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The Home Affairs Committee report, ‘Radicalisation: the counter-narrative and identifying the tipping point’, published today, makes no mention of the early years.

 

The report called for an independent review of The Prevent duty, requiring teachers and other public sector workers to monitor and report people they believe may be at risk of radicalisation.

 

It was also scornful of existing efforts from social media outlets, including Twitter, Facebook and Youtube, saying that they were “consciously failing” to prevent their platforms from being used to promote terrorism.

 

Prevent was last year extended into schools nurseries and other childcare settings, and Neil Leitch, chief executive at the Pre-school Learning Alliance, said that it was concerning that today’s report made no mention of the early years.

 

“While we welcome the call for additional guidance for the education sector on Prevent, it’s important that this guidance reflects the fact that the duty applies to early years providers as well as schools,” Neil said.

 

“What’s more, if the sector is to help tackle terrorism and radicalisation, we need to ensure the approach we take is balanced and includes equality measures so as not to further divide communities.”

 

Early years settings are in a strong position to help change attitudes given their strong links to parents and the wider community, Neil said.

 

“Ideally this should be done by teaching children and guiding parents on the core British Values (part of the Prevent agenda) of law, rights, respect, democracy and equality,” he added.

 

“However, without the right training, staff can feel confused by how to do this effectively, and so it is important that government also looks at the quality of training available on Prevent as a matter of priority.”