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PREVENT STRATEGY 

How Jigsaw 11-16 supports the Prevent strategy

The Prevent Duty Guidance (revised version 2015) and Jigsaw, the mindful approach to PSHE for 11-16’s:

The Prevent Duty Guidance, published by the Government in 2011, is part of the overall counter-terrorism strategy, CONTEST. The aim of the Prevent strategy is to reduce the threat to the UK from terrorism by stopping people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism.  In the Act, this has simply been expressed as the need to “prevent people from being drawn into terrorism”.

The 2011 Prevent strategy has three specific strategic objectives:

• 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; and
• Work with sectors and institutions where there are risks of radicalisation that we need to address.

The Prevent Duty guidance was revised in 2015 and again in 2018.

Section 26 of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 (the Act) places a duty on certain bodies (“specified authorities” listed in Schedule 6 to the Act), in the exercise of their functions, to have “due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism”. This, of course, includes schools within its remit and schools need to work within the strategy framework. The responsibility of the Prevent Duty rests with the leadership team, with the head teacher leading on the implementation of the Duty and the monitoring of its effectiveness in school. Schools will need to work with other agencies and carry out appropriate risk assessments. It is also the responsibility of the school to provide effective training for staff members: this means that, when asked, staff members will be able to say how the school would respond to any concerns they may have, as well as knowing what the Prevent Duty means for schools. A separate policy on Prevent is not needed, but there is an expectation that relevant parts of Prevent will feature in other salient policies. Overall, schools are encouraged to advocate open discussion to help children and young people explore controversial issues within the safety of a secure school environment.

To make it easier for schools using Jigsaw, we have produced some guidance about how Jigsaw helps to support the Prevent strategy.

How Jigsaw supports the strategy

The main way in which Jigsaw offers support is through the adoption of a whole-school approach: specifically, this is where children and young people would be supported in a school that fosters a climate of mutual understanding and respect. One of the aims of the strategy is to equip students with the confidence to reject extremism; and, by following the Jigsaw Approach, they should be able to build the confidence to reject violent extremism, because they are able to recognise not only their own thoughts and feelings, but also those of others – and to question and challenge ideas in a safe and positive way. The Prevent Duty urges local authorities and the police to work with organisations that uphold their values of tolerance, respect and equality, which Jigsaw does whole-heartedly throughout the Programme and Approach.

There are five key strands within the strategy, four of which are directly relevant to Jigsaw and the table below shows how Jigsaw can help.

Strands:

• Challenging extremist ideology
• Disrupting those who promote violent extremism
• Supporting individuals who are being targeted
• Increasing the capacity and resilience of the community to deal with violent extremism

Key message of the Strand:

• Promote a stronger understanding of faith, culture and history
• Supporting institutions on how to identify vulnerable individuals
• Building capacity to identify vulnerable individuals
• Whole school approach
• Early preventative work
• Schools working with communities
• Promotion of positive activities