Eleanor Schooling, Ofsted's National Director, Social Care made this presentation at National Children and Adult Services Conference in Manchester ,4 November 2016.

1. Prevent duty: schools and local
authorities
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2. Prevent duty in schools
 To fulfil the Prevent duty, staff must be able to identify children who may
be vulnerable to radicalisation, and know what to do when they are
identified.
 Protecting children from the risk of radicalisation should be seen as part
of schools’ and childcare providers’ wider safeguarding duties.
 Schools must be able to demonstrate both an awareness and an
understanding of the risk of radicalisation in their area.
 Key aspects of the schools’ role: protecting children and building
children’s resilience to radicalisation.
Prevent duty: schools and local authorities Slide 2

3. Key considerations
 Leadership: what happens in schools starts with leaders, managers and
governors who need to ensure that staff understand the risks and help to
build the capabilities to deal with it
 Communicate and promote the importance of the duty and ensure
effective implementation
 Working in partnership: schools cannot do this in isolation. They need to
demonstrate evidence of productive cooperation with other relevant
agencies
 Capabilities: awareness and understanding of radicalisation and why
people may be drawn into terrorism
 Sharing information: where necessary with relevant authorities.
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4. What does this look like in schools?
 Clear procedures in place for protecting children at risk of
radicalisation; does not require separate policies but needs to be built into
relevant policies and procedures.
 Working in partnership with LSCBs, local authorities, the police and
others in the community, including parents.
 Appropriate staff training, including general Prevent awareness,
WRAP, and when and how to refer to Channel.
 As a minimum, designated safeguarding lead must be trained in
Prevent and be able to provide advice and support to other staff.
 IT – procedures for access to online material covered in relevant
policies; suitable filtering in place to protect pupils
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5. What does this look like in schools?
 Building resilience through the curriculum, teaching and learning.
Providing a safe environment in which children and young people can
discuss and learn. Could be linked to PSHE, citizenship education or
other parts of the curriculum, e.g. SMSC.
 Weakest aspect that has been found in school inspections is risk-
assessment. Schools have often focused on the general points to raise
awareness, build into policies etc. but have not necessarily assessed the
specific risks based on local circumstances.
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6. Prevent Duty − local authorities
 In the exercise of their functions, local authorities are to have ‘due regard
to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism’. This does
not confer new functions on local authorities.
 Partnership: local authorities should establish, or make use of, an
existing local multi-agency group to agree risk and coordinate Prevent
activity.
 Risk-assessment: local authorities are expected to use existing
counter-terrorism local profiles, to assess the risk of individuals being
drawn into terrorism. Local authorities are expected to incorporate the
duty into existing policies and procedures, so it becomes part of the day-
to-day work of the authority. The impact should be that local authorities
are able to identify children who are at risk.
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7. Prevent Duty − local authorities
 Action planning: where a local authority has identified a risk, an action
plan should be developed.
 Training: frontline staff and contractors should have a good
understanding of Prevent and the risks of people being drawn into
terrorism.
 Use of local authority resources: local authority resources should
not provide a platform for extremists or the dissemination of extremist
views.
 Through the SIF, we evaluate how effectively the local authority is
meeting the ‘Prevent duty’ in relation to safeguarding children.
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8. Positives identified through the SIF
 Awareness-raising, including events in relation to prevention and
identification of extremism.
 Training for frontline staff across agencies, including schools.
 Effective information and multi-agency working.
 Growing confidence and awareness among professionals in this area of
practice.
 Staff making appropriate referrals where concerns are identified which
leads to an effective assessment, including referrals to channel where
appropriate.
 Proactive engagement with local communities.
 Effective work and advice to schools.
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9. Positives identified through the SIF
 The channel panel develops plans and provides support/intervention for
individual children − evidence seen in cases that this has led to a
reduction in risk and diverting children away from radicalisation.
 Connections are being made between risk of radicalisation and child
sexual exploitation, children going missing and gang involvement.
 Radicalisation is built into the wider safeguarding agenda.
 Comprehensive plans, effective use of legal orders and intervention work
ensure that children at high risk remain in this country.
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10. Joint project
 Ofsted has a particular focus into the work local authorities undertake at a
strategic and practice level in relation to:
 children missing from education: specifically to safeguard these children from
harm, including harm from exploitation and extremism
 the work being undertaken in discharging their Prevent duties
 support provided to schools to help them in meeting their Prevent duties,
including a specific focus on independent faith schools
 monitoring of children educated at home
 children attending unregistered schools
 Including the connections between these areas of practice.
Prevent duty: schools and local authorities Slide 10