Prevent in Brent: Protecting Our Liberty?

The Prevent Strategy is coming in for increasing criticism as a clumsy tool that, rather than preventing young people getting involved in extremist activity,  stereotypes a whole community and undermines the free exchange of ideas.  In Brent school staff are currently going through training about the strategy and I have heard that there is disquiet among staff that they will be seen as 'spies' on children and their families rather than partners in education. This could have undermine the  trust necessary for a positive relationship between parents and the school.

Furthermore if fear of being reported for 'extremism' means that children choose to be silent in class, rather than contribute to discussion, then the issue is being driven underground and there is a ngegative impact on the student-teacher relationshiop

It is against this background that a public meeting is being held in Brent in early December:

Insight into the business of Gladstone Free School: Are they doing it right?

Guest blog by Anonymous
 

It all started innocently enough. Jim Gatten and Maria Evans, a mum and dad from Barnet, decided to set up a new parent-led secondary school which they hoped the community would embrace. They applied to become a free school, a school independent of the local authority and accountable only to and funded directly by the Department for Education (DfE). They advertised for other parents and members of the community to join them in gathering enough signatures to show the DfE that it would be full for the first 2 years after opening, a box ticking exercise the DfE puts hopeful free school founders through. Off they went with their clipboards to various primary school gates gathering signatures. They got the required minimum of 250 signatures necessary for their free school application but there was never a groundswell of local support. Many parents who signed simply thought that a new school sounds like a good idea, after all, these are parents setting up a school and just need a simple no-obligation signature. No explanation was given as to the implications a free school has on the local communities and it was 2013, before the flurry of headlines of failing and undersubscribed free schools had hit the press.