham, south London, after members of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers boycotted his presence.

He was expelled, then allowed back into the school after his mother appealed to the school’s governors and she claimed in the High Court last month that the refusal to teach him was an unlawful industrial action.

But Mr Justice Morison said in a landmark ruling that pupil behaviour was a legitimate reason for such a protest.