Alice de Coverley

Alice is passionate about education law and children’s rights. Prior to commencing pupillage, Alice was the Chief Director of The School Exclusion Project for four years. This is an award-winning pro-bono unit dedicated to representing parents of permanently excluded school children.

Alice has also acted for Ofsted in the Care Standards Tribunal, and is currently acting for Ofsted as Junior Counsel on the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse (IICSA). For full details of the work that Alice is currently dealing with please see her public law specialism below.

She has specialisms within the education arena and has dealt with a number of matters including claims brought under the Equality Act 2010 for disability, sex, race, pregnancy, sexual orientation and gender reassignment discrimination, harassment and victimisation. Alice also regularly appears in SENDIST appeals in the context of EHC Plans (Sections B, F and I) and National Trial cases.

Alice acts for parents, children, young people, schools, Universities, Local Authorities, charities and governmental organisations. She is instructed to act and advise in relation to a broad range of education law matters, including:

• Appeals to the SEND Tribunal on the content of EHC Plans
• Discrimination (particularly disability discrimination) claims in the FTT and County Court
• Compliance with the Equality Act 2010
• School Exclusions
• Judicial Review
• PSED
• Breach of contract and negligence claims involving education providers
• School Admissions
• Home Education
• Internal academic appeals
• Fitness to Practice appeals
• Appeals to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator
• Public consultations
• Public inquiries
• Limitation issues.

Recent education law matters which Alice has been involved in include:

• Successfully representing a child with epilepsy in a disability discrimination claim against his school, with the decision being sent by the Tribunal to the EHRC, the DfE and to Ofsted as a result.
• Successfully representing a child with complex and mental health difficulties in a disability discrimination claim against an Academy which had unlawfully placing him in isolation for 3 months.
• Successfully representing a child with ADHD, ODD and sensory processing disorder in a claim against his school for failure to allow him to attend a skiing trip and punishing him for behaviours arising from his disability.
• Successfully representing a number of children in their Section I appeals, enabling their progress at the right school which meets their needs.
• Successfully representing children in appeals against “refusal to assess” or “refusal to issue” EHC plans.
• Successfully overturning a permanent exclusion decision regarding a 6 year old child that brought a cheese knife to school.
• Drafting Ofsted policies and consultation responses on schools, social care settings, unregistered schools, and equality law matters.
• Policy drafting in relation to counter-terrorism measures taken by schools.
• Advising medical and nursing students in claims under the Equality Act 2010 where the University’s competency assessment standards conflicted with the duty to make reasonable adjustments.
• Advising and representing in relation to negligence claims for failure to spot learning difficulties.
• Advising and representing in relation to breach of contract claims involving Independent Schools.
• Advising parents of school pupils with disabilities who have been unlawfully permanently excluded.
• Drafting funding applications to the European Human Rights Commission, to support client’s cases concerning discrimination in education.
• Drafting submissions to the Health and Conduct Committee/Fitness to Practise Committee.
• Drafting submissions to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator.

Alice has also helped to create a number of BBC Radio 4 programmes about school exclusions. Whilst Alice was Chief Director of The School Exclusion Project, it featured in the press several times addressing unlawful exclusions – for instance this Guardian article.

She is also a volunteer for the charity Inspiring the Future, which connects young people in state schools and colleges with those from the world of work. She has recently been part of their Inspiring Women campaign, mentoring girls from various schools to raise their aspirations and break down gender stereotypes.

Whilst dealing with a busy practice, Alice also finds time to assist the Centre for Women’s Justice by providing pro bono legal advice to Women that approach the charity in need of assistance in a range of matters.

Alice is happy to provide training in relation to education law. Of late she provided training on school admissions appeals to Local Authorities, a talk on disability discrimination to a children’s charity and ran a seminar on school exclusions for solicitors.

Please get in touch with her clerks should this be something you would wish to organise.