When it comes to making a Prevent referral, teachers can lean on several laws to push back against what can often feel like a compulsory measure, writes Dr Layla Aitlhadj.
In June, Prevent Watch published an Educators’ Resource with Amnesty International UK and Liberty called Safeguarding not Securitisation[1] because teachers kept asking us the same questions and their schools’ guidance did not answer them.
This article draws on it to set out what the Prevent duty does and does not ask of you, why your training points you towards over-referral, and what a referral does to the child on the other end of it.
The duty is on the school, not on you
The Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 places the Prevent duty on institutions. It is the school or the college, as a body, that must have “due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism”.
It does not place a personal legal obligation on an individual teacher to refer anyone.[2] Yet because Prevent training is compulsory through employment and is checked by Ofsted, most staff experience it as something they personally must act on, and the training does little to correct that impression.
The distinction matters in practice because a teacher is a professional exercising judgement within the school’s safeguarding policy, and that judgement has to weigh Prevent alongside the school’s other legal obligations – to equality, to disability, to human rights.
However, if you ask a group of teachers what they were told to do if they were unsure about a student or colleague with regards to a potential Prevent concern, the most common answer is that they were told to refer anyway and let the professionals decide.
A 2019 study by Paul Dresser, based on interviews with Prevent police officers, found officers encouraging exactly that, because the concepts behind radicalisation were “difficult” to explain, whereas a gut feeling was “something that everybody understands instantly”.[3]
In February this year the Home Office made the approach official, publishing Key Principles for Prevent which state that “a clear identifiable ideology is not mandatory to make or adopt a Prevent referral”.[4]
The National Education Union’s position is that “referrals to Prevent should not rely on gut instinct: reliance on such ‘instinct’ may explain the very high number of referrals made by schools and colleges”.[5]
Prevent statistics for the year to September 2025 reveal that there were 10,293 referrals in total, a rise of 39 per cent and the highest number since counting began. Schools and colleges made 3,496 of them, more than any other sector, and children aged eleven to fifteen were the largest single age group, at 36 per cent of everyone referred.[6]
Instinct is not neutral because what a “gut-feeling” really is, is just a combination of your biases and lived experience. Where a teacher’s perception is shaped by a pupil’s race, religion, disability or gender, acting on a feeling rather than on evidence turns that perception into a police record associated with terrorism – even when the outcome of that referral is no further action.
Prevent is not safeguarding in the way you were told it is
Prevent is presented in every school as a safeguarding measure. It sits in Keeping Children Safe in Education, it is handled by the designated safeguarding lead, and it uses the same forms and the same language as a concern about neglect or abuse.
The Educator’s Resource we have put together sets out why that framing is misleading. Safeguarding is built on child protection law and human rights, and its object is the welfare of the child in front of you.
On the other hand, Prevent is built on counter-terrorism legislation, and its object is the protection of the wider public from a risk the child is thought to pose.
In the Resource’s words: “Safeguarding is centred on the rights and welfare of the individual, whereas counter terrorism prioritises the protection of the wider public”.[7]
Good safeguarding asks what is going on for a child, what needs are unmet, what trauma or discrimination might sit behind a behaviour, and it assumes the family will be involved.
Prevent asks whether a behaviour or an expression fits a list of indicators, largely without that context, and referrals routinely proceed without a parent knowing.
None of this means a teacher should ignore a child who is genuinely at risk of being drawn into violence. It means the response to that child should look like safeguarding – with the family, the context and the unmet need at the centre – and that a counter-terrorism referral is not the same thing and should not be treated as the default.
The law that sits alongside the duty
The Prevent duty does not override the school’s other legal obligations, and the Resource sets out three that give a teacher solid ground to ask a safeguarding lead to pause.
Under the Equality Act 2010 a school may not discriminate against a disabled pupil, and an autistic child whose literal statements or special interests are read as threatening is owed educational or clinical support, not a security intervention.
The same Act prohibits discrimination on grounds of race and religion, so a referral cannot lawfully rest on a child’s appearance, language, background or lawful religious practice. Yet Muslims remain around six times more likely to be referred than non-Muslims.[8]
And under Article 10 of the Human Rights Act, pupils have the right to hold and express opinions, including political and religious views that adults find uncomfortable; a child’s view about a war, a government or a religion is not, on its own, a safeguarding concern.
Prevent Watch produced this resource with Amnesty and Liberty because teachers told us they felt unsupported. But you are not without help, and there are a good number of organisations and resources available to you.
Prevent Watch runs a free, confidential helpline to clear up misinformation about Prevent and to support those affected by it, and we know from experience that many people who carry the Prevent duty need that support as much as the families on the other side of it. If you are unsure where you stand, get in touch.
Safeguarding not Securitisation: An Educators’ Resource on Prevent, by Prevent Watch, Amnesty International UK and Liberty, is available online and can also be downloaded free as a PDF here. Educators and families can contact Prevent Watch in confidence on 03333 443396.
[1] Prevent Watch, Amnesty International UK and Liberty, Safeguarding not Securitisation: an educators’ resource on Prevent (June 2026).
[2] Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015, Section 26 and Schedule 6.
[3] Paul Dresser, “‘Trust your instincts – act!’ PREVENT police officers’ perspectives of counter-radicalisation reporting thresholds”, Critical Studies on Terrorism 12:4 (2019).
[4] Home Office, Key Principles for Prevent (February 2026), as quoted in HM Government, Government response to Phase 1 of the Southport Inquiry (July 2026).
[5] Prevent Watch, Amnesty International UK and Liberty, Safeguarding not Securitisation: an educators’ resource on Prevent (June 2026).
[6] Home Office, Individuals referred to and supported through the Prevent Programme, October 2024 to September 2025 (published 6 August 2026).
[7] Prevent Watch, Amnesty International UK and Liberty, Safeguarding not Securitisation: an educators’ resource on Prevent (June 2026).
[8] Prevent Watch, Amnesty International UK and Liberty, Safeguarding not Securitisation: an educators’ resource on Prevent (June 2026).
