HJ and MM v Birmingham City Council (SEN): [2025] UKUT 323 (AAC)
Upper Tribunal Administrative Appeals Chamber decision by Judge Stout on 30 September 2025.
Read the full decision in .
Judicial Summary
This case required the First-tier Tribunal to decide whether a child’s special educational needs could reasonably be met within day special school provision or whether the child reasonably required educational provision extending beyond the normal school day, up to and including, a “waking day curriculum” that required a residential special school placement. The First-tier Tribunal erred in law by failing to adopt the necessary logical approach to the issues it needed to decide and by failing to give adequate reasons for its conclusion. In particular: the Tribunal failed to give adequate reasons for its conclusion that the child was previously making reasonable progress in all areas while at day special school; wrongly adopted a global approach to the question of whether provision outside normal school hours was reasonably required rather than considering what specific provision was required to meet the child’s various special educational needs; wrongly proceeded on the basis that a need for consistency of approach outside school hours could not of itself equate to a need for education or training outside normal school hours; and wrongly assumed that because the provision the child was receiving in his 52-week residential special school placement did not include structured programmes of education it could not amount to education or training outside normal school hours.