Banned pupil is 'silly girl' says judge

Clare Dyer, legal correspondent
Saturday May 3, 2003
The Guardian

A high court judge yesterday modified an exclusion order on a teenager banned from school for 30 days after she organised a demonstration outside the school against the war in Iraq.

Mr Justice Collins branded Elena Grice, 15, "a very silly girl" and said she had been justifiably disciplined over clashes with the school authorities, and not just over the demonstration.

Nevertheless, he said, she should be allowed to return to complete her studies and take seven GCSEs, though not to mix freely with other pupils.

The civil rights organisation Liberty took Elena's case to court after the board of governors at the Helena Romanes school in Dunmow, Essex, decided on Monday to uphold the headteacher's decision to exclude her for 30 school days, from March 24 to May 20.

The judge warned Elena, who was not in court, that she was on "a knife edge" and any further bad behaviour, including a refusal to wear full school uniform, could result in full exclusion. "She is a very silly girl, but even silly girls are entitled to a proper opportunity to achieve what they can best achieve."

The judge said one of the conditions for her being allowed to complete her studies would be an apology for allegedly "greatly upsetting" one teacher by calling her a "fascist cow".

Liberty had argued that the ban infringed her right to free speech and freedom of assembly, but that was "totally the wrong way to look at it," said the judge. It was her disruptive and sometimes "appalling" behaviour which had led to the exclusion decision.

The court was told that Elena, from Rayne in Essex, had already been allowed back to school but was still refusing to wear a school tie.

The judge said if Elena had merely led the demonstration, in which around 500 pupils and some parents and teachers took part, he doubted "anything serious" would have happened.

 http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,948559,00.html