Education is one of the major steps in any child’s life and requires proper attention and consideration to make the right decision. If parents are separated, things can get a little complicated if they start to have disagreements regarding such an important decision in their child’s life.
Such an important decision can only be made after considering various factors. Some of these include the status of the particular institute, the distance of the school from both parents’ houses, and the financial impacts. It’s easy to see how things could begin to get fraught if there are disagreements. So what can you do?
Talk and Try to Get on the Same Page
Many disagreements can be easily resolved just by having a patient conversation. Often, simply arranging a meeting with your ex-partner or anyone with parental responsibility for your child can suffice. You should begin by discussing your opinions, requirements, and concerns and try to find common ground. Moreover, try to visit schools together to find the one that satisfies both partners. This might help to get a preferred choice from both sides.
If this does not work, then what else can be done?
Try Mediation
You can consider hiring a trained family mediator if talking doesn’t resolve the problem. With a third-party specialist, you work through the arguments and opinions of both sides, and they will suggest a solution accordingly.
The mediator might also speak to your children for you if they are old or mature enough. Mediation is an effective way to resolve a dispute without going to court and is less expensive. It works best if both partners enter the mediation phase in good faith and genuinely wish to resolve the matter.
Go to Court
If you can’t reach a consensus through mediation, the last option is to go to court. You can take the matter to court by applying for a Specific Issue Order or a Prohibited Steps Order. This will only be accepted if the partners have tried out mediation first. You will get the resolution of a conflict through court, but it can get a little costly and might take some months.
What will be the Court’s Considerations?
The main purpose of the court is to prioritise your child’s welfare. According to the Children Act 1989, the court should consider various factors, including the child’s feelings, emotions, and physical and educational needs. It also considers if the parents are capable of fulfilling the child’s educational needs or not.
Case Studies
In a recent case, one of the parents wanted to send their younger child to the same school the older children went to, but the other disagreed. The court decided that the child must attend the same school his older siblings attended because it would not be ideal to keep them apart.
In another case, a high-achieving child was sitting their 11+ examinations while the parents were shortlisting secondary school for them. The disagreement was on the preference for pending offers. Before the hearing, while the statements were ready, the child failed to get a letter from the father’s preferred institute, and the child had to go to the mother’s preferred one.
Contact Our UK Family Law Solicitors based in Manchester, London and Birmingham
If you would like to have an informal chat with our Family Law experts in confidence to see if you have a viable claim then please complete the contact form on our website and we will give you a call back at a time convenient to you or please call/ contact Iwona Durlak, Family Law Partner and Solicitor by contacting us on 0330 107 0107 or email info@imd.co.uk. Once we are contacted by you, one of our helpful team members will contact you. Please note we have a team of lawyers who speak many languages including English, Polish, Romanian, Russian and Lithuanian.
This article is for general information only and does not constitute legal or professional advice. Please note that the law may have changed since this article was published.
F v F - Acted for a German husband in a complex financial remedy matter. He decided to instruct IMD Solicitors after he had lost trust in his previously instructed solicitors and feared that he would not achieve a favourable outcome from the proceedings. The relevant assets were spread across the globe with some located in the UK (including a multi-million pound business), Gibraltar, Spain, Dubai, and Poland. The overall value of assets exceeded £24 million. The husband had been cut off from the matrimonial assets and excluded from control of the business that had been established by his family. The case involved the instruction of numerous experts, for business valuations, Capital Gains Tax reports, and opinions on the enforcement of orders in foreign jurisdictions, and dealing with several applications, including applications for orders to freeze assets, prevent the disposition of assets, for the joinder of parties, and to litigate conduct issues. The final result exceeded the client’s expectations.
L v L - We were instructed by a mother in a complex international children matter. She was required by orders of the UK courts to return the child to the UK from Poland. She had travelled with the child to Poland but, following unsuccessful application to extend her stay there in August 2017, she decided not to return to the UK because the child disclosed sexual abuse by a member of the paternal family and the father. In September 2018, the Polish court dismissed the father’s Hague Convention application for the child's return on the basis of Article 13(b), a decision which the father appealed. In March 2019, the father applied to the UK High Court for an order for the child’s return pursuant to the procedure set out in Article 11(6) – (8) of the Brussels IIA Regulation. Despite the father's unsuccessful Hague Convention application in Poland, the UK court ordered the return of the child. Article 11 does not allow the court of the returning country much discretion. After all of this, the mother instructed IMD Solicitors to apply to discharge the orders of the UK Court for the return of the child. Even in the face of the fact that most applications to discharge such return orders fail, we succeeded. We are currently awaiting a decision in the UK courts on a further application for the transfer of jurisdiction to the Polish courts where the mother resides with the child.
