The school’s.
Every operative duty in the statute and the regulations is placed on the governing body or proprietor: to have a procedure, and to take reasonable steps to see it is followed. No provision places a personal statutory duty on the teacher who used the force. That matters when a record is late or missing — this is a failure of the school’s procedure, not a breach of the law by you. The one place an individual is named is a duty not to tell a parent in defined circumstances.
updated 1 Jan 2025last checked 22 Aug 2026
What the source actually says
Who the duty falls on:
“(1) The governing body of a school in England must ensure that a procedure is in place for—”
— Education and Inspections Act 2006, s.93A(1), current text as revised legislation.gov.uk
And what that duty consists of — securing compliance, not performing the task:
“(2) The governing body must take all reasonable steps to ensure that the procedure is complied with.”
— Education and Inspections Act 2006, s.93A(2), current text as revised legislation.gov.uk
The written record and the timescale are requirements of the procedure:
“(3) The procedure must require that a record of a use of force incident is made in writing as soon as practicable after the incident.”
— Education and Inspections Act 2006, s.93A(3), current text as revised legislation.gov.uk
The seclusion and restraint regulations are built the same way:
“4. —(1) The governing body of a school maintained by a local authority must ensure that a procedure is in place for—”
— The Schools (Recording and Reporting of Seclusion and Restraint) (No. 2) (England) Regulations 2025, reg. 4(1) legislation.gov.uk
“(2) The governing body must take all reasonable steps to ensure that the procedure is complied with.”
— The Schools (Recording and Reporting of Seclusion and Restraint) (No. 2) (England) Regulations 2025, reg. 4(2) legislation.gov.uk
The single point where a named individual carries a duty is the safeguarding exception, and it is a duty to withhold, not to file:
“(a) that a person (“R”) who would otherwise be required by the procedure to report an incident to a parent must not report it to that parent if it appears to R that doing so would be likely to result in significant harm to the pupil; and”
— Education and Inspections Act 2006, s.93A(5)(a), current text as revised legislation.gov.uk
“(b) that if it appears to R that there is no parent of the pupil to whom R could report the incident without that being likely to result in significant harm to the pupil, R must report the incident to the local authority within whose area the pupil is ordinarily resident.”
— Education and Inspections Act 2006, s.93A(5)(b), current text as revised legislation.gov.uk
Read this alongside the statutory guidance, which expects the record to be written by the staff member involved and, where possible, the same day. Both are true: the school owes the duty, and the school’s procedure discharges it through you.
Your school may still require it
Your school’s procedure can lawfully require you personally to write the record, to a template, by the end of the day — and that is a reasonable instruction you are expected to follow. The point is where the legal duty sits, not whether you can be asked. It also means a school cannot answer a missing record by saying the teacher should have known.
See also Do I have to write up every time I use force on a pupil?, Does the school always have to tell parents force was used? and Do I have to record a restraint twice, under two different sets of rules?.