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Prevent

St Chad’s Catholic Primary School

Prevent

As part of St Chad’s Primary School’s continuous safeguarding and child protection duties, we adhere completely to the government’s Prevent Strategy. Prevent is one of the four elements of CONTEST, the government's counter-terrorism strategy. It aims to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. From 1st July 2015, all schools and educational settings are subject to a duty under section 26 of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act of 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 Home Office works with local authorities and a wide range of government departments, and community organisations to deliver the Prevent Strategy.

 

The Prevent Strategy:

  1. Responds to the ideological challenge we face from terrorism and aspects of extremism, and the threat we face from those who promote these views.
  2. Provides practical help to prevent individuals from being drawn into terrorism and ensure they are given appropriate advice and support.
  3. Works with a wide range of institutions (including education, statutory services charities, online and health) where there are risks of radicalisation that we need to deal with.

At St Chad’s Primary, we aim to build on all of our pupils’ resilience to radicalisation and extremism by foremost promoting Gospel Values and British Values as an integral part of our school’s curriculum, which in turn enables our pupils to challenge extremist views.

As part of the school’s broad and balanced curriculum, we actively promote fundamental British values by incorporating the following:

  • Democracy
  • The rule of law
  • Individual liberty
  • Mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs
  • Spiritual, moral, cultural and mental (SMCM) and physical health of our pupils

In addition, we ensure that our school is a safe place for all of our pupils to discuss sensitive topics, including terrorism and extremism. We have robust safeguarding procedures in place to identify pupils at risk. We always engage with our local authority’s risk assessment to determine what the potential risks are to young people in our local area of South Norwood.

All of our staff and Board of Directors have the knowledge and confidence through current training to:

Identify children at risk of being drawn into terrorism

Challenge extremist ideas and views that can be used to legitimate terrorism and are shared by terrorist groups

The DSL/Prevent Lead has had more in-depth training so that they know where and  how to refer children for further help

What should you do if you have a concern?

  • Follow the school’s safeguarding procedures
  • Discuss these with the DSL in person, via email or via ‘worried about something’ on our website homepage
  • The DSL will then decide whether or not to involve other agencies such as the LA, police, social services, or Channel, the government’s programme for identifying and supporting those at risk of being drawn into terrorism.

Our Prevent Duty Coordinator is : Mrs Paula Mitchener DSL