The Prevent duty and its implications for school and college staff
Internal practice
Duration
Updated Guidance January 2024 but ongoing related activities
Reason it was developed
The Prevent Duty is a statutory training that all teachers must attend. However, many of the referrals made are not appropriate and do not require any further action. The education sector has seen a rise as a proportion of total referrals due to a rise in referrals so we must address and support teachers to navigate around this, therefore a guidance was produced in 2019 but has been updated in 2024. The Prevent Duty remains highly controversial and is criticised by leading human right organisations in the way it is use to harass or silence free speech. Disproportionately, the figures show that this unfairly used to profile Muslims.
Activities
Guidance will be followed up with panel discussion. There will also be collaborative working with other human rights based organisations who have actively been working on raising the issues with Prevent Duty and its failure to achieve why it was set up since this is having a detrimental impact on members, students and their families where treats of or actual referrals are made but are in the end found to be baseless.
Results
Will be continued to be monitored and will be ongoing work and also as part of wider work to address the way teachers and students are being surveillance in schools.
Funding
NEU