Summarised from Reasonable force, restraint & restrictive practices in alternative provision and special schools (publishing.service.gov.uk)
The Department for Education (DfE) is committed to minimising the use of reasonable force, including physical restraint and other restrictive practices in all schools in England, including special schools and alternative provision. This work programme will include updating the ‘Use of reasonable force’ guidance (2013) to provide school staff with advice on how to minimise the use of physical restraint and, in instances where it is absolutely necessary and lawful to use reasonable force or restrictive practices, to do so as safely as possible.
The DfE commissioned Revealing Reality to carry out research to understand how special and alternative provision schools in England currently use reasonable force, including physical restraint and other restrictive practices, and to learn what these schools believe works to effectively minimise the need to use such methods. The research was qualitative, with findings drawn from analysis of interviews with school
leaders and staff from a total of 45 special and alternative provision schools, plus additional evidence gathered from site visits to four of these schools. The fieldwork took place from late May to late July 2023.
All schools in the research had comprehensive school-wide policies on the use of
reasonable force, including physical restraint and restrictive practices, often as part of
their behaviour policies. These reflected the type of school and the pupils’ needs. Some
schools also had personalised behaviour plans for individual pupils which included
anything to do with reasonable force, including physical restraint or restrictive practices.
In all these policies and plans, physical restraint was only to be used as a last resort.
The terminology schools employed to describe the use of reasonable force, including
physical restraint and restrictive practices was inconsistent. Some used differing
terminology to refer to the same technique and, conversely, different schools used the
same term to denote different actions. This could make comparisons difficult.
Most schools in the research were using the DfE’s ‘Use of reasonable force’ guidance to
inform their behaviour policies. Many of them were supplementing this with additional
specific detail, tailored for use in that school. Several said they liked that the DfE
guidance was general enough that it could be tailored in this way and said that if the
updated guidance was more specific it would undermine schools’ ability to set and enact
behaviour policies that best suited pupils at a given school.
Some school leaders and staff had some criticisms of the wording of the current
guidance. A small number said they felt some of the situations in which it said schools
could use reasonable force were not sufficiently problematic to warrant doing so.
A small number of school leaders and teachers said a requirement for at least some staff
in alternative provision and special schools to attend training on the appropriate use of
reasonable force should be added to the guidance. Some school leaders felt the
guidance should make it mandatory for schools to share details of incidents involving the
use of reasonable force with parents/guardians, the local authority, the DfE or Ofsted.
All the schools in the research trained at least some of their staff in behaviour
management. Training included the use of reasonable force, including physical restraint
and restrictive practices, but there was greater emphasis on managing behaviour and deescalating incidents so that reasonable force, including physical restraint or restrictive
practices would not be needed.
All but one of the schools used an external training provider. The content and focus of the
training often influenced schools’ cultures in relation to the use of reasonable force,
including physical restraint and restrictive practice and the language they used to
describe it, such as “supportive holding” and “positive handling”.
Some schools trained all staff who had contact with a child in the school, others trained
only those staff who were likely to be called upon if an incident occurred. Several schools
said they were struggling to afford to train all their teaching staff.
Efforts to prevent and de-escalate behaviour that could otherwise lead to use of
reasonable force, including physical restraint or restrictive practices were referred to by
all the schools in the research. Prevention tended to involve attempting to understand the
context and history of pupils’ behaviour and circumstances that might trigger disruptive
behaviour and putting plans in place to minimise these.
De-escalation techniques varied between schools, often according to the child’s needs.
They included distraction, use of sensory rooms, encouraging pupils to go for a walk or
get some fresh air, switching the member of staff working with the child and removing
triggers to misbehaviour. However, some schools said they did not believe it benefited
their pupils overall to remove all triggers to misbehaviour as it did not help prepare the
children for encountering similar triggers in their lives beyond school.
All the schools reported that they used reasonable force, including physical restraint and
restrictive practice only when they felt it was necessary. This was typically when a child
was causing or was at risk of causing physical harm to themselves or others and de-escalation techniques had not averted the behaviour. In cases where school staff felt a pupil was in immediate danger of harming themselves or someone else, staff sometime used physical restraint straight away.
Fully restraining a child for more than a few seconds was rare among schools in the
research, and some said they had never had to use the most restrictive holds they had
been taught by their training provider.
After an incident involving physical restraint, most schools took steps to try to reduce the
likelihood of it being required again with the same pupil by reviewing what had led to the
incident and what could be learned or done differently.
All schools in the research said they recorded what they judged to be use of reasonable
force, including physical restraint and restrictive practices. Most had invested in software
to record cases and manage follow-up activity, though some were using paper records.
Some schools said they recorded all instances of physical contact, including gently
‘guiding’ a child by the arm, while others did not view this as use of reasonable force
which needed to be recorded. The types of information recorded also varied from school
to school. For incidents of physical restraint or more restrictive holds, it typically included
details of the physical intervention (who, what, where, when). In some cases the events
leading up to the incident and any other preventative measures that had been attempted
were also recorded.
Many of the schools in the sample were reviewing the data to identify patterns,
understand triggers and inform their behaviour management
What, how and to whom incidents of reasonable force, including physical restraint and
restrictive practices reported varied across the schools in the research, as did the
terminology used by schools in the recording and reporting of incidents.
Most of the schools said they reported incidents involving physical restraint or restrictive
practices to parents/guardians on the same day. Many schools also shared data on these
incidents with governors, the trust they belonged to or their local authority. Most said they
had to share the data with Ofsted and all said they were happy to do so.
When asked, most agreed that in principle they would be happy to share this data with
the DfE. However, they were wary of sharing data without assurances that the context
around the data would be understood. Some were concerned that the data could be
misrepresented, particularly given differences between school settings, the profile of their
pupils and the variation in what, how and in what terminology incidents were recorded.