Commentary Part 7: Discipline, Behaviour and Exclusion Section 91: Enforcement of disciplinary penalties: general
448.This section specifies the conditions that make lawful the imposition of a disciplinary penalty on a pupil at any school at which education is provided for him.
449.Subsection (1) explains that this section applies to any disciplinary penalty imposed on a pupil other than exclusion.
450.Subsections (2), (3), (4) and (5) specify the conditions that must be met for the imposition of a disciplinary penalty to be lawful. They are summarised below.
451.Subsection (6) specifies the considerations to be taken into account in deciding whether the imposition of a penalty is reasonable. They are:
452.Subsection (7) states that, for the purposes of subsection (6) a pupil has a disability if he has a disability for the purposes of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.
453.Subsection (8) states that a head teacher’s decisions on whether staff should be able to impose penalties on pupils may be made in relation to individual staff or groups of staff; in relation to an individual pupil or pupils; or in relation to an individual penalty or types of penalty. So a head teacher could, for example, decide that only teachers who are heads of year or heads of department could put pupils in detention or that a volunteer helping to supervise an educational visit should be able to withdraw privileges from pupils who misbehave on the visit.
454.Subsection (9) makes detention outside school sessions subject to the additional provisions in section 92.
455.Subsection (10) makes it clear that nothing in this section legitimises corporal punishment.
456.Subsection (11) has the effect that this section does not remove powers that heads and school staff have in addition to the powers conferred by this section. These may include powers conferred on them by the pupil’s parent.
457.Subsection (12) defines a “paid member of staff” as a member of staff who works at the school for pay under a contract of employment or a contract for services. The latter would include supply teachers provided by agencies. The section makes clear that the contract of employment or contract for services need not be made with the governing body or proprietor of the school (so that it includes local education authority employed staff that may be working at the school).