When behaviour in a school escalates to the point where staff need to intervene physically, the stakes are high — for the pupil, for the member of staff, and for the school’s legal and reputational position. Positive handling training gives education staff the skills to keep everyone safe: de-escalation first, and when physical intervention is genuinely necessary, techniques that are safe, legal and defensible.
What positive handling training covers
Good positive handling training is about far more than techniques. Our Positive Handling team works with mainstream, special, AP/PRU and residential schools on the whole picture:
- De-escalation and communication — reading behaviour early and reducing risk before it becomes physical
- Restraint reduction — creating plans and environments that minimise the need for physical intervention
- Safe physical skills — training in the legal, defensible techniques schools choose, delivered with the pupil’s welfare at the centre
- Policy, recording and legal defensibility — helping schools document incidents properly and stay within the law
Who it’s for
- Mainstream primary and secondary schools
- Special schools and SEND provisions
- Alternative provision and pupil referral units
- Early years settings and boarding/residential schools
- International schools
How Dynamis delivers it
Dynamis has trained thousands of education staff across the UK and Ireland and is led by Gerard O’Dea, one of the country’s most experienced conflict-management trainers — a trainer’s trainer with decades of front-line and classroom practice. Training is delivered by our dedicated positive-handling arm, with both in-school and open courses.
Choose the right course for your setting
- Full-day positive handling training — the complete foundation course for school staff — see the full-day course
- Two-day advanced programme — for schools with higher behavioural need — see the two-day course
- Positive handling for SEND — for special schools and provisions — see the SEND course
- Training in Ireland — Irish schools
Not sure which course fits? Talk to an adviser — we’ll help you work it out.
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