Shaw v London Borough of Redbridge

A school’s duty of care towards pupils requires reasonable care for their health, safety and educational needs. In assessing an alleged failure to respond to bullying or harassment, the court must identify the precise breach, consider foreseeability, the seriousness of the risk and harm, and the practicability and likely effectiveness of possible measures. The Bolam standard applies: negligence is not established where a reasonable body of professional opinion could properly have acted as the school did. A school may reasonably advise a child to tell their parents without itself contacting them, where the reported incident falls within an intermediate range of seriousness and the circumstances do not make direct notification necessary.

The claimant, a former pupil of a school maintained by the defendant education authority, claimed damages for alleged negligence by teachers following a playground incident involving harassment by five boys. The preliminary issues were whether the school owed the alleged duties and whether those duties had been breached. The claimant alleged that the head of year should have informed her parents, referred her for counselling and taken further protective steps. The court assessed the school’s response on the basis of what had been reported contemporaneously, rather than the substantially fuller account later advanced by the claimant.

The central question was whether a reasonable body of professional opinion would have contacted the parents directly or made a professional referral on the facts known to the school.

1. Duty and applicable standard. The court applied the principles summarised in Bradford-Smart v West Sussex CC [2002] ELR 139. Teachers must take the care of a careful parent and exercise the reasonable skills of their calling. The Bolam standard governs whether educational and pastoral provision accorded with what reasonable members of the profession might accept at the time.
2. Foreseeability and response. The duty is engaged where circumstances give rise to a foreseeable risk of physical or psychiatric injury. In deciding whether a particular response was required, the court must identify the precise alleged breach and consider the extent of the risk, the magnitude of possible harm, and the practicability and likely effectiveness of proposed steps. A school is not liable for failing to take steps unlikely to achieve useful protection.
3. Facts known to the school. The school was entitled to act on the contemporaneous account given by the pupils. The later, substantially more serious account was unreliable and had not been reported to the school at the time. The head of year reasonably concluded that the incident was rough and unpleasant conduct without a sexual element. It was impossible on the evidence to say that that conclusion was wrong.
4. Notification of parents. A reasonable body of professional opinion could properly consider either direct notification of the parents or advising the child to tell them. The two processes were materially different. There was no information indicating that the claimant would keep the matter from her parents, and it was not negligent to advise her to tell them rather than contact them directly.
5. Other allegations. The head of year had properly investigated the incident, disciplined the boys and supervised them during the investigation. The reported incident was not, without continuing signs of unhappiness, sufficiently serious to require counselling or other professional referral. The claimant’s remaining allegations were rejected. Judgment was entered for the defendant and the claim was dismissed.

The judgment records that an earlier order requiring the duty and breach issues to be tried as preliminary issues had been affirmed on appeal by Dobbs J. This judgment determined those preliminary issues and dismissed the claim.