What can schools do to protect young people from online radicalisation?

Only too often in recent months we have heard news reports about young people being radicalised via the internet to become involved in conflicts abroad.

As the UK Safer Internet Centre, we have been following these developments closely and have discussed with schools the dangers that are posed to children exposed to political extremism on social media. We know schools find this a difficult subject because they are not sure about what they can do in these situations and where to look for support.

David Wright, the UK Safer Internet Centre Director at South West Grid for Learning authored an article in Leader, the Association of School and College Leaders’ (ASCL) online magazine entitled ‘Extreme measures’ in which he outlines the issue, and provides useful step-by-step guidance on what schools can do to protect young people from radicalisation. It references the free awareness training around radicalisation offered by the Home Office as well as Department for Education’s helpline established for schools to raise concerns about potential extremism. It also highlights 360 degree safe – an award-winning and free tool available to assess your school’s wider online safety provision and used by over 7,000 UK schools already . You can find the full article here.