Department for Education update: Sept. 2025

Under new government guidance, schools must record every "significant" use of reasonable force against pupils and report them to parents "as soon as practicable."

We're not there yet (the DfE is still deliberating until April), but this highlights a key area of concern for the department as it seeks to clarify guidance. 

In this article, we explore the proposed update and the impact on schools if the guidance is implemented.

What you need to know

1. Record' significant' incidents

 A significant incident is defined as "any incident where the use of reasonable force goes beyond appropriate physical contact between pupils and staff".

At the same time, definitions of contact that are "generally" acceptable within the school include:

- Administering first-aid

- Escorting pupils 

- Improving exercises during PE

- Congratulating or encouraging students with a handshake or similar actions. 

Schools must have a procedure in place for recording every instance in which a staff member uses force on a pupil. 

The information to be recorded includes:

✅ Pupil and staff names.

✅ Time, date, location.

✅ Degree of force.

✅ Reason for force and the post-incident support.

2. Informing parents "as soon as practicable."

"As soon as practicable" is broad guidance, but there are solutions to facilitate instant notifications to parents when the incidents are logged. 

The only exception detailed by the DfE is scenarios in which the pupil is aged 20 years or older OR if the disclosure of the force to the parents would result in abuse and/or neglect outside of school. 

In this scenario, your Local Authority is your first port of call. 

3. Behaviour triggers

Proactive support will always be preferable to reactive force. The guidance states that schools should seek to "understand underlying triggers which spark behaviours." 

Understanding triggers, which involves knowing individual students, keeping up-to-date with their welfare, and developing tactics to reduce student exposure to triggers, reduces the need for reasonable force. 

Pupils with SEND could be disproportionately subject to reasonable force as they "may react  to distressing or confusing situations by displaying behaviours which may be harmful to themselves and others."

4. Reasonable force as a last resort

It's extremely difficult for us to sit here and describe that new guidance details reasonable force as a last resort. Sometimes, as school staff and even parents, we immediately respond to de-escalation when children and young adults are susceptible to triggers. 

School staff should “consider whether there are reasonable alternative ways to manage a situation and achieve the desired outcome”.

They should balance the impact of reasonable force on a pupil’s overall welfare against any actions taken. This consideration of alternatives could occur regularly with practice and proactive thought so that those alternatives become the first port of call before an incident occurs. 

Reasonable force may be “particularly distressing” for pupils who have experienced an adverse life event, have a diagnosed or undiagnosed medical condition or have communication difficulties.

5. Prioritise de-escalation

Measures can include:

- Improving the look, feel and appeal of the school building(s). Improving communal spaces and corridors.

- Training staff to be more emphatic and sympathetic to students and their triggers. Working on staff-pupil relationships is key to instilling trust and reliability. 

Schools must have risk assessments in place if reasonable force is to be used, and risks must be mitigated through training and prevention strategies where possible.

This is especially key if a pupil has a disability.

6. Respect for dignity

The DfE explicitly refers to respect for dignity: “maintain respect for a pupil’s dignity.”

This may “include, where possible, considering the location and environment where any intervention is used, such as in front of their peers.

“Where possible, staff should clearly and calmly communicate to the pupil what is happening, why, and explain what the pupil needs to do.”

“Understand how the pupil is feeling and use this information to determine whether the use of reasonable force and/or other restrictive intervention should be, or continue to be, applied, reduced or stopped”.

7. Review your data

This is where a digital solution to healthcare and safeguarding is crucial to schools. Let's imagine this DfE guidance was never proposed, the incidents you face in school still exist, and communication with parents/carers and Local Authorities is still necessary. 

An outdated, manual, paper-based system is used in many schools across the UK for safeguarding and healthcare, but it has major flaws. 

Senior leadership teams, governors and senior stakeholders should “regularly review and interrogate data on reasonable force and other restrictive interventions”.

This should “identify any disproportionate use of reasonable force and/or other restrictive interventions in pupils who have protected characteristics, have SEN, or other types of vulnerability”.

Can a paper-based process be relied upon to spot trends?

Medical Tracker exists to provide schools with a DfE-compliant, digital, secure, and cost-effective solution to improve tracking and monitoring of incidents in schools. 

You can find more informative blog posts like these in our newsletter, The First-Aid Room. The largest first-aid and healthcare newsletter for schools.