What happened
The school was run by a metropolitan borough council and taught children aged four to sixteen with emotional and behavioural difficulties, none of them in mainstream schooling. In 2015 the pupil’s behaviour deteriorated after two family bereavements. On 22 September he attacked the assistant head teacher and was excluded for three and a half days. On 5 October he attacked another teacher, was excluded for a day, and no record was made of it.
On 3 November, the first day back after half term, a dispute over keys left him agitated. After about half an hour he punched the assistant head teacher in the face. He was moved to another school. The teacher did not return to teaching.
The outcome
HHJ Platts, sitting as a High Court judge in Manchester, dismissed the claim on 30 November 2020 after a four-day trial.
The Court of Appeal disagreed on breach. In its judgment of 19 November 2021, Dingemans LJ found the school had failed to make a suitable and sufficient risk assessment of the pupil, contrary to its own policy, and had held neither the return-to-school interview nor the restorative justice meeting that policy required after the September assault.
The appeal failed on causation. The teacher could not show that either step would probably have prevented the attack. No damages.
What went wrong
What stood in for risk assessment was “dynamic”: staff using their experience of individual pupils and reacting to what came to their notice. The Court of Appeal held that this was not the assessment an employer owes.
The follow-up the policy required after September did not happen, and nobody recorded why. The October assault on a second teacher also went unrecorded, dealt with informally in a restorative meeting the judge accepted had gone well.
Two allegations failed outright: that the pupil should have been excluded sooner, and that the incident was mishandled. Neither finding was appealed.
What it teaches
Breach and causation are separate questions, and a school can be found in breach and still win. “It would not have made any difference” is no answer to a manager asking why a risk assessment is missing. It is a complete answer to a claim for damages.
Informal knowledge cut both ways. Senior staff already knew the behaviour was deteriorating, the teacher was experienced and trained, and the court could not see what a document would have added. The system that made the omission negligent also broke the chain of causation.
A restorative meeting is not a spell. The pupil had bereavement counselling, child in need and Team Around the Child meetings, CAMHS and the youth offending team. One more conversation among all that could not be shown to be decisive.
Questions for the room
- Which pupils here have no written risk assessment, and who decided one was not needed?
- When a pupil is excluded for assaulting staff, what happens on the day they return, and who checks it happened?
- Where is the record of the last assault on staff that did not become an exclusion?
Evidence and limits
Confidence: confirmed. The Court of Appeal judgment was read in full on 7 November 2026.
The pupil is not named at any age, so the school and the council are withheld. The claimant’s surname is in the published case name, but he was neither convicted nor the subject of a regulator determination, so the protection this casebook gives staff applies and he is “the assistant head teacher”; the judgment is cited by neutral citation and a link carrying no name. No injury detail is given, and the High Court judgment was not read.
Our physical intervention training covers what a school owes staff when behaviour is escalating.
Sources
- Court of Appeal, 19 November 2021 · [2021] EWCA Civ 1719 · https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ewca/civ/2021/1719
- Local Government Lawyer, 25 November 2021 · https://www.localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk/employment/395-employment-news/48903-court-of-appeal-rejects-claim-for-negligence-breach-of-statutory-brought-by-teacher-over-assault
Reviewed 7 November 2026.