Six-year-old tied to a chair, and nobody called it restraint

A learning support worker tied a non-verbal six-year-old to an adult chair and left the room. A fitness-to-practice panel gave her a reprimand.

What happened

Maes Ebbw is a special school in Newport with about 150 pupils. In January 2016 a learning support worker who had worked there for 16 years led a six-year-old girl to an adult chair and tied the sleeves of a hooded top around her waist in a double knot.

The girl, identified only as Pupil A, has learning difficulties, is non-verbal, and communicates by selecting pictures. She was said to have hit another pupil. The member of staff then left the classroom, leaving another teaching assistant to untie her.

The family was not told by the school. The matter was reported to the deputy head teacher, investigated at the school, and referred to the Education Workforce Council, which heard it in Cardiff in April 2017.

The outcome

The council’s fitness-to-practice committee found the allegations of unacceptable professional conduct proven, and found that she had breached the school’s rules on child protection and on restraining pupils. It issued a reprimand. She was not struck off and was free to return to the classroom.

She admitted tying the pupil but denied using a double knot and denied unacceptable professional conduct. She told the hearing the tying “wasn’t done as a restraint but from a safety point of view”.

What went wrong

This was not a member of staff losing control in a struggle. The account given was of a calm, practical measure to stop a small child attacking others and to stop her chair moving. That is why the case belongs here: the person doing it did not recognise the act as restraint.

No assessment is recorded. The incident was not recorded as restraint, and no one told the family. A second adult had to release the child.

The panel’s findings on the school’s own rules show that the practice was prohibited. The prohibition had not reached the point where staff recognised the act as falling under it.

What it teaches

Tying a child to a chair is mechanical restraint whatever the member of staff calls it. A hooded top used as a strap is equipment, and it is restraint equipment.

The panel was willing to leave her in a classroom, which shows that individual intent is not the control. What controls it is a definition staff can apply to themselves, an explicit ban on mechanical restraint, and recording that names the method.

Telling the family is part of the record. A parent who is not told cannot ask whether it has happened before.

Questions for the room

A colleague ties a child to a chair “for safety”. At what point do you intervene, and what do you write?
You are the deputy head receiving this report. What are the first three things you do?
Nobody recorded this as restraint and no one told the family. Which of your systems would have failed next?

Evidence and limits

Confidence: probable. Two independent local reports of the same hearing agree on the finding and the sanction, but the regulator’s published decision was not retrieved and the exact hearing date is not stated. The ruling was reported on 6 April 2017, and the hearing was in Cardiff in April 2017.

The pupil is a child and is not named. The member of staff is not named because the record files the case by school and role; the panel’s findings are reported as it found them.

Proceedings are concluded; the establishing record is the Education Workforce Council fitness-to-practice hearing.

Our school training covers restraint reduction in education settings, including mechanical restraint and how to record it.

Sources

Reviewed 20 October 2026.

A six-year-old tied to a chair, and nobody called it restraint