Terror rules make us spies, say teachers

PUPILS are afraid to discuss terrorism at school because they now see school staff as an ‘arm of the state’, according to the National Union of Teachers.

It said children feared their comments could be reported to the authorities. Debate was being ‘shut down’ in classrooms because teachers were expected to be ‘frontline stormtroopers’ in the war on extremism.

New government strategies to clamp down on radicalisation had forced teachers to ‘spy’ on their pupils, it added. Under the government’s Prevent strategy, schools are required to report suspicions about radicalisation of pupils to the authorities.

It is aimed at stopping children falling under the influence of extremism, but the NUT says it is heavy handed.

Speaking at the union’s annual conference in Harrogate yesterday, Jan Nielsen, a teacher from Wandsworth, said: ‘We are in the position where we are expected to be the frontline stormtroopers, who listen, who spy and notify the authorities about students that we may be suspicious of.’

Phillip Allsopp, a teacher from Walton Forest, said pupils would not confide in them if they think ‘we are an arm of the state’.

The conference unanimously passed a motion calling for schools to be allowed to disregard the Prevent programme. It called for such issues to be dealt with instead under ‘existing safeguarding procedures’.

Alex Kenny, of the NUT, said: ‘Prevent is a blunt instrument that will do damage and inhibit debate in schools.

‘Prevent conflates a notion of British values and an elastic notion of non-violent extremism that is shutting down debate.’