"Teachers have voted overwhelmingly to reject the government’s Prevent strategy, designed to tackle extremism, over concerns that it causes `suspicion in the classroom and confusion in the staffroom.`"
"At the National Union of Teachers annual conference in Brighton, a motion was backed calling for Prevent to be scrapped, after a succession of speakers ridiculed its effectiveness and attacked the poor support offered to schools to implement it."
"Since last summer, Prevent has obliged teachers to refer to police pupils they suspect of engaging in some sort of terrorist activity or radical behaviour. The duty has been largely considered a failure by teaching leaders, partly because about 90% of referrals end without action being taken."
"Speakers at the conference said that while schools and teachers did have a role in safeguarding and protecting pupils from exposure to extremism, in practice Prevent was ineffective and even counter-productive."
"Gary Kaye, a delegate from North Yorkshire, said the Prevent training given to many teachers was `crude and often involves loads of stereotypes.` "
" `I’m sure I’m not the only person in this conference hall today who has been given a sheet of A3 paper with a line that shows Isis on one side and the EDL on the other, as if the modern world of extremist political belief could be explained in such exact terms,` he said."
"Kaye called for the government to withdraw the Prevent duty from schools and colleges `and stop education professionals being the secret service of the public sector`, to loud applause."
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