For those working in schools and colleges, the safeguarding bible is Keeping children safe in education. It has the status of statutory guidance and explains everything from the legislation to protect children, what staff need to know to keep them safe, and ‘safer recruitment’; to what to do about concerns regarding (or allegations about) staff, and a section dedicated to ‘child-on-child sexual violence or sexual harassment’.
You might be alarmed at the thought that schools are beset by such things. But the world of safeguarding isn’t all it seems. As I explained in my last post, there is a tendency for the theoretical risks to proliferate and for a sense of perspective to go missing. The terminology can be misleading - violence and harassment are different things, for instance. And you have to go searching for the stats if you want to find out how prevalent such incidents of concern really are.
That is not to say they don’t exist. Whether it’s the risks addressed in schools’ emergency plans or concerns about what some kids are bringing into school (and how to take it off them without being accused of assault). Whether it’s what the Secretary of State for Education describes as ‘the concerns of parents and teachers about reports that inappropriate lessons are being taught in schools’ or dodgy teachers dodging their way around schools’ vetting systems. Do head across to the hearings page on the Teaching Regulation Agency website, for a sense of the kinds of goings on that some get struck off for. They make for disturbing reading.
The most damaging incident of all, though, was the pandemic. While the virus itself had very little impact on the young, the effect of the policy response to it - to close down schools as part of a society-wide and unprecedented lockdown - was profound. The latest report to look into the aftermath - this one commissioned by Save the Children, Just for Kids Law and Children’s Rights Alliance for England - details the social, emotional and academic consequences of that decision. And yet, now, there is another threat to our children’s wellbeing, and again it is rather played down.
Another hazard to add to the long list of things against which they must be protected. A threat that has involved the intimidation of staff and raised the possibility of further school closures, albeit on a much smaller scale. But the bomb threats to the Barclay and Michaela schools in East and West London are indicative of the potential danger children have been put in. And yet it is a threat that - even now - is only grudgingly acknowledged by those exceedingly worried by all manner of other things, that arguably pose little if any danger to the vast majority of children. They’d rather not talk about the break-ins, the ‘racial slurs’ and threats of arson these school have experienced.
I’m referring, of course, to the growing and very real hazard posed to children and adults alike, resulting from accusations of Islamophobia from local groups of parents and other interested parties. These haven’t sprung from nowhere. The incidents at Barclay happened in the midst of the ‘pro-Palestine’ protests that have become such a feature of public life across the West in recent months - featuring the same placards and angry scenes. This is bad enough. But apparently unmoved by the savage horrors of October 7, significant sections of ‘liberal’ opinion have quickly swung behind anti-Israel feeling, apparently oblivious to the anti-Semitic sentiments expressed by some.
‘From the river to the sea’ is chanted on our cities’ streets every weekend. But surely it has no place outside our schools? It’s in the playgrounds too. As a parent, I know of primary school children getting into disputes with their peers over the wearing of Palestinian scarves. The same keffiyeh worn by the Gazan torturers, rapists, kidnappers and murderers; and on the badges of well-to-do ‘ally’ parents at the school gates. While obviously (surely?) we’re agreed this isn’t appropriate, the kids it seems are, ‘grooming’ each other online too. ‘The hashtag ‘stand with Palestine’’, according to Pooja Bhalla in The Spectator, ‘has more than 4.2 billion TikTok views associated with it’.
Is this not flagging any safeguarding concerns? Michael Gove has announced a new official definition of extremism, and banned certain groups from taking on official roles or receiving government funding. But not only does the Terrorism Act 2000 already allow the Home Secretary to proscribe certain organisations; as I’ve tried to show - the extreme has gone mainstream. It’s not just some fringe ideology, or terrorist cell, looking to recruit mixed up youngsters or waiting to commit the latest atrocity we have to worry about now. Israelophobia, as Jake Wallis Simons has so aptly dubbed it, is fast becoming the received view amongst the chattering classes.
If it’s in the playground and at the school gates, is it in the staff room too? It certainly poses yet more questions of the already much-maligned Prevent programme. While, of course, the threat of terrorism hasn’t gone away, and there are no doubt shadowy groups and unhinged individuals plotting destructive acts, is that really the biggest safeguarding threat our children face from ‘extremists’? Does it make any sense to focus on uncovering the risks of radicalisation in schools (as the Prevent guidance does) when extremist sentiment is so out in the open, and endorsed by those with allegedly ‘progressive’ views?
Sometimes it can seem that those charged with putting in place safeguarding policies are the least well placed to understand what the real threats are. Those of us who have worked in and around safeguarding, or who are grappling with these sorts of issues in schools, could do worse than speak to parents. What worries them? Is it the risk of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)? (According to the Metropolitan Police, following a recent successful conviction for the practice, this was ‘only the second time in UK history that somebody has been convicted of FGM since it became illegal in 1985’. And the offence wasn’t even committed in the UK.) Or are they worried more about their kids being glued to their devices - the focus of my next Substack post - or are they afraid to send their child to school wearing their kippah?
Image: Alisdare Hickson