Not automatically.
DfE’s guidance in force since 1 April 2026 defines seclusion narrowly: confining a pupil away from others, prevented from leaving, as a safety measure when a pupil is dysregulated — and it says explicitly that this is not a response to deliberate misbehaviour. Ordinary disciplinary removal from the classroom is a different thing. What turns a removal room into seclusion is the pupil being prevented from leaving, and that must be recorded.
updated 18 Dec 2025last checked 22 Aug 2026
What the source actually says
The definition, and the limit on when it may be used:
“Seclusion - a non-disciplinary intervention involving keeping a pupil confined to a place away from others and prevented from leaving - should only be used as a safety measure to protect others from harm when a pupil is experiencing high levels of emotional or behavioural dysregulation. In such circumstances, the pupil is not acting with intent. Seclusion should not be implemented by staff through threat of punishment.”
— Restrictive interventions, including the use of reasonable force, in schools, DfE, effective from 1 April 2026, p.8 DfE. That capture holds two documents; this is the current one, which replaced the 2013 guidance on 31 March 2026.
DfE draws the line with disciplinary measures itself:
“Seclusion, as defined in this guidance, is not a disciplinary response to deliberate or wilful misbehaviour. There are disciplinary measures that are similar, such as removal from the classroom.”
— Restrictive interventions, including the use of reasonable force, in schools, DfE, effective from 1 April 2026, p.8 DfE
If it is seclusion, three things follow:
“The place to which the pupil is confined should be safe and not feel threatening or intimidating to the pupil. The pupil should be supervised at all times during the period of seclusion. As soon as the immediate risk of harm has reduced, the pupil should be allowed to leave.”
— Restrictive interventions, including the use of reasonable force, in schools, DfE, effective from 1 April 2026, p.8 DfE
“An incident involving the use of seclusion must be recorded and reported in accordance with the procedures outlined in the section on ‘Recording and reporting duties’.”
— Restrictive interventions, including the use of reasonable force, in schools, DfE, effective from 1 April 2026, p.8 DfE
This part of the guidance is advice rather than statutory guidance — the document says so itself:
“The rest of this guidance is non-statutory.”
— Restrictive interventions, including the use of reasonable force, in schools, DfE, effective from 1 April 2026, p.3, “Status of this guidance”, the bullet following the one that makes page 14 statutory guidance DfE
The recording duty behind it is not advice, though — it sits in regulations, and those regulations carry their own definition. It is wider than the guidance in one respect and narrower in another:
“3. —(1) For the purposes of these Regulations one or more members of school staff seclude a pupil if they detain that one pupil in a place apart from any other person (except the member or members of staff) otherwise than as a disciplinary penalty, including by— (a) physically obstructing the pupil’s way of leaving the place, (b) securing the place so that the pupil cannot leave it, or (c) causing the pupil to believe that they will be punished if they leave the place.”
— The Schools (Recording and Reporting of Seclusion and Restraint) (No. 2) (England) Regulations 2025, reg. 3(1) legislation.gov.uk
Limb (c) matters: no door needs to be held. Telling a pupil they will be in trouble if they come out can be enough. But “otherwise than as a disciplinary penalty” carves out the ordinary sanction, and the regulations borrow the statutory meaning of that term rather than inventing one:
“(3) In this regulation “ disciplinary penalty ” has the same meaning as in Chapter 1 of Part 7 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 ( 6 ).”
— The Schools (Recording and Reporting of Seclusion and Restraint) (No. 2) (England) Regulations 2025, reg. 3(3) legislation.gov.uk
Your school may still require it
Your school can require every use of a removal or reflection room to be logged, timed and reported to parents whether or not it meets DfE’s definition of seclusion, and many do — one system is easier to run than two, and it protects staff as much as pupils. That is a school decision about its own procedures. The distinction that is not the school’s to redraw is the one in the guidance: a pupil who is prevented from leaving is in seclusion, and the safety, supervision and recording expectations attach from that moment.
See also Can I have a disruptive pupil removed from my lesson?, Am I allowed to use reasonable force, or is that only for senior staff?, Do I have to record stopping a pupil if I never touched them? and Is recording a use of force my legal duty, or the school's?.