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The government needs to clarify what legal powers schools have to seclude pupils, a headteachers’ union has warned, with leaders expressing doubts about updated guidance on the use of restraint.

The warning comes as Tes data reveals that some areas have seen a big increase in referrals to the local authority designated officer, which encompass complaints about teachers’ use of restraint.

This year the Department for Education released an update to its guidance on reasonable force, which was previously published in 2013.

In response to a consultation on this updated guidance, which closed this week, the NAHT school leaders’ union urged the DfE to clarify the “lawful, proportionate use of seclusion, including therapeutic, supervised withdrawal”.

Guidance on restraint

Currently the guidance defines seclusion as the “supervised confinement and isolation of a pupil, away from other pupils, in an area from which the pupil is prevented from leaving of their own free will”.

The union said the definition needs to explicitly separate seclusion from other forms of restrictive intervention used in schools, such as “time outs” or “withdrawals”, and needs to clarify what lawful powers schools have to seclude a pupil.

It also suggested that the DfE provide additional information that takes lessons from cases where a dispute between a school and a parent led to a police investigation.

The NAHT also expressed concerns about how the updated guidance could impact pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).

“There may be an unintended expectation created that pupils with SEND, by definition, should be subject to increased levels of restrictive intervention,” its submission said.

The sets out further recommendations on how staff should work with pupils with SEND and says schools should understand the “underlying triggers of challenging behaviour”.

The NAHT warned that this guidance is “too focused upon the potential challenges some pupils with SEND may present” and, as a result, creates a “non-inclusive narrative”.

”We believe there remains a risk, if the guidance remains unamended, that pupils with SEND may be dealt with unfairly in some settings,” the union said.

Reporting the use of restraint

In its consultation, the DfE set out plans for a new statutory requirement for schools to report and record the use of reasonable force from September 2025.

Research last year showed that one in four primary teachers and leaders had to restrain a pupil in the first autumn half-term.

Three education unions - the NAHT, the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) and the NASUWT teaching union - cautiously welcomed the DfE’s proposals on recording the use of restraint, while raising potential concerns.

The NASUWT said that any reporting must be the responsibility of a school’s senior leadership team, rather than the staff involved in the incident.

The union said its casework has “highlighted instances where members of staff have used restraint or force reasonably and lawfully, yet found themselves subject to reprisals from parents”.

• Guidance: Schools legally required to report use of reasonable force
• Background: Eight ways guidance on reasonable force could change
• Behaviour: Quarter of primary teachers have used restraint this term

The ASCL said the main challenge for schools will be to ensure that staff can identify what constitutes a “significant” incident that needs to be reported.

The guidance defines a “significant” incident as “any incident where the use of reasonable force goes beyond appropriate physical contact between pupils and staff”.

However, the ASCL said its members have told of instances where “determining the threshold for a ‘significant’ incident is difficult”.

According to the DfE guidance, after a significant incident has occurred, schools should have a follow-up conversation to “facilitate reflection, learning and to support pupil and staff wellbeing”.

Both the ASCL and NAHT disagreed with this, saying that many schools do not have the staffing capacity to debrief consistently.

“The reality is that some schools simply can’t find the resources to do this in a timely and fully supportive fashion. This, in turn, could have a perverse impact on the recording of significant incidents,” ASCL said in its submission.

Quality assurance on training

The guidance does not include a statutory expectation for schools to train staff, instead advising that staff who are likely to need to use reasonable force should be “adequately trained in its safe and lawful use”.

The NASUWT urged the government to introduce a ”national, standardised training programme” to ensure “consistency and effectiveness”.

Both the NAHT and NASUWT called for quality assurance on training. The NAHT said this would mean that schools only “invest precious staff time and scarce funding” on high-quality training.

The ASCL added that the cost of regular training on restraint and the use of reasonable force was “significant”, with some schools being in a financial position to train more staff than others, creating an ”inequitable” situation.

The Department for Education has been contacted for comment.

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