With cases emerging of Prevent referrals being made by schools for legitimate protest or flippant remarks, Peter Radford looks at how we can use the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to guide our decision-making
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In an article last month, I highlighted emerging and disturbing evidence that prejudice and racism have infected how the Prevent Duty is being implemented.

A report from Amnesty International has raised a number of disturbing cases, not least the Muslim student who was referred after joking during a fire drill that he hoped his school might burn down. You can still read my article here.

There are clearly things about how Prevent is being implemented that need to be addressed at governmental level. However, in the meantime, Prevent remains a “duty” for schools. How then might school leaders and teachers act responsibly in fulfilling their safeguarding duty in relation to Prevent, while doing what they can to ensure racist practices do not become embedded?

Here are a few key principles to help guide you in the thought process.

 

Understanding ‘extremism’

The government recently updated its definition of extremism, the bar against which Prevent referrals must be measured (DLHC, 2024).

It states: “Extremism is the promotion or advancement of an ideology based on violence, hatred, or intolerance, that aims to (1) negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others or (2) undermine, overturn, or replace the UK’s system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights, or (3) intentionally creates a permissive environment for others to achieve the results in (1) or (2).”

What is missing from this definition is any specific clarity about what exactly our “fundamental rights and freedoms” and “democratic rights” are. And it is in this regard that many of the problems arise.

An understanding of rights and a rights-based approach to education, must form the basis of how we address allegations of “extremism”.

 

Understanding and balancing rights

A good place to start is with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was enshrined in UK law in 1990 and has since been ratified by 195 countries of the world making it the most widely ratified treaty in history.

An understanding of these rights and explicit education about them will allay much of the confusion and fear surrounding expressions of “extreme views”. Indeed, check out Unicef’s Rights Respecting School Award programme for a systematic, whole school approach to embedding a rights-based approach to education – SecEd has written about this programme previously.

Here are a few of the rights which have particular relevance to the Prevent duty.

 

Article 14: Freedom of thought, belief, and religion

Every child has the right to think and believe what they choose and also to practise their religion, as long as they are not stopping other people from enjoying their rights.

Just to be clear then, it is not a crime for children (or adults) to hold views – no matter how abhorrent, racist, or discriminatory we might find those views. Everyone has the right to believe what they want, and no government can police your thoughts.

But of course, key to understanding this right is the caveat that “practising or expressing” those beliefs must not stop others from enjoying their rights.

This principle of “balancing rights” is critical to a rights respecting approach to education and society in general.

These rights are universal – everyone has them: which means that the enjoyment of my rights cannot be at the expense of yours, nor anyone else’s. This brings us to Article 13…

 

Article 13: Freedom of expression

Every child must be free to express their thoughts and opinions and to access all kinds of information – as long as it is within the law. So, if expressing beliefs in a public environment undermines a person’s right to non-discrimination (Article 2) and protection from violence (Article 19) then a line has been crossed.

 

Article 2: Non-discrimination

The Convention applies to every child without discrimination, whatever their ethnicity, sex, religion, language, abilities, or any other status, whatever they think or say, whatever their family background.

 

Article 19: Protection from violence, abuse, and neglect

Governments must do all they can to ensure that children are protected from all forms of violence, abuse, neglect and bad treatment by their parents or anyone else who looks after them.

 

Inappropriate behaviour vs Prevent referral

Based on what I’ve set out above, any occurrence of bullying, racism or discrimination would constitute the undermining of someone’s rights. But we don’t (and neither should we) refer all bullying or racist incidents to Prevent. We are highly qualified professionals, and we address the behaviour of our students when that is required, we educate them about rights and respect, and we sanction appropriately.

So when does such student behaviour in school qualify as “extremist”?

To my mind, it is only extremist if the student is seeking to “promote or advance an ideology” that negates the rights of others.

So an isolated incident or remark, an inappropriate comment or expression of a belief, an occasion of bullying – none of these should elicit an automatic or immediate Prevent referral. They should be dealt with as per the school behaviour policy.

What does this mean in practice? It means that a student has a right to wear a badge showing the Palestinian flag and express their view that the Palestinian people have a right to protection from violence. They have a right to believe and to state that the actions of the Israeli government are wrong. This is their right and certainly not concerning or extremist behaviour.

It seems common sense – but as Amnesty’s report revealed – in December a student in Yorkshire was visited at her home by police after posting a tweet expressing solidarity with Palestine. Again, I discuss this in my previous article.

However, if a student is promoting the “idea” that the Jewish people have no right to exist in the land of Israel and this student exhibits discriminatory behaviour towards Jewish people, then we are in the territory of extremism.

A Prevent referral, however, should still not be automatic and should be informed by your knowledge of the student, their home situation and context, and whether this behaviour is part of a pattern of behaviour over time.

Children say inappropriate things all the time – helping them to learn what is acceptable, offensive, or extremist is part of our role as educators.

Conversely a student may believe that the actions of the Israeli government are justified and that the Palestinian people’s claim to the land of Israel is illegitimate. This is not extremism.

However, again, targeting Muslim students or staff in school and promoting hate towards Muslim people is.

 

Freedom of expression vs hate speech

So are all badges, symbols, and similar statements of solidarity with a cause equally legitimate, equally valid expressions of the right to religious belief? The wearing of a cross? The Kara (Sikhism)? What about the swastika?

No. The difference, of course, between wearing a cross and wearing a swastika is that the ideology of Christianity does not include within it the eradication of certain people, but the ideology behind Nazism does. Hence a symbol may or may not be appropriate depending upon the ideology that the symbol expresses.

The legal definition of hate speech, as found in the Public Order Act (1986), is useful in this regard, namely “threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour” that are intended to stir up or is likely to stir up hatred.

So, freedom of speech does not include freedom of hate speech.

However, we must note the specific qualification given in the more recent Racial and Religious Hatred Act (2006) – that nothing in the hate speech legislation “prohibits or restricts discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents, or of any other belief system or the beliefs or practices of its adherents, or proselytising or urging adherents of a different religion or belief system to cease practising their religion or belief system”.

In other words, robust debate, even attempts to persuade and proselytise, which may at times may cause offence, is legal and is not to be confused with extremism.

Hence a conservative Catholic may express their belief that gay people will go to hell – and while this is likely to cause much offence to a majority of people, it should not constitute a Prevent referral unless it is inciting others to violence and religious or racial hatred.

Of course, again, it certainly should justify an educational intervention about rights and respect, and it probably will also warrant a sanction depending on the context – but not a Prevent referral.

  • Peter Radford, founder of Beyond This, is a former teacher and school leader. He now delivers student workshops and staff training on a range of RSHE and Careers issues including all aspects of equality, diversity, and inclusion. Find his previous articles for SecEd via www.sec-ed.co.uk/authors/peter-radford/

 

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