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In September 2012, the process changed in England for how parents (and carers) can appeal against their child's exclusion from school. This paper is one of the first accounts of how parents experience the new system. Using data from a research study with a range of stakeholders in the appeals process, this paper focuses on the accounts of the 21 parents interviewed. Thematic analysis was utilised to identify the factors that motivate parents to make an appeal, the barriers and enablers to doing so, and the physical, emotional, and financial costs that result from engagement with the process. The findings reveal that the costs are extremely heavy for parents with very limited rewards. The process is experienced as inequitable with a bias towards schools and many of these parents call for the provision of experienced legal support to make it a more balanced system. In spite of the challenges involved the need to call schools to account remains a strong motivation to appeal but this was not the preferred option for parents. Instead they call for schools to develop more inclusive and enabling environments that rely more on understanding the needs of pupils and their families than on exclusion from school.

"Positive handling" has become a popular intervention within education and other services in England in the management of behaviours that challenge. This paper uses a vignette of an observation of the handling of children with autism as a starting point for consideration of whether this practice can ever really be experienced as positive or whether it is often little more than a mechanism of control that disregards the rights of disabled children and young people. All schools are mandated under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to protect the rights of disabled pupils, but, to date, there has been very little engagement by teachers with this agenda. This paper identifies some of the rights of pupils that are negated through current practice and evaluates what support Prouty's principles of pre-therapy from the field of counselling might offer teachers with developing a rights based agenda.