Schools Toolkit: Records of Restrictive Interventions

The legal framework

From 1 April 2026, schools in England are subject to new and strengthened statutory duties to record and report incidents involving the use of restrictive interventions with pupils. These arise from two overlapping but distinct legal regimes which schools will need to operate concurrently: 

• the statutory guidance on recording and reporting the use of force, issued by the Department for Education under section 93A of the Education and Inspections Act 2006, which is contained within the DfE’s guidance document Restrictive Interventions, Including Use of Reasonable Force, in Schools (April 2026); and 

• the Schools (Recording and Reporting of Seclusion and Restraint) (No. 2) (England) Regulations 2025, which impose equivalent duties in relation to seclusion and non-force related restraint incidents. 

This section is not intended to address those frameworks in detail, nor to reproduce the substantive guidance on when and how restrictive interventions may lawfully be used. Schools should refer directly to the legislation and DfE guidance for that purpose. The purpose of this section is instead to address the records management and retention implications of the recording obligations those frameworks create. 

The dual nature of the record

A record of a restrictive intervention incident is, simultaneously, two distinct records: 

1. A record forming part of the child’s educational and safeguarding file. An incident of force, seclusion or restraint is, by its nature, a notable incident involving the child. It therefore forms part of the pupil record and must be treated accordingly. This means it must travel with the child when they move to a new educational setting, in the same way as other education and child protection records, as set out above.
2. An institutional record belonging to the school. Independently of its status as part of the child’s file, the record also forms part of the school’s own governance and management records. Governing bodies and proprietors are required to take all reasonable steps to ensure that their school’s recording and reporting procedures are complied with and are expected to regularly review and interrogate data on restrictive interventions at an institutional level. This analysis, covering patterns, trends, disproportionality in relation to SEND or protected characteristics, and the effectiveness of support measures, cannot be carried out unless there is an effective way to review such records.

The practical implication of this dual nature is that incident records will ordinarily need to be stored in two places: the school’s institutional incident log (discussed below) and the individual child’s education or safeguarding record. Schools whose practice is simply to log incidents into a child’s safeguarding log should review that approach in light of these requirements. 

The institutional incident log

Completed incident record forms should be retained in a dedicated incident log at school level. This is the school’s institutional record. It provides the information that governing bodies need to discharge their oversight responsibilities, and that inspection bodies may wish to examine. It enables the school to analyse patterns over time, to identify any disproportionate use of restrictive interventions, and to evidence the effectiveness (or otherwise) of its policies and support strategies. 

Maintaining an incident log that is separate from the individual child’s record is therefore not merely good practice; it is the practical means by which governing bodies can properly oversee compliance with their obligations. A log that is too sparse, or one that is inaccessible, will not serve this purpose effectively. This record must be stored securely. 

Transfer of records when a pupil moves school

As with all education and safeguarding records, incident records forming part of a child’s file must be transferred to the child’s new school. Records of this kind are likely to be relevant to the new school’s safeguarding and behaviour support arrangements and schools should give careful thought to how this information is communicated as part of the transition process, subject to compliance with the School Admissions Code 2021. 

Retention

The regulations and DfE guidance do not prescribe a specific retention period for incident records. Schools must therefore make a documented, risk-led decision and record it in their retention schedule. 

Records forming part of the child’s safeguarding file should be treated consistently with other safeguarding records. Where the school is the ‘last known school’ for that pupil, these records should be retained until the pupil reaches the age of 25 before review prior to destruction. Schools that have made a policy decision to retain safeguarding records for longer should apply that same policy consistently to incident records forming part of the safeguarding file. 

The school’s own institutional incident log is a governance and management record. There is no specific legislative provision on how long these records must be kept. By analogy with accident records involving children, and given the risk profile of personal injury claims that may arise where incidents result in injury, schools should consider retaining the institutional incident log in line with their practice on accident records. These records will need to be transferred out of the ‘active’ log and stored in an archive. Clearly this longer-term retention must still be stored with due care and attention to the sensitive nature of the records.