The English government has issued a new, revolutionary set of guidelines for teachers in the more than 21,000 state schools in England. The revolutionary feature is that the longstanding hands-off policy has been replaced by permission to use ‘reasonable force’ to restrain unruly pupils. The purpose of the guidelines is to help teachers to be confident in maintaining discipline in the classroom and ‘give schools the freedom and support they need to provide a safe and structured environment in which teachers can teach and children can learn.’