NEW ZEALAND GAZETTE, No. 89 — 1 SEPTEMBER 2017

• review the policy as part of the school’s annual review cycle.

Communicating with students and with the school community

It is the school’s responsibility to ensure that parents, students, school staff and the community know about the school’s plans and policies for managing challenging behaviour and using physical restraint.

This includes having processes in place to inform parents when physical restraint has been used.

Review

The Education Review Office may review a school’s use of physical restraint, as it would any other school operation or procedure.

Good practice guidance

Student and staff wellbeing come first

Physical restraint affects the wellbeing of both the student and the staff member who applies it. It is associated with injury and increased emotional trauma to them both.

These guidelines focus on staff and student safety and wellbeing. They provide staff with generic techniques for preventing and de-escalating potentially dangerous situations. For more information schools can request the Understanding Behaviour – Responding Safely training (see below).

Identifying when you may need to apply physical restraint

Use physical restraint only where safety is at a serious and imminent risk

Physical restraint is a serious intervention. The emotional and physical impact on the student being restrained and the person doing the restraining can be significant. There are legal and reputational risks if a student is harmed.

The first aim should be to avoid needing to use physical restraint. Use preventative and de-escalation techniques to reduce the risk of injury.

Use physical restraint only when:

The teacher or authorised staff member reasonably believes that the safety of the student or of any other person is at serious and imminent risk.

The physical restraint response must be reasonable and proportionate in the circumstances:

• Use the minimum force necessary to respond to the serious and imminent risk to safety.

• Use physical restraint only for as long as is needed to ensure the safety of everyone involved.

What is serious and imminent risk to safety?

The physical restraint provisions are intended to deal with the upper end of the spectrum of situations where teachers and authorised staff members have physical contact with a student. It is clear that, in these situations, the restraint is in response to a serious and imminent risk to safety.

Teachers and authorised staff members will need to use their professional judgement to decide what constitutes “a serious and imminent risk to safety”. These situations are examples:

• A student is moving in with a weapon, or something that could be used as a weapon, and is clearly intent on using violence towards another person.

• A student is physically attacking another person, or is about to.

• A student is throwing furniture, computers, or breaking glass close to others who would be injured if hit.

• A student is putting themselves in danger, for example running onto a road or trying to harm themselves.

These examples do not pose a serious and imminent risk to safety

Avoid using physical restraint to manage behaviour in these situations:

• to respond to behaviour that is disrupting the classroom but not putting anyone in danger of being hurt.

• for refusal to comply with an adult’s request.

• to respond to verbal threats.

• to stop a student who is trying to leave the classroom or school without permission.

• as coercion, discipline or punishment.

• to stop a student who is damaging or removing property, unless there is a risk to safety.

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