When a positive handling incident happens in school, the record written afterwards matters as much as the response in the moment. It may be read months later by a parent, a governor, an investigator or a tribunal — none of whom were in the room.
Records that are vague or subjective (“the pupil became aggressive…”) do not protect anyone. Records that are factual, complete and clearly written do: they protect the pupil, the staff member and the school.
That is why we are pleased to point school leaders and designated safeguarding leads to our sister company’s online course, Evidence-Ready Incident Documentation — developed for staff in services where restrictive interventions may occur, including education.
The course covers:
- Writing records that are factual and complete, in plain English.
- Separating fact from opinion.
- Avoiding the classic failure modes in incident records.
- Making records that are legally defensible and useful to a reader who was not there.
It is aligned with Restraint Reduction Network (RRN) principles — the same standard that underpins defensible positive handling in schools.
Who it is for: school staff who write or review incident records following positive handling or restraint, and trainers who teach them.
Format: self-paced online, around 45–75 minutes.
Read the full article on Dynamis Training — or talk to an adviser about incident-recording and positive handling training for your school →
This post links to a course delivered by our colleagues at Dynamis Training; Positive Handling is part of the Dynamis group.