In practice, a student can usually be subject to permanent dismissal for a total of five disciplinary breaches, for which the student does not have to receive formal warnings. Depending on his or her offence, a child can be excluded from the school system within any range of time after his or her misdeed. Though the teaching staff may recommend a pupil to be expelled, only the headteacher is legally empowered to exclude a student; he or she is not permitted to delegate that power to another person, but if he or she is ill or otherwise unable to perform his or her duties, another staff member may become the acting headteacher and inherit the power to expel students.