Prevent Duty

All schools are subject to a duty under section 26 of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, in the exercise of their functions, to have “due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism.” This duty is known as the PREVENT Duty For Schools. The duty covers all types of extremism, whether political, religious or ideological.

Key Terms

Extremism is the vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs. This also includes calling for the death of members of our armed forces.

Radicalisation is the process of a person legitimising support for, or use of, terrorist violence.

Terrorism is an action that endangers or causes serious violence to a person/people; causes serious damage to property; or seriously interferes or disrupts an electronic system. The use or threat must be designed to influence the government or to intimidate the public, and is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.

These are taken from page 157 of Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE).

What does it mean for our school?

We need to protect pupils from the risk of radicalisation, as part of your wider safeguarding duties and duty to promote the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils.

To do this, we:

Promote the fundamental British values – of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance for those of different faiths and beliefs – in our curriculum
Make sure our school is a safe space for pupils to discuss sensitive topics, including terrorism and extremism
Ensure we have robust safeguarding procedures to identify children at risk
Engage with our LA's risk assessment to determine the potential risk of individuals being drawn into terrorism in our local area
Make sure we have measures in place to protect pupils from harmful online content, including setting up appropriate filtering and monitoring systems
Make sure staff receive training to help them identify pupils at risk, challenge extremist ideas, and know how to act if they have a concern

At Education Links, we build pupils’ resilience to radicalisation by promoting fundamental British values and enabling our pupils to challenge extremist views.

The statutory guidance refers to the importance of PREVENT awareness training to equip staff to identify children at risk of being drawn into terrorism and to challenge extremist ideas. The Home Office has developed a core training product for this purpose – Workshop to Raise Awareness of prevent (WRAP). All our staff receive training on what Prevent is about and how to deal with any issues they may see inside or outside school. For further details of our risk assessment and strategies , refer to our prevent duty risk assessment.

Prevent Duty Risk Assessment

CLAT Prevent Duty Risk Assessment