Scotland school restraint and seclusion law explained

Scotland now has a new law on restraint and seclusion in schools. The Bill was passed by the Scottish Parliament on 24 March 2026 with 121 votes in favour and no votes against, and the Parliament page says it received Royal Assent on 26 May 2026. In plain English, the law is about what happens when a pupil is physically held or shut away from others in school, and it is meant to make those moments clearer, rarer and more accountable. (parliament.scot) **What this means:** if you are a pupil, parent or teacher, this is not just legal tidy-up. It sets a Scotland-wide framework for when restraint or seclusion is used, what schools must record, when parents must be told and what guidance ministers must produce. The Education, Children and Young People Committee said the policy aim was to make sure these practices are used only as a last resort. (parliament.scot)

The law starts by defining the terms. Restraint means physical contact by school staff intended to significantly restrict a pupil’s movement. Seclusion means action by staff intended to isolate a pupil from other pupils and stop them leaving the place where they are isolated. The Act also says staff includes anyone acting under an education provider’s authority. (parliament.scot) **What this means:** not every ordinary school boundary counts. Existing Scottish Government guidance says some restrictions are normal, such as keeping pupils on site for safety, but when an action crosses into serious restriction or isolation, the school is in a legal space that now has named duties attached to it. Ministers can also change the legal definitions later if they need to exclude low-risk actions or capture other harmful ones. (parliament.scot)

The Act puts Scottish Ministers under a duty to issue guidance for education providers on restraint and seclusion. That guidance must cover what counts as significant restriction, appropriate and inappropriate practice, alternatives, prevention, safeguarding, legal duties, what happens after an incident, recording and monitoring, inspection, staff training, compliance and complaints. Before issuing or revising it, ministers must consult education providers, bodies representing parents, trade unions, children and young people, the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland, and other relevant groups. Schools must then have regard to that guidance. (parliament.scot) **What this means:** schools will not be left to make this up as they go along, but they also will not be free to ignore the national line. If you are a family, the guidance matters because it should shape what staff are trained to do before, during and after any incident. (parliament.scot)

The parent-notification rule is one of the clearest parts of the Act. If a pupil is subjected to restraint or seclusion, the responsible person for the school must tell the parent both that it happened and the details of the incident. That should happen as soon as possible, and no later than the end of the school day, unless that is not reasonably practicable, in which case the limit is 24 hours after the incident. (parliament.scot) **What this means:** families should no longer be left piecing together a distressing event days later. In local authority schools, that duty sits with the headteacher or a staff member authorised by the headteacher; in independent schools it sits with the proprietor; in grant-aided schools it sits with the managers. The Act also allows a parent to nominate another person to receive that information instead. (parliament.scot)

The law also builds a paper trail. Every education provider must record all incidents of restraint or seclusion in its schools. Independent schools and grant-aided schools must report numbers to Scottish Ministers, and each education authority must do the same for schools under its management. Ministers can go further by setting rules on reporting timescales, format and content, and they must publish a yearly Scotland-wide report on the number of incidents. (parliament.scot) **What this means:** this is about visibility as much as compliance. The Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland previously warned that restraint and seclusion had been largely unmonitored across Scotland, making it hard to know how often incidents happened or who was most affected. Better reporting should make it harder for harmful practice to stay hidden. (cypcs.org.uk)

Training matters here, but the Act is careful in how it handles it. It allows Scottish Ministers to develop training standards and keep lists of people who meet those standards, or to recognise standards developed by others and list the people who meet them. Those standards and lists must be published. In other words, the law creates a route towards more consistent training, rather than assuming every school is already working from the same playbook. (parliament.scot) **Why the law matters:** Scotland already has government guidance from November 2024 saying restraint and seclusion should be used only as a last resort, with prevention, co-regulation and de-escalation taking priority. That guidance also says seclusion is not recommended for general use in schools and should only ever be used in an emergency to avert an immediate risk of injury where no less restrictive option is workable. The new Act takes that wider rights-based conversation and ties parts of it to legal duties around guidance, notification and reporting. (gov.scot)

There is one important timing detail. Although the Act now exists, the main operational sections - the ones on definitions, guidance, parent information, recording and training - do not all switch on immediately. The commencement section says the core duties in sections 1 to 5 will start on dates appointed by Scottish Ministers, and those regulations must be made by 31 July 2028 at the latest. The interpretation and regulation-making sections came into force the day after Royal Assent. (parliament.scot) **What this means:** if you work in a school or support a child in Scotland, the next things to watch are the commencement regulations and the statutory guidance itself. The Act applies to schools run by education authorities, independent schools and grant-aided schools, but not to nursery schools or nursery classes, so the fine print matters just as much as the headline. (parliament.scot)