Promoting Fundamental British Values

By Marianne Sargent

Promoting Fundamental British Values in the Early Years is designed to help early years professionals, leaders and managers understand their responsibilities in relation to fulfilling the Prevent duty and promoting fundamental British values in foundation stage settings.
The book:
- Provides a brief explanation of the Prevent aspect of the Government's counterterrorism strategy and the implications that this has for safeguarding, child protection and curriculum delivery in the early years
- Takes an in-depth look at what the Government means by 'fundamental British values', explaining how these
are already implicitly embedded within the EYFS
- Offers activity ideas and case studies that exemplify how to promote democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance for those with different faiths and beliefs in the early years setting.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mark Allen Group
• Release date: Dec 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9781912611119

Book preview

Introduction

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About this book

This book is intended for early years professionals, trainers, students, leaders and nursery managers, and has been written in response to the increased focus over the past two years on actively promoting fundamental British values in education and childcare settings.

The introduction of the Common Inspection Framework (Ofsted, 2015a) has had significant implications for early years providers, which are now expected to produce evidence that they have robust safeguarding procedures and are actively promoting British values within their settings. The book aims to summarise the background to the Government’s counter terrorism strategy Prevent, outline the associated legal responsibilities of early years providers, and explain the implications this has for safeguarding, child protection and curriculum delivery. It also takes an in-depth look at what the Government means by ‘fundamental British values’ and how these are implicit with the themes and principles of early years curricula in England, Scotland and Wales.

The main body of the book is divided into four parts, representing the four British values; democracy, rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs. Each value is considered in relation to the principles that underpin it and how these apply to the youngest members of British society. This is then supported with activity ideas linked to the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) areas of learning and development, demonstrating how the curriculum presents many opportunities for exploring and promoting each of the British values. There are also illustrative case studies throughout, as well as ‘Think about…’ boxes containing questions that aid reflective practice.

At the end of the book there is a guide to inspection, which explains what Ofsted will be looking for in relation to providers’ fulfilment of the Prevent duty. Here, there is also a table that explains what inspectors will do and what they will be looking for with advice about how to collect and provide evidence. Finally, there is a helpful checklist that aims to sum up the duty requirements at a glance.

The fact of the matter is that early years practitioners are already promoting British values during their everyday practice in the foundation stage setting. Therefore, this book aims to assist providers by pointing out where each of the values links to the curriculum and explaining what to evidence and highlight for inspection.

The Prevent duty

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Prevent is part of the UK Government’s counter-terrorism strategy. It aims to target the ‘extremist ideology at the heart’ of terrorism by putting policies and programmes into place that will:

‘respond to the ideological challenge of terrorism and the threat we face from those who promote it

prevent people from being drawn into terrorism and ensure that they are given appropriate advice and support

work with sectors and institutions where there are risks of radicalisation which we need to address.’ (HM Government, 2011, pp.1 & 7)

As part of this aim the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 places a duty on ‘specified authorities’ in England, Scotland and Wales, including schools, nurseries, pre-schools, childminders and day care providers, ‘to have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism’. This is described as the Prevent duty.

According to The Prevent strategy this means protecting children against extremist and violent views in the same way they are safeguarded from any other type of harm.

‘The purpose must be to protect children from harm and to ensure that they are taught in a way that is consistent with the law and our values.’ (HM Government, 2011, p.69).

There are two main areas of responsibility identified here:

Protecting children from harm by assessing and identifying their risk of being drawn into radicalisation.

Providing a safe, inclusive learning environment that supports spiritual, moral, social and cultural development through the promotion of fundamental British values.

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1. Protecting children from harm

The Government states, ‘early years providers serve arguably the most vulnerable and impressionable members of society’ and ‘must take action to protect children from harm and should be alert to harmful behaviour by other adults in the child’s life’ (HM Government, 2015a, p.10).

To help schools, nurseries and childcare providers understand their responsibilities in terms of protecting children from extremist and radicalised views the Government has produced a range of guidance materials.

The Revised Prevent Duty Guidance for England and Wales states early years providers ‘are subject to the duty to have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism’ (HM Government, 2015a, p.10). Working Together to Safeguard Children (HM Government, 2015b) sets out the statutory safeguarding requirements as stipulated in the 1989 and 2004 Children Acts. Keeping Children Safe in Education (DfE, 2015a) further explains safeguarding procedures in educational settings.

Early years professionals that work with young children in England should read all three documents in conjunction with each other. Professionals in Wales should refer to the supporting guidance Keeping Learners Safe (Welsh Government, 2015).

The documents explain in order to fulfil the Prevent duty providers are expected to:

Assess the risk of children being exposed to extremist ideas that are part of a terrorist ideology by being alert to any safeguarding issues in the child’s life at home or elsewhere, and based on an understanding of the potential risk in the local area.

Share information with other agencies to enable effective inter-agency assessment of the needs of individual children and ensure the appropriate intervention is put in place to prevent escalation.

Have robust safeguarding policies to identify children at risk and intervene as appropriate. Settings are not required to write a separate Prevent policy, they just need to ensure the risk of radicalisation is included in existing safeguarding and child protection policies.

Have a designated safeguarding lead to support practitioners and liaise with other agencies, and ensure all staff are aware of safeguarding procedures and the setting’s child protection policy.

Ensure safeguarding arrangements take into account the policies and procedures of the Local Safeguarding Children Boards in England, Local Service Boards in Wales and Child Protection Committees in Scotland.

Ensure that staff receive training that enables them to more confidently identify children at risk of being drawn into terrorism, challenge extremist ideas and know where and how to refer children they feel are at risk.

Provide a safe learning environment.

Ensure children are not exposed to extremist material on the internet.

More help and guidance

If you are concerned that a child is being exposed to extremist views and it is possible that they are at risk of being drawn into an environment that supports a terrorist ideology, or if you are unsure about whether you need to report something or not, you can get further advice from the following:

Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage (DfE, 2014a): Section 3 of this document sets out what early years practitioners are legally expected to do in terms of safeguarding and welfare requirements.

What to do if you’re worried a child is being abused (HM Government, 2015c): This publication provides practical guidance on understanding, identifying and reporting child abuse.

Information Sharing: Advice for practitioners providing safeguarding services to children (HM Government, 2015d): This is a comprehensive guide which gives advice about how information should be recorded, stored and shared. It also provides a clear explanation as to when and how information should be shared.

The Prevent duty: Departmental advice for schools and childcare providers (DfE, 2015b): This clearly explains what is expected from schools and childcare providers in relation to identifying children at risk of radicalisation.

Channel Duty Guidance (HM Government, 2015e): The Channel programme has been set up to provide a mechanism for schools to make referrals if they are concerned about the wellbeing of a child in terms of risk of radicalisation. This guidance explains why some people are drawn into terrorism and describes possible indicators.

The Channel guidance includes a Vulnerability Assessment Framework (HM Government, 2012), which offers advice on how to assess whether someone is engaged with an extremist group or ideology, intent on causing harm and whether they have the capability to cause harm. In addition, there is an online Channel training module, which has been developed for front-line workers. This explains what Channel is and trains practitioners to identify risk factors with examples of appropriate types of intervention strategies.

Professionals in Scotland should refer to the Revised Prevent Duty Guidance for Scotland (HM Government, 2015f).

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2. Promoting fundamental British values

This is the focus of this book. The Government suggests ‘terrorism is associated with