The first phrase highlighted above is not a SPAG (spelling, punctuation and grammar) test question, but rather a phrase overheard in a primary school classroom that led to a ten year old boy and his family being questioned by the police earlier this year. This is not an isolated occurrence, with similar stories in the press of a suspicious ‘cooker bomb’ that was later explained to be a cucumber. Trainee teachers have from 1st September 2015 had the ‘safeguarding’ responsibility to report concerns about potential terrorist threats when working with children and young children – to have “due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism”. However what response should teacher educators take in applying the Prevent Duty to the trainees with whom they work?
Trainee teachers have a variety of identities – they need to think like a teacher, also as learner or student, as well as presenting their own personal identity in university and school settings. So it follows that applying the Prevent Duty impacts on teacher educators in different ways depending on their role and their knowledge of student teachers’ culture, religion and identity, whether they are international or ‘Home and EU’ students.
Professor Jacqueline Stevenson, Head of Research at the SIoE, has been researching the experiences of international students, refugees and asylum seekers in higher education for the past fifteen years, and is expert on the impact of legislation on university students. Her interviews with over sixty students over many years show how important it is to understand that students need to ‘belong to’ and ‘matter to’ their university and student group, and how statutory guidance like the Prevent Duty can alienate students whilst at university and in placement schools. So how can teacher educators draw on Jacqueline’s work to ensure all trainee teachers belong to, and matter to, the SIoE education community?
Jacqueline’s research shows that lecturers and teachers need to set up opportunities for students to talk explicitly about their religion, culture and identity. She identifies a common misconception that universities are secular, religion-free institutions in both Europe and North America. This perception can cause problems for both staff and students, because when religious activity is supported at university, it is often perceived as a threat. One of her interviewees responded, ‘after a bomb alert, every Muslim is seen as an Islamist, and every Islamist a terrorist’. The policy response is that religious activity may require surveillance and control – precisely the response that will lead to trainee teachers feel they do not belong to the institution, and do not matter except as a potential problem.
One way that teacher educators have started to address Jacqueline’s findings is to introduce the Prevent Duty within wider diversity training for student teachers. The secondary PGCE course in the SIoE has run a Diversity Conference in conjunction with the South Yorkshire Development Education Centre (SYDEC) for the past two years. Evaluations show that trainees have developed a more nuanced and critical understanding of the Duty, and feel more secure in their identity as secondary teachers.
Teacher educators, in common with other staff at Sheffield Hallam, complete an e-learning module to introduce the statutory Prevent Duty. However, the important work of supporting ‘belonging’ and ‘mattering’ also requires face-to-face interaction. This can take place through academic and university link tutor support, as well as in the design of placement and university learning experiences. Examination of the ‘British Values’ agenda as part of professional studies is an opportunity to critically reflect on how all our trainee teachers can feel they belong and matter to different educational settings. Teacher educators have the skills to sustain cohesive communities – let’s not forget that building and sustaining partnerships between students, educational settings and higher education has been at the core of our work for many years – all our students matter and all should feel they belong.
David Owen is the Head of Teacher Education in Sheffield Institute of Education
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