Written by Paul Dix
Using lawful, proportionate restraint when it is necessary to keep children safe is a hefty responsibility for any teacher. When restraint is used to control behaviour, a line is crossed. Physical intervention is not a panacea for controlling violent behaviour. If it was we would still be beating children.
Some children who are restrained shrug it off. It is just part of their daily personal chaos. Others escalate restraint incidents for pride, 'It took five of them to hold me, mashed up the glass door as they carried me out". Some take their revenge in damage to personal property, others have Dads who do not share your enthusiasm for physical discipline. In the toughest areas when the family can see that you have crossed the line, the game changes. The stakes have been raised. Waving that DFE 'guidance' won't help you when Big Phil wants a 'quiet word'. I know many teachers who drive to work for the protection from implicit threats made against them after incidents in school. Others who have had direct threats of violence. We are teachers, not police.
Some of the PRUs I work with, who have the most potentially violent pupils, never use restraint to control or modify behaviour. The Headteacher of one Outstanding PRU told me they had restrained just one student for his own safety. They deal with the trickiest students I have met. The issue is the culture of the institution, the leadership and the skill of the staff. If you have got to the stage where children are regularly restrained in order to get them to 'do as they are told' you have a problem in the culture of adult behaviour. The 'them and us' culture that accompanies use of restraint for control permanently taints relationships and corrodes discipline.
For teachers who are not as physically capable as their students, physical intervention is never an option. Alone in classroom at the end of the corridor a slim built, 5 foot DT teacher is no match for Lofty O'Connor, 6 ft 2 and built like a baronial boys lavatory. The teacher who taught me most about managing behaviour was just this size. Working with extremely volatile year 11s she would never raise a hand or voice. The seam of trust ran deep. See searched for relationships while others grabbed for wrists.
Children die in restraint. That is why we can never be casual about its use. One person's 'last resort' is never the same as another. Some people are too quick to put hands on, others too slow to help. Of course, children also get hurt when people stand by and do nothing. We need specialist training with the right philosophy. Most of the current training around physical restraint is seriously flawed and derived from systems used in Custody, Police or Military. Usually a bastardisation of all three. The NHS can teach us a great deal about how to do restraint with care and dignity when it is essential.
Teachers who are properly trained in managing behaviour value their training in Restraint as an essential part of their first aid kit. It is there to keep children safe. They have far more effective and humane strategies for dealing with escalating confrontation or children who 'won't do as they are told'.
