Raise a concern about your child's schools

To complain about your child's school, you should follow the individual school's complaints procedure. Every school in England must have one.

The school complaints procedure should be published on the school's website. It should tell you what kind of complaints the school will deal with, such as bullying or bad behaviour.

You may not be able to complain direct to academies or free schools if you do not have a child at the school.

You should follow these steps in order and only move on to the next step if your complaint is not resolved.

1. complain in writing to the headteacher.
2. complain in writing to the school's governors or academy trustees.

After you've been through the school's complaint process you can complain to the Department for Education (DfE) (opens new window). You must first follow each of the schools complaint steps.

Complain about how a whole school is run

You can complain to Ofsted (opens new window) if you think a school is not run properly. You must have already followed the school's complaints procedure.

You should get a response within 30 working days. It will tell you if Ofsted will investigate or not, and why.