Positive Handling Training for Alternative Provision
Practical, lawful positive handling for pupil referral units, alternative provision academies and hospital or home tuition teams.
Built for small groups and hard days
Not a course that assumes a calm corridor and thirty pupils in a room.
De-escalation first
Most incidents end before a hold because an adult bought the pupil thirty more seconds.
The rooms you actually use
A doorway, a corridor, a minibus: where AP incidents begin and end.
Twelve per trainer
The physical work needs coaching, not watching. Larger settings run consecutive days.
What is at Stake?
In a mainstream school a restraint is a bad day. In alternative provision it is a Tuesday.
That changes what staff need: a course built for small groups, high anxiety, part-time timetables and young people who have already been excluded from somewhere else, and who know how to make an adult lose their temper.
01
Your staff
Physical intervention injuries cluster in staff who were never coached, not in staff who intervene most.
02
Your pupils
A pupil restrained badly learns one more time that adults use force when they run out of words. Many of yours have learned that already.
03
Your setting
An unjustified hold becomes a serious incident review and sometimes a safeguarding referral about the staff member rather than the child.
Why AP needs a different day
Because the incidents are more frequent, the judgement has to be better, and the de-escalation has to be the main skill rather than the warm-up.
Reading the pupil in front of you
Attachment difficulties, SEMH, autism, and the ones who go quiet rather than loud.
Practised where it happens
Doorways, corridors and minibuses, with a partner, at a pace the group can hold.
The record that survives scrutiny
What a defensible record says, and how to use it in the debrief with the pupil.
The day moves from prevention to response to review: reading escalation, de-escalation as the main skill, the graded physical set, the bounds of what is necessary and proportionate, and recording that holds up afterwards.
Reading escalation
Escalation in children with attachment difficulties, SEMH, autism and communication needs, including the ones who go quiet rather than loud.
De-escalation as the main skill
Distance, tone, choices, humour where it works, and the script that buys time until the pupil can think again.
The physical set
Guiding, escorting and holding, practised from the positions your staff actually end up in.
Recording and review
What a defensible record says, and how to use it in the debrief with the pupil afterwards.
Our Impact in Your Schools
The first weeks of a placement are where a provision usually loses ground. Staff we train say they can hold a crisis with the team on site that day. Reviewers see a response that stands up when they ask about it.
K
We adapt the scenarios to your pupils before we arrive, using what you tell us about the incidents you actually get.
Dynamis Training
Guiding You Through
We listen, design and deliver training that reflects the real challenges your people face.
We understand that alternative provision runs on small teams, short placements and children who have already been excluded somewhere else, and that a crisis can arrive in week one. We have trained staff who work at that pace.
The Customer Journey
AP teams usually start by telling us the three incidents they get most often. We build the day around those, deliver it on site, and leave the record and certificates the local authority or the trust will ask for.
UNDERSTAND
We start by understanding how your provision works now: the referrals you accept, the staffing you hold, and where incidents actually begin.
ADDRESS
Then we train the responses your staff need, rehearsed in the spaces you actually use, not a demonstration room.
ENHANCE & SUSTAIN
Afterwards we help you keep the standard: refreshers that suit a rolling intake, and a route to train your own trainers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Our pupils have very different needs. Can one day cover them all?
Yes, because the day is built around decisions rather than diagnoses. We adapt the scenarios to your pupils before we arrive.
Do you cover physical intervention on transport?
Yes, including minibuses and taxis, which is where a lot of AP incidents begin and end.
What if a pupil is bigger or stronger than the staff member?
That is a planning question as much as a technique one: how the team positions itself, who calls for help, and what the plan says before the incident.
Guides
Download our Positive Handling starter guide for schools.
Contact Us
Ready to explore Positive Handling training for your staff team? Let’s talk today.
Starting from £99 per learner for most teams.
Face-to-face, in-house across the UK. Tell us your team size and we will price it properly.