What this is
BBC Radio 5 live Investigates sent a Freedom of Information request to every local authority in England, Scotland and Wales, asking for its records of physical restraint in special schools. The survey was published on 1 March 2017 and covered the previous three years.
The Education Authority of Northern Ireland told the BBC it did not hold the information.
What it records
The survey counted 13,000 recorded physical restraints of children in special schools over three years, and 731 recorded injuries, per the returns it received.
The breakdown matters as much as the total. In England, nine of 153 local authorities provided figures, per the same returns, reporting 6,262 restraints and 360 injuries. In Scotland, 17 of 32 provided data, reporting 4,383 restraints and 157 injuries. In Wales, 11 of 22 provided data, reporting 2,182 restraints and 214 injuries, per the same returns.
Fewer than one in five authorities held any data at all, and the BBC’s own reading is that the true number is likely to be “far higher”.
The survey also described the practice it was counting: children pinned face down on the floor, and others strapped into chairs.
How to read it
Read the denominator before the numerator. Nine authorities out of 153 could answer for England, so a child restrained almost anywhere in the country left no record that a national request could reach. The 731 injuries, per the survey, are what the authorities that answered could count, not what happened.
That makes the figure a floor, and it makes any claim that a school’s restraint data is representative testable against it. A school reporting four restraints last term may have a low number. It may also have a record that would not survive a request.
The document also draws a line that schools still blur. Force used to keep someone safe is permitted; force used as punishment is not. What is reasonable is the judgement of the adult in the moment, which is why the record of what was done, and why, is the only thing that can be reviewed afterwards.
Where it stops
Special schools only, and England, Scotland and Wales only. Mainstream schools were not in the request, and Northern Ireland held nothing to give.
It is 2017, covering the three years before it. It is a journalistic survey, not a statutory collection: the primary FOI responses were not retrieved for this page, so the figures come from one source and are quoted as reported. The total is the broadcaster’s rounded figure; the three national breakdowns above are the numbers as published.
The Department for Education said at the time that it planned to publish draft guidance on reducing the need for restraint in special schools. This page does not track what followed, and nothing here should be read as a statement about current guidance in any of the three nations.
Sources
If your setting records restraint but not the injury that came with it, our restraint reduction training for schools covers the recording, the review and what a defensible restraint policy has to say.
Reviewed 20 October 2026.