Family Values in the Classroom? Reconciling Parental Wishes and Children's Rights in State Schools

This article examines the extent to which the law should permitdivergence in various aspects of state education by allowingschools to accede to a parent’s request for differenttreatment for his or her child. With a view to this the articleexplores some of the areas where contention is likely to occur;describes the current legal frameworks for responding to theserequests; and articulates the competing rights and interestsat stake when a parent makes a request for his or her childto be exempt from part of the education on offer at a publiclyfunded school. It emerges that the current legal responses arenot only inconsistent but are also in many instances incompatiblewith the United Kingdom’s international human rights obligations.The article concludes by suggesting a new model for the resolutionof these disputes which provides a mechanism for balancing parents’wishes with children’s rights and the broader public interestsat stake.