The local school is at the heart of its community. In these days of increasing virtual interaction especially in the context of public services, the school maybe one of the last few places where people come together regularly, whether that involves pickups and drop offs, attending concerts, sporting events or parents’ evenings.
The recent news story involving parents being ‘banned’ from attending sports days by the Merton School Sport Partnership over bad behaviour has brought into focus what rights and powers a school has to prevent visitors from entering the school site.
It also shines another light on the question of what schools should expect from parents and what is reasonable behaviour and when enough is enough.
The starting point is that entering onto school land without consent is a trespass of land. However, the law assumes that people with a legitimate reason for entering onto the site have permission from the owner to access the land.
This is commonly referred to as an implied licence. This permission can be withdrawn by notice and schools can therefore withdraw a parent’s right to enter onto school property.
Usually, a decision to withdraw someone’s permission to enter onto the school site is on an individual basis in response to a specific incident, for example, abusive behaviour directed towards staff, pupils or other parents, ranging from shouting and swearing to physical altercations.
As you would expect, schools have a statutory responsibility to safeguard the welfare of all children and staff. They also have a specific duty of care towards staff, and this will typically require school employers to take steps to support staff and not put them in harm’s way, if a parent acts in a threatening way.
That can involve removal from site, dealing with abusive communications, as well as contacting the police if behaviour amounts to harassment.
Occasionally a school may have to ask for there to be a police presence at school drop off and pick up times if there is a genuine fear that a parent will become violent and direct anger at staff or indeed other parents and visitors.
This is especially the case where the school may be caught in the middle between parents experiencing relationship breakdown or warring neighbours where disputes spill over into the street.
Particular problems are posed for schools where there are altercations at the school gates as schools will have no rights over land not in their management or ownership, such as the public highway, yet statutory safeguarding guidance requires schools to have regard and manage any risks within its locality.
New guidance issued by the Department for Education in April 2025 deals with “protective security and preparedness” for education settings and advises on steps to take when an “incident” occurs, including advice on communication, early warning systems and drills.
There have been increasing calls for areas around schools to be designated safe zones in response to threats posed by school gate protests.
However, we would advise caution if a ‘broad brush’ approach is to be taken.
Checks and balances should be put in place to ensure that the school is acting fairly and in line with public law principles if they remove a parent’s permission to enter school premises or seek to have them physically removed from the premises.
It will naturally be more difficult to justify a total ban and begs the obvious question of where should the line be drawn? Are other events at risk of restrictions – the Christmas fair for example?
Invitation only events, such as the Christmas concert, are often sensible just because of the numbers. But should there be controls? Can an invitation be withdrawn?
Indeed, should we be looking at the vetting of visitors and to what extent should information about threats posed by individual parents be shared with other agencies and other schools?
Many a headteacher has breathed a sigh of relief when a pupil with a particularly unpleasant parent moves on.
But occasionally, aggressive behaviour by a parent can turn into a campaign and can spread and schools do need to work together and involve other agencies, having proper regard to data protection policies.
Any decision should be documented and kept under regular review. A ban may be appropriate, though it rarely solves the problem, and schools should consider whether there are any alternatives.
A communication protocol may be appropriate where the school – parent relationship is breaking down.
A review of its code of conduct or visitor policy to identity unacceptable behaviour, setting out clear expectations about behaviour that will not be tolerated and the possible consequences for breaching these standards, is a useful place to start.
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