Fears that Restraining Students are doing more Harm than Good

Parents of students who need to be restrained daily are saying that their children are being ‘hurt every day’ by these methods and are currently seeking legal action. The fears that these parents have are there are no clear rules when it comes to restraining and that schools should have adequate safeguards in place to ensure that students are dealt with in a safe manner.

The main issue seems to be that there are no robust procedures in place to determine when restraints should be used as the current government advice states that teacher should use restraint when they think ‘challenging behaviour’ occurs; this means that the levels of disruption/behaviour in a class could be at different levels of escalation before a teacher decides to take action. The families of these children with a range of complex special educational needs believe that the government is failing in its duty to protect the most vulnerable of children causing some students to become injured or have high distress levels.

Over the years at Rikama Education, there has been plenty of opinions when it comes to restraint from teachers and specialist teaching assistants. Some stating that if students cannot behave properly then they may need restraining to protect others in the class, others saying that you cannot restrain effectively in the modern age as, although completed in good will, may cause injury.

What are your thoughts? Have you ever had to restrain a child in the classroom? If so, how did this make you feel?

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