From 1 September 2003 Governing Bodies (GBs) of all maintained schools and maintained nursery schools in England were required, under Section 29 of the Education Act 2002, to have in place a procedure to deal with complaints relating to the school and to any community facilities or services that the school provides.  The procedures must be publicised.

The complaints' procedure is intended to deal with all concerns or complaints relating to the actions of staff and application of school procedures where they affect individual pupils, except matters directly related to curriculum, or to a particular exclusion, child protection, special needs statementing or admission issue, all of which are dealt with under separate procedures; details of these procedures should also be available from the school.

Similarly, any complaints by members of staff should usually be dealt with through the appropriate separate procedures such as grievance, capability or anti-harassment.

A Model Procedure for schools and a Model Complaints' Procedure Statement for schools, to give parents and others guidance on how to use the complaints' procedure, can be found on the Birmingham eBriefing System.  To view these documents please click the links below:

	Model School Complaints Procedure Dealing with complaints - model procedure and guidance notes for schools.
	Complaints Procedure Statement Model complaints procedure statement for schools to distribute to parents.