Efforts to limit the damaging use of restraint on children in schools are being hindered by “wishy-washy” and outdated official guidance, campaigners and England’s Children’s Commissioner are warning.
Their calls for revised guidelines to give teachers greater clarity about how to approach pupil behaviour and when to physically intervene follow years of Government delay to a promised overhaul.
Exclusive polling of more than 7,000 teachers for The i Paper by Teacher Tapp reveals an apparent failure of existing guidelines to show the profession when and how children can be restrained.
It finds that nearly two-thirds (65 per cent) of teachers have either not read current Department for Education (DfE) guidance on the use of restraint and the use of reasonable force (39 per cent), or think it is unclear (26 per cent).
The official document is more than a decade old and leaves decisions about whether to physically intervene, and about whether the use of force by a teacher is serious enough to tell parents about, down to the “professional judgement” of school staff. It also says schools “need to take their own decisions about staff training” on restraint.
More than five years of delay
The i Paper has learnt that efforts to replace the guidance began more than five years ago but have yet to bear fruit. Campaigners are also alarmed after being told by the DfE that when new guidance is eventually produced it will be informed by research that suggests that restraint in schools is “rare”.
They say their own evidence shows it is on the rise. And the Teacher Tapp poll, carried out in November, also finds that more than a quarter (26 per cent) of mainstream primary teachers said they had had to restrain a pupil in the last half term.
Concerns are growing about the extent of such physical interventions in schools and the traumatic impact it can have on pupils who often have special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
On Friday The i Paper revealed examples that included an autistic four year-old boy who came home covered in bruises after daily restraints, and a teenager who was left with post-traumatic stress disorder after being restrained more than 150 times.
England’s Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza has described the cases as “appalling” and is calling for less restraint in schools and better guidance.
“I have been clear that restraint should be used infrequently,” she told The i Paper.
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