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New Classroom Resources on Terrorism and Extremism: Let’s Discuss


This blog post was published under the 2019 to 2022 Conservative government


 

By Sally Siner, Prevent Education Officer for Derby

Ready-to-go and quality assured classroom resources are extremely important for teachers, especially when it can feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything that needs to be done.

Time – or lack thereof – is the nemesis of many teachers: it feels like there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything that needs to be done, much less everything one might like to do. Teachers are amongst the most committed, hard-working and creative people I know and are always on the lookout for new and innovative ways to engage young people in learning. Educate Against Hate’s Let’s Discuss classroom resources can save you time and provide expertise in teaching your students about extremism and radicalisation with free, thought-provoking and accurate resources. Here’s how:

Too many choices

If you were to google ‘extremism classroom resources’ you’d get over six million hits. It is doubtful you have time to go searching through this high volume of resources for that needle in a haystack.

And that’s the crux of it – not only are quality resources in this area hard to find, but teachers I’ve spoken to have admitted they are often reluctant to address such sensitive and contentious issues within the classroom – yet address them we must: arrests for terrorist offences are steadily declining overall in the UK, except that is, amongst the teenage cohort in which we are seeing an increase.

Trusted go-to resources

These new Let’s Discuss resources have been developed with teachers and students in mind by a range of experts across counter-extremism and education, including Prevent Education Officers. No specialist prior knowledge is required and each of the four packs contain teacher guidance, a classroom task, a video, and a PowerPoint presentation to aid classroom discussion. The idea is that a teacher could look at one of the four topics during a one-hour planning and preparation period and then be ready to teach the lesson. It’s our hope that these resources will give teachers the confidence to have difficult conversations that may arise from such topics, with the reassurance that these packs have been fact-checked and approved by government.

How to use

There are several ways in which you could use the four packs, topics of which are covered:

Taken as a whole, these could be used to form a single unit of 4-8 lessons in PSHE, Citizenship or similar. Alternatively, it’s possible to break these down into smaller bitesize chunks for use during tutor time, or two or more packs could be used during a drop-down day for an immersive examination of extremism.

Let’s Discuss is recommended for year 9+ with no upper age limit. Those in further education might like to use the resources as a springboard for an EPQ, for example.

However you choose to use these resources, we hope you will find them helpful and effective. We’d love to hear from you regarding how you’ve found teaching these lessons so we can improve and enhance new resources – please contact: counter-extremism@education.gov.uk.


Next steps: Visit the Let’s Discuss classroom resource packs.

Popular Resources

Debating can enable young people to engage with a broad range of social, scientific and ethical issues facing society today. It can provide students with the opportunity to learn how to argue and defend points of view. Debating Matters provides guides and resources for setting up debate clubs in schools, together with details on the Institute of Ideas’ National Debating Matters Competition.

 


A note about our third-party resources 

Third-party resources are those not created directly by the Educate Against Hate team, or by the Department for Education. All third-party resources hosted on Educate Against Hate have undergone a quality-assurance process, a due diligence assessment and content review before being added to the site, so you can have confidence that you’re using trusted, accurate, high-quality content.  

You should use any resources on this website at your own discretion. When selecting resources and materials to use, schools may find it helpful to review guidance produced by the Department for Education on using external agencies.  


 

A 15-hour programme of creative activities for young people to develop awareness, skills and knowledge related to democracy and voting, thereby supporting the promotion of British values. It is likely to be most effective when used with young people whose engagement with politics and the democratic process is relatively low, but who have some interest in social and community issues and who care about making a positive change in their communities and beyond. The programme helps to make ideas about democracy accessible. Information and activities can be adapted so they are relevant and appropriate for each group of young people.

Through a series of hard-hitting films of real people affected by radicalisation, Extreme Dialogue enables teachers to show young people all the faces of extremism. It equips young people to challenge extremism, helping them navigate core themes and questions using films, educational resources and training. Videos are accompanied by interactive presentations (Prezis). The downloadable resources are all modular and are informed by more than 20 years of research and experience in managing global and community conflict. The seven true stories include a mother whose son died fighting in Syria and a former member of a far-right terrorist group. You will need to give your email address to Extreme Dialogue when downloading the below resources.

 


A note about our third-party resources 

Third-party resources are those not created directly by the Educate Against Hate team, or by the Department for Education. All third-party resources hosted on Educate Against Hate have undergone a quality-assurance process, a due diligence assessment and content review before being added to the site, so you can have confidence that you’re using trusted, accurate, high-quality content.  

You should use any resources on this website at your own discretion. When selecting resources and materials to use, schools may find it helpful to review guidance produced by the Department for Education on using external agencies.  


 

Magistrates visit schools, colleges and community groups to discuss how our justice system works, including how verdicts and sentences are decided. Teams of magistrates give a presentation and discuss a range of topics, including how magistrates are appointed, what kind of cases they deal with, how guilt or innocence is decided and sentencing when guilt is established. The presentations are tailored to suit different audiences and requirements. These visits can support schools in promoting fundamental British values by giving students the opportunity to learn about and engage with the rule of law.