Our website uses Cookies - by using this site or closing this message you're agreeing to our Terms & Conditions, Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy
xCalums Law: Ending Restraint and Seclusion in Scottish Schools A Call for Protection, Accountability, and Change.
Date: 22nd July 2025
Category:
General measures of implementation, Civil Rights and Freedoms, Education, Leisure and Cultural Activities
Positive and Active Behaviour Support Scotland (PABSS) have published a new report titled 'Calums Law: Ending Restraint and Seclusion in Scottish Schools A Call for Protection, Accountability, and Change'. This report documents the views of children, families, professionals and campaigners and makes these calls:
- Centre the voices of children and families: Not just when systems fail, but in shaping the systems themselves;
- Make rights real: Through law that protects, not just policies that promise;
- Train and trust staff: With the tools, empathy, and confidence to respond with humanity;
- Shine a light on practice: With transparent data that demands accountability;
- Reject the unacceptable. Because a school should never be a place where harm is normalised;
- Implement Calums Law (Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill) and protect Scotland’s most vulnerable children in law.
The Scottish Parliament Education & Skills Committees call for views on the Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill by Daniel Johnson MSP (known as Calums Law) closed Friday 11th July.
Together’s position is that Scottish Government should develop and implement statutory, human rights-based guidance on the use, monitoring and scrutiny of the use of restraint across all settings, supported by rights-based training and a clear complaints procedure for children and families. We made this recommendation in the States of Children’s Rights Report 2023 to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. This influences their recommendations to Scottish Government.
The UN Committee then called for ‘legislative measures to explicitly prohibit, without exception (…) solitary confinement, isolation, seclusion and restraint as disciplinary measures in schools and alternative care and health-care settings and to develop statutory guidance on the use of restraint on children to ensure that it is used only as a measure of last resort and exclusively to prevent harm to the child or others and monitor its implementation’ (rec 30a, b).