Teachernet, FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions

If you have any other questions you would like to see answered here, contact the DCSF by email and the most common ones will be added.

Who is responsible for meeting the duty to promote community cohesion?

It is clear in the guidance published by the DCSF in July 2007 that from September 2007 all schools will be under a new duty to promote Community Cohesion. The Education and Inspections Act 2006 inserted a new section (21(5)) to the Education Act 2002 introducing a duty on the governing body of maintained schools to promote community cohesion. From September 2008, Ofsted are due to inspect how schools fulfil this duty.

For Academies, from April 2007 the duty to promote community cohesion was introduced in new academy Funding Agreements, and although there are no plans to introduce this requirement retrospectively to previously opened academies, Ofsted plan to inspect community cohesion in all academies.

It is, therefore, the duty of the governors of the school to ensure that measures are taken by the senior leadership of the school to make sure that this new duty is embedded in the life of the school. It is up to the school to determine exactly how it will do that.

How do we get started?

Promoting community cohesion is something that has been at the heart of the work of most schools for many years. The action for any school is to look at the definition of community cohesion and think about the things that they are already doing. The headings: Teaching, Learning and the Curriculum; Equity and excellence; and Ethos and Engagement prove a useful guide to analysing what is happening in the school. One way to start this process is to use the Quick Audit sections or 'Promoting community cohesion in our school' discussion exercise from this resource pack.

Schools may want to look at the impact of their curriculum provision to prepare young people to value and contribute to the cohesion of their communities, now and in the future, and to understand their own and other people's identities and backgrounds. They could also consider what the school knows about the communities it serves and how it has used that knowledge to promote community cohesion and serve the needs of users. When a school is thinking about the work it does and the work it needs to do on community cohesion these questions need to be at the forefront of its planning.

Will we need to assess this learning?

A lot of the work around community cohesion will be in schemes of work across a variety of subjects and will be assessed in the normal ways. Citizenship education will be a driver for some of the specific learning about diversity and active engagement in the local community whilst many other subjects will contribute to the wider knowledge of a changing society and the specific communication skills that enable people to form positive relationships. No separate assessments will be required for individual learners, but schools will wish to evaluate the progress of overall action plans that promote community cohesion in ways suited to the specific approaches adopted.

Equity and excellence is an important aspect of community cohesion and schools may want to scrutinise how different groups of pupils perform in terms of attainment, behaviour, attendance and a range of other indicators (see the section on Self-evaluation). Using data forensically to understand what is happening across a school and who is engaged and fully included is a very important aspect of assessing community cohesion.

What training and guidance is available for our staff?

Training to understand some of the issues that make cohesive communities is essential to build the expertise and confidence of staff. It is equally important in areas where schools have multi-cultural intakes as in areas that are largely mono-cultural. In these areas the starting point might be a consideration of the factors that are seen to create divisions in the local area such as post-codes, urban vs. rural, inter-generational or class issues.

For this training to be successful it needs to be built into the school's CPD strategy with the coordinator taking the responsibility to find out the needs of individual teachers and what training is available both locally and nationally. It is important that schools are honest about where the gaps lie and are able to admit if they do not feel confident with aspects of diversity and broader issues of teaching. Teachers are often uneasy about dealing with controversial issues and there are useful publications on teaching controversial issues by the History Association and Oxfam.

Will I have to discuss difficult issues with children?

Community Cohesion can bring up difficult issues and tensions. It can deal with issues, for instance, around faith, social class, culture, race and disability. These are often issues that students have strong feelings about and it is important that schools provide them with space to be heard and also with the intellectual tools to think and argue their way through issues that confront them.

Clearly some staff will feel better equipped to take on these issues than others and it is important for schools to think through their policy on controversial issues and how teachers will be trained and supported. Teachers worry about entering into debates with pupils that might stir up antagonism or expose their own views in ways that are not helpful. They also worry about the reactions of parents. In planning CPD schools need to consider the needs of particular staff, the training available and the support for teachers to watch good practitioners in action. It is worth remembering that young people will encounter many of these issues through the popular media or informally. Media reporting will not always seek to promote community cohesion. Schools should therefore try to offer all young people some guidance in questioning popular assumptions and rejecting the more divisive and irresponsible reporting.

This demonstrates the need for representative staff and where this is not the case with teachers, the school can recruit TAs, learning mentors, and advisers who can bring in other experiences and help to build the confidence of the whole team that they can cope with multiculturalism

Oxfam — support for teachers handling sensitive and controversial issues
History Association — teaching emotive and controversial history
Citizenship Foundation — a good overview of issues for schools to consider (PDF)
Facing History Ourselves - face-to-face and on-line training and resources about controversial issues, such as identity, group membership and race, as well as subjects such as Holocaust education
Teaching about controversial issues - guidelines for handling controversial issues, both in the classroom and in informal conversations with pupils, drawing on recent publications in this area.

Some of our parents have strong views against migrants— what can we do?

Schools have legal duties to promote a range of equalities policies and to promote community cohesion and governors have a responsibility to make sure this happens. It is important that in all communications with parents the school's stance on these issues is absolutely clear. The school's position needs to be clear in the prospectus, in introductory meetings with new parents and in school policies. It also needs to be clear in the school's reaction to all instances of discrimination or racist language or behaviour. If the school's stance is unequivocal and clearly communicated then parents will know from day one where they stand.

Schools can also provide positive experiences for parents, where they meet and interact with people from other backgrounds through events or similar.

Schools may also need to get support from other agencies to help tackle negative views and stereotypes. Schools cannot be expected to solve all of the problems in the local community. Perhaps the local authority or voluntary and community organisations could be brought in to work with parent groups to help 'myth bust' and provide an alternative view.

Our children don't have contact with different kinds of people...how can we teach diversity?

Schools across the country are in very different situations regarding the nature of their intake and this will make a difference to how they approach the teaching of diversity. In schools in mono cultural areas it might be important, in the first instance, to concentrate on difference as it manifests itself within their community. There might be intergenerational conflict, class differences or conflicts based on areas and postcodes.

Issues to do with religious, cultural or racial difference will be raised through various parts of the curriculum including dealing with topical and media issues. It is important to integrate learning into the curriculum to use the curriculum opportunities better to bring 'difference' in e.g. through history, geography, citizenship.

It will also be important for the school to consider seeking links with schools with different intakes. The Schools Linking Network has been set up to establish working relationships between schools to build community cohesion. The international dimension of school work can inject a wider perspective to all areas of the curriculum and many mono-cultural schools