How to use the Prevent duty self-assessment tool at your school

The new Prevent duty self-assessment tool has been released by the Department for Education to help schools safeguard children and young people from radicalisation and extremism

This tool is designed to help schools gather evidence from seven key areas to identify what is working well and what requires development. In addition to checking that you have robust safeguarding policies and practices in place, the tool asks you to make professional judgements on how effective and comprehensive they are. For the tool to be effective in identifying weaknesses and gaps, it is vital that your school examines existing arrangements, collates evidence of policies being put into practice and evaluates their impact.

When your school gathers evidence, you should:

• consult your students;
• discuss safeguarding arrangements with staff;
• review evidence.

The assessment process is split into three sections:

• evaluation;
• action planning;
• summary.

You can use an assessment spreadsheet to help in this which can be found here.

Evaluation

Using the assessment spreadsheet, you should consider each question within the sections and identify evidence of how effective it is in your school and the impact it has had. Based on your evidence you should decide which level (one-to-four) your organisation currently meets.

• Where you have identified gaps or shortcomings, summarise this in the red column.
• Where you have concerns regarding the completeness, or robustness, of your evidence, summarise this in the amber column.
• Where you feel you have robust and sufficient evidence, summarise this in the ‘business as usual’ green column.

Action planning

Use the evidence and actions in the sections on the spreadsheet to identify future development needs that will:

• address shortcomings in areas evaluated to be red or amber;
• build on good practice identified as green.

The template can be refined and extended to work with your school’s existing action planning and reporting arrangements. 

Summary 

The assessment spreadsheet provides an overview evaluation of safeguarding and Prevent in your organisation. Completing this table should be the final stage in the assessment process; it is intended to identify actions to address policy and practice shortcomings. The table can provide a picture of the effectiveness of safeguarding and Prevent in your school and can be used for strategic reporting to senior management, and for prioritising future planning.

At this stage you may wish to discuss your findings with your local authority Prevent education officer, your local authority or your children’s safeguarding services nominated Prevent Lead. They can help you with action planning and finding local networks that can assist you.

Actions that have been identified to address shortcomings can be included in your Prevent action plan, or workplace development plan, but must have oversight by senior management. Your school should regularly review their self-assessment results so that there is continuous learning, reviewing and improving of both internal processes and external partnerships. You should plan to go through a self-assessment process at least annually.