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Spiers v Warrington Corporation: 1954

Lord Goddard CJ said: ‘The headmistress did not suspend this child at all. She was always perfectly willing to take her in; all that she wanted was that she should be properly dressed. Suspending is refusing to admit to the school; in this case the headmistress was perfectly willing to admit the girl but was insisting that she be properly dressed.’
He discussed the circumstances in which section 39 came to be enacted, saying: ‘It appears to the court highly probable that the reason for that was that it was considered desirable to abolish the decision in Maher’s case and to substitute for it a new section which would not leave it open to justices to find any reasonable excuse parents might set up, but to confine the excuses for not sending a child to school to the reasons set out in subsection (2)(a), (b) and (c). That is the only construction which this court feels able to put upon section 39(2).
We were reminded of Jenkins v. Howells, which was heard in 1949, and in which I was sitting with Oliver and Cassells JJ. I do not hesitate to say that if it had been open to us to find that there was a reasonable excuse for not sending the child to school, we would have found it. It was a very hard case, but we felt that the statute was too strong; we could not go into the question of reasonableness.’

Lord Goddard CJ
[1954] 1 QB 61
Education Act 1944 39
England and Wales
Cited by:
CitedBegum (otherwise SB), Regina (on the Application of) v Denbigh High School HL 22-Mar-2006
The student, a Muslim wished to wear a full Islamic dress, the jilbab, but this was not consistent with the school’s uniform policy. She complained that this interfered with her right to express her religion.
Held: The school’s appeal . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Education

Updated: 18 January 2022; Ref: scu.239717

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