New Department for Education (DfE) guidance argues that such policies are pointless, since it is often necessary for a teacher to touch a child when dealing with accidents or teaching musical instruments.
The guidance, which is now 50 pages long, compared with 600 pages under the last government, reiterates the fact that teachers have a legal power to use reasonable force.
It states that teachers can use force to remove a pupil who is disrupting a lesson or to prevent a child leaving a classroom and says that schools should not automatically suspend teachers who are accused of using force unreasonably.
Meanwhile, head teachers have been given new powers, including the right to search pupils for alcohol, illegal drugs and stolen property and consent to discipline pupils who misbehave outside the schools premises and outside schools hours.
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