Teachers throw out anti-radicalisation schools strategy

THE Government's 'flawed' anti-radicalisation strategy has been rejected outright by the National Union of Teachers (NUT) over concerns it is silencing children through fear.
The National Union of Teachers held its annual conference in Brighton. Picture: Owen Humphreys/PA WireThe National Union of Teachers held its annual conference in Brighton. Picture: Owen Humphreys/PA Wire
The National Union of Teachers held its annual conference in Brighton. Picture: Owen Humphreys/PA Wire

The union called on the Government to withdraw the Prevent strategy regarding schools, which since summer 2015, has obliged teachers to refer to police pupils they suspect of engaging in some sort of terrorist activity or radical behaviour.

Prevent came under renewed scrutiny last year after 17-year-old Talha Asmal, from Dewsbury, became Britain’s youngest ever suicide bomber after blowing himself up in Iraq last May.

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Speaking at the union’s annual conference in Brighton, NUT executive member Alex Kenny appealed to the Government to re-think the strategy - considered a failure by teaching leaders partly due to the fact that around 90 per cent of referrals end in no action being taken.

High profile examples of young people erroneously referred to Prevent include a four-year-old who misspelled “cucumber” as something resembling “cooker bomb”, and a 10-year-old Muslim boy mistakenly wrote he lived in a “terrorist house” rather than a “terraced house”.

Mr Kenny said: “We want to keep children safe from those organisations who promote hatred and violence. But there are limits to what we can do, and Prevent is making that harder.

“Four thousand referrals in the last 18 months is not a sign that the strategy is working, it’s a sign that the strategy is flawed.”

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Members voted unanimously to ask the Government to develop an alternative strategy to safeguard children and identify risk, and develop resources for teachers discussing difficult or controversial subjects such as religion and terrorism.

Kevin Courtney, NUT deputy general secretary, said children who were discouraged or too frightened to speak publicly in the classroom were turning online where they were potentially at risk of being groomed.

He said: “The best contribution teachers can make is to encourage discussion in the classroom.

“But we worry that people are increasingly unwilling to talk about their view of the world - Muslim children in particular - because they are frightened or their parents are worried that their names will be put on some list.”

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Latest figures show, on average, two teachers call the Government hotline every school day over concerns a pupil may be becoming radicalised.

Gary Kaye, a teacher from North Yorkshire, said the Prevent strategy created “suspicion in the classroom and confusion in the staffroom”.

Also at the conference today, teachers voted in favour of scrapping Ofsted amid concerns over the pressure and workload it is piling on staff - and have proposed replacing it with a “proper system of accountability”.

Members voted to speak with the Labour Party to lobby for a new system, and will ask any forthcoming Labour government to scrap Ofsted as part of a shake-up of education regulation.

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NUT executive member Amanda Martin described Ofsted as “the big bully, the ogre”and “ever-circling vulture.”

Fellow teaching union NASUWT, which held its annual conference in Birmingham, said teachers face being driven out of the profession by the abuse and use of “punitive” workplace reviews.

The union found that older teachers, black and minority ethnic teachers and those with disabilities were “much more likely to be threatened with capability procedures than other teachers.”