G v P - We represent a Spanish mother in respect of an urgent application for a Child Arrangements Order and Specific Issue Order in the UK seeking the relocation of the child to Spain. This was after the return of the child to the UK under Hague Convection proceedings which this mother lost in Spain.
She was asking for an order for the relocation of the child back to Spain and an urgent interim Child Arrangements Order to allow her to see the child pending the final outcome of the UK proceedings. IMD successfully argued that, regardless of the return of the child to the UK under the Hague Convention, the mother should be allowed unsupervised overnight contact with the child. We were delighted to be able to secure her contact with the child for Christmas and she said that it was the best Christmas gift she could have wished for. The outcome of the application for the relocation is pending.
S v V - We currently represent the father in Child Arrangements Order proceedings issued by the mother in relation to variation of a UK order made in the face of numerous other international proceedings. He is an Italian National who has been living in France for the last 20 years and the mother is a Lithuanian national. The child is now 11 years old and proceedings concerning the child have been ongoing in various jurisdictions for the majority of the child`s life. Contested divorce proceedings including child arrangements took place in Monaco. The French Court and authorities were also involved, and various proceedings had been ongoing between parties since 2013 in France and Monaco.
The parties’ divorce was pronounced in Monaco. Thereafter, in December 2020, the mother submitted an application to relocate to England with the child, and the relocation took place in June 2021. Upon relocation, the she lodged a child arrangement order application, seeking to register a judgment made in Monaco and to vary the same in respect of the contact arrangements between the father and the child. The father seeks for the child’s return to Monaco.
Due to the parties’ mutual allegations and the associated international elements, various authorities and courts that have been involved in the case, the local authority has become involved with the family and a guardian has been instructed to represent the child in the UK proceedings. At present, these proceedings in England are ongoing and the outcome of the professional reports regarding the family are awaited.
P v P - We have acted for the Respondent Husband in relation to the financial remedy proceedings in the UK. The parties had various assets in the UK and Romania consisting mainly of the portfolio of properties but conduct issues were raised by the Wife due to a business of the Husband over which she had lost control and her allegations of dissipation of assets. The value of assets excluding the business were in a region of £3 million.
K v K - We act in financial remedy proceedings for a wife who is a Polish national. The matter's complexity mainly comes from a dispute between the parties around land in Poland. Its value was initially in dispute but was then assessed by a joint expert to be in the region of half a million pounds. The total assets in this case are estimated to be worth over £1 million. The land in Poland is a subject to contract with a third party and is being leased as a photovoltaic (solar) farm. The division of the land to achieve an equal share of the assets is complicated due to the contract in place and plans for the future use of the land. Currently the parties are awaiting a final hearing but efforts are being made to reach a settlement with the aid of alternative dispute resolution and in order to save the parties money and avoid further delays.
R v O - We acted pro bono and worked together with a law firm in Poland to ensure that the Costa Rican Mother regains access to her child. The Mother's only child was abducted from the UK in 2014. The Mother was successful with the abduction case and the UK family courts ordered the return of the child. The orders were recognised in Poland but unfortunately due to various issues with the Mother's immigration status and court's delays in Poland, the orders were never enforced. The Mother was facing removal from the UK and prospects of never seeing her child again. We have corresponded with various courts in Poland dealing with international abduction matters and we decided that an application for contact should be issued rather than any proceedings for further enforcement of the orders, as the Mother had not seen the child for around 7 years. At the same we secured the Mother's stay in the UK making successful outside of immigration rules application to extend her stay. We now receive regular photos from the Mother with her daughter, as face to face contact is taking place. We helped to secure an order of the Polish courts for the Mother to see the child regularly in person, whilst when she instructed us she was facing a prospect of never seeing her child again and being deported to Costa Rica.
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