Commentary Part 7: Discipline, Behaviour and Exclusion Section 98: Parenting orders in cases of exclusion or misbehaviour
483.Section 20 of the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 makes provision for local education authorities to apply to magistrates’ courts for parenting orders in cases of exclusion from school. This section amends section 20 to also enable orders to be applied for where a pupil has seriously misbehaved but not been excluded and to allow schools to apply for orders.
484.Subsection (3) enables a ‘relevant body’ to apply for an order. A relevant body is defined in subsection (9) of section 20, inserted by subsection (6) of this section, as a local education authority and the governing body of a maintained school, or the proprietor of an Academy, a city technology college, or a city college for the technology of the arts, at which the person concerned is a pupil or from which he has been excluded.
485.Subsection (4) of this section inserts subsections (2A) and (2B) into section 20, which add a further ground on which an application for a parenting order can be made. This is where the pupil has behaved in such a way that he could have been excluded permanently or for a fixed period and any other conditions specified in regulations are met. The new subsection (2A) makes clear that any policy that the school might have to restrict exclusions or to restrict exclusions in certain circumstances is not relevant in this context; the relevant factor is the seriousness of the misbehaviour.
486.Subsection (5) of this section inserts subsection (3) into section 20. It says that the court can make a parenting order under section 20 if it is satisfied that the type of behaviour described in subsection (4) has occurred and that making the order would be desirable in the interests of improving the pupil’s behaviour.