Gilliatt Parents wanted their high end autistic child to be educated according to the Lovaas principle at home with a phased introduction into mainstream school. The local education authority proposed that the child should be educated at a specialist centre based in a school. The court held that under s 319 of the Education Act 1996 the SEN Tribunal only had to decide whether the education provision proposed by the LEA was appropriate. If it was, there was no power for arrangements to be made outside a school, such as the parents preferred. The Tribunal had done as much as it had to in taking into account the views of the parents. At the High Court hearing, the argument had been put for the first time that there was a breach of Article 2 of Protocol 1 of the Human Rights Act and that the parents belief in the value of the Lovaas method amounted to a philosophical conviction. The court said that it was too late to run the argument and it should have been put to the SENT but that in any event the parents’ beliefs did not amount to a philosophical conviction but only a judgment that one educational method was to be preferred to another.
Judges:
Mr Justice Richards
Citations:
[2002] EWHC 1474 (Admin)
Links:
Statutes:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Education, Human Rights
Updated: 14 November 2022; Ref: scu.175127