Recording and Monitoring Short Life Working Group minutes: January 2026

Attendees and apologies

• Connect
• Clackmannanshire Council (Education Scotland SEBN Network)
• East Lothian Council (Education Scotland SEBN Network)
• EIS
• Glasgow Council (ADES)
• NASUWT
• SLS
• SSTA
• SG Early Learning and Childcare
• SG Health and Wellbeing in Schools team (Chair)
• South Ayrshire Council (Education Scotland SEBN Network)
• West Lothian Council (ADES)

Items and actions

Welcome and apologies

The Chair welcomed members to the meeting and noted apologies from Education Scotland.

Note of previous meeting

The chair brought members’ attention to the note of the previous meeting. The Chair confirmed that some apologies were missing and these would be added to the note. The group agreed to publication of the amended minutes.  

The chair confirmed the webpage for the working group is now live on the Scottish Government pages and finalised meeting notes will be made available there.

Action:

Secretariat to upload minutes of previous meeting to the SG website and circulate the website link to group members.

Draft terms of reference

The chair introduced the draft Terms of Reference, which provides an overview of the purpose and remit of the group and members’ responsibilities. It was developed on the basis of discussions about the initial focus of the group on the development of principles for monitoring and recording.

The group were asked for comments. There was feedback that consideration should be given to timescales due to the complexity of the work.

Action:

SG to review timelines in the Terms of Reference and how it fits in with other pieces of work, and bring this back to the working group.

Principles update and options paper  

The draft Principles were brought to SAGRABIS at the meeting on 14th January. SAGRABIS members were supportive of the direction of development and the need for the Principles to encourage greater consistency of approaches.

Group members made the following general points about the principles:

• the principles should reference the importance of early intervention and prevention, not just responding when an incident occurs
• it would be helpful for the principles to contain messaging about recording in early years
• it was noted the principles had been informed by information provided by local authority represented on the group. It would be helpful to gather insights from a broader range of local authorities. ADES have offered to support this
• the addition of a flowchart may be helpful to illustrate process
• it must be clear that the schools and employers are gathering data for a purpose, to help them evaluate, risk assess when required, and decide on next steps to ensure support for pupils and staff
• the principles should include consideration of how incidents are communicated to families

The chair highlighted a feature of discussions at previous meetings of the sub-group, and at SAGRABIS, was whether the work on defining violent incidents should be separated from the general work on principles.

The group agreed that a preventative approach, with an emphasis on recording low level incidents which may lead to violent incidents would be beneficial, while recognising that not all incidents can be identified early or prevented. It was also recognised that there is a need for guidance on recording violent incidents.

A staged approach was suggested where the first stage prioritises messaging around recording violent incidents and the second stage focussing more on recording/monitoring systems and the need for a preventative approach across all systems.

The chair noted four main areas of concern from the discussion:

• the importance of recording violent incidents to effectively inform risk assessments, including violence between pupils and violence between pupils and staff
• consistency of approach to recording all incidents
• systems used to record incidents and how they are working
• support and training available to staff. Several good examples were noted such as de-escalation and nurture training

The chair noted that the next meeting will be at the end of February and the Secretariat will use the ideas generated by today’s discussion to inform the agenda for that meeting.

Actions:

• secretariat to take forward expansion of survey on approaches to recording and monitoring with all local authorities. ADES to provide support
• SG to prioritise development of specific guidance on violent incidents, drawing on the general principles discussion to date
• SG to review the principle on how recording and monitoring policies apply in Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) settings with the SG ELC team and whether a separate section in Principles is needed
• SG to review all the points made under the four main areas of discussion, above, and use this to inform development of guidance

Any other business

No other business was raised.

The Chair thanked everyone for their contributions and advised that the next meeting would take place on Wednesday 25 February 10:00 – 11:30 via Teams.