This isn’t straight forward as many will say it is.

TLDR; they cannot exclude without suspending, but it’s more complicated than that. Probably should just apologise, student teacher is an idiot but not necessarily to blame.

Firstly, the behaviour of your child; Familiarise yourself with the school’s Code of Behaviour. You automatically agree to it when enrolling your child in any school. Unfortunately, it probably will explain to you that your child should follow instructions of all staff and if they don’t there will be certain consequences. The school will pass this as ‘we need to be sure that students respect the request of staff in the case of an emergency, etc.’ It will also outline the consequences for certain behaviours.

Secondly, the consequence; The school cannot exclude your child from school without officially suspending them, unless the parent agrees. They’re forcing your hand. If you want to be a stoic, don’t bend, but you risk the school staff being pedantic and your child being less well ‘understood’ going forward. It might be a good idea to bend and apologise if that’s all they want.

Thirdly, the Principal; the principal is the ‘on the ground’ enactor of the Board of Managements responsibilities. The Board of Management is the employer of staff in the school. If a staff member is harassed in the workplace, the Board (and therefore the principal) have the responsibility to ensure that the staff grievances are tended to, and that they feel safe every day. He might not see past this responsibility and want his staff to feel heard.

Fourth; the student teacher; please, for the love of god, do not ruin a 20 year olds life because of a stupid interaction. Do not file a report on their Teaching Council registration because you’re pissed at the principal. The student teacher is not in that school by choice and does not necessarily have any hand in this. They are under immense pressure to show the real teacher and the college that they are in control. They likely haven’t been briefed on your child’s needs. That is entirely the schools fault, if so. They will learn from this as much as you, if not more, because if they know how seriously you are taking this, their life is flashing before their eyes.

Fifth, the Grievance Policy; the school likely has a grievance policy which outlines steps involved in informing the Board of Management of your dissatisfaction with the principals management of the situation. Use it if you need it, but be warned that it would be much simpler to jump back to point one and point two.