Educational policies and practices are subject to a vast variety of Commonwealth and state legislation, delegated legislation and common law.

Some areas of educational law are more developed than others: supervision and care of pupils by schools, authority to use reasonable force to discipline pupils, duty of parents to send children of certain age to schools and employment of teachers are areas where the law has laid down clear guidelines. On the other hand, teachers' duty to educate pupils and pupils' rights to education, fair treatment, privacy, equal opportunity and due process are less clear.

This chapter aims to provide an overview of the law relating to teachers' duty of care to pupils, discrimination, family law, copyright and privacy issues in school. For a general discussion, see: "Rights and Duties at School", in Chapter 6*1 Rights and Duties of Young People.