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Does the school owe a duty of care to pupils (law of tort)

Jack has failed his A Levels and his job offerat a local accountant’s firm has been withdrawn. He can show that his main reason he failed was because the school had not followed the correct syllabus.Should Jack be able to get compensation from his school?

My lecturer said no he would not be able to sue his school because the school does not owe pupils a duty of care... Is this right?

I read someone that schools DO owe a duty of care towards their students so now I'm confused...
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Reply 1

GetOverHere

I know that there's a duty of care between schools and students in terms of making sure they're "unharmed" between school hours; schools are legally responsible for your safety whilst you're there. I'm not so sure that we could apply the duty of care rule to this circumstance. Yes, this is obviously a mistake on the school's behalf, but I wouldn't say that it quite satisfies violating duty of care.

Reply 2

p3ssimist

Original post by GetOverHere

Thanks, so the duty of care rule is there to ensure the students aren't hurt but the teacher can teach them wrong things without consequences?

Reply 3

GetOverHere

Original post by p3ssimist

Thanks, so the duty of care rule is there to ensure the students aren't hurt but the teacher can teach them wrong things without consequences?

As far as I know, yes. I'm probably wrong though.

Reply 4

Genteel

The duty of care as applied to school hours is written in Statute, you can look it up.
Your comment 'but the teacher can teach them wrong things without consequences' is not so, you could argue for example that if a teacher directed one child to hit another or taught for example religious intolerance in breach of the law (and leading to some trauma for the pupils) that that might be without regard for duty of care.
When your lecturer said that the school does not have a duty of care, is it possible that he may have only meant this in the context of your original question about following the correct syllabus? If so you need to ask your lecturer to clarify this and to ask why. Ask if there is precedence.