The Rissington School Safeguarding
Operation Encompass
Prevent Duty
The Prevent duty requires all schools to "have due regard to the need to prevent people being drawn into terrorism", under the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015. The duty covers all types of extremism, whether political, religious or ideological.
How does the Prevent Duty apply to schools?
- All schools (as well as other organisations) have a duty to safeguard children from radicalisation and extremism.
- This means we have a responsibility to protect children from extremist and violent views the same way we protect them from any other harm.
- Importantly, we can provide a safe place for pupils to discuss these issues, at an appropriate level so they better understand how to protect themselves.
What does this mean at The Rissington School?
Many of the things we already do in school to help children become positive, happy members of society also contribute to the Prevent strategy. These include:
- Having a strong values which pervade our school.
- Exploring other cultures and religions and promoting diversity.
- Challenging prejudices and racist comments.
- Developing critical thinking skills and a strong, positive self-identity.
- Promoting the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils, as well as British values such as democracy.
- Delivering a robust Computing, PSHE and RE curriculum.
We will also protect children from the risk of radicalisation, for example by using filters on the Internet to make sure they can’t access extremist and terrorist material, or by vetting visitors who come into school to work with pupils.
Different schools will carry out the Prevent duty in different ways, depending on the age of the children and the needs of the community. We keep up to date with national and regional data and information relating to counter terrorism in order to risk assess and plan provision to safeguard children accordingly.
Is my child too young to learn about extremism?
The Prevent duty is not just about discussing extremism itself, which may not be appropriate for younger children. It is also about teaching children values such as tolerance and mutual respect. This is what we focus on at The Rissington School.
The school will make sure any discussions are suitable for the age and maturity of the children involved.
Is extremism really a risk in our area?
Extremism can take many forms, including political, religious and misogynistic extremism. Some of these may be a bigger threat in some area than others. The more children access online platforms, the greater difficulty we have to safeguard them.
We will endeavour to give children the skills to protect them from any extremist views they may encounter, now or later in their lives.
Further information
Contact the school - If you have any questions or concerns about the Prevent Strategy and what it means for your child, please do not hesitate to contact the school.
See our policies - You will find more details about radicalisation in our safeguarding policy, available on our website. We also have information about spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and British values on our website.
https://actearly.uk/ - What is Prevent and how can we talk about it?
You can read about how we mitigate the risks of extremism at our school in our Risk Assessment: