The previous two chapters have set out the debate on ‘British values’ and the security agenda associated with Prevent. In this chapter, we will look at how these have been translated into policies for schools and how those policies have been implemented. The latter includes the role of Ofsted inspections, but we will save that discussion until after we have presented the obligations on schools for teaching religious education and daily collective worship in Chapter Four. The reason for this is that the promotion of ‘British values’, any duties under Prevent, and requirements concerning religious education are all governed by a single legislative framework, that of section 78 of the Education Act 2002, which informs Ofsted inspections.

This Act states that:

Ofsted inspections, as we shall see, are directed toward section 28, within which they make their judgements about community cohesion, religious education and Prevent. The guidance provided to schools on these matters, then, is of crucial importance.

One of the immediate consequences of the publicity surrounding the Trojan Horse affair was that the DfE reinforced the requirement on publicly funded schools in England to actively promote ‘shared values’, now called ‘fundamental British values’. The new guidance states that ‘schools should promote the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs’. It states further that schools should, ‘enable students to acquire a broad general knowledge of and respect for public institutions and services in England’.

Schooling community cohesion

The timing of this new initiative implied that the Trojan Horse affair was evidence of a failure to promote shared ‘British values’, or engagement with and respect for democracy, tolerance or respect for the rule of law, and that the failure derived, in part, from insufficient guidance to schools. This is not the case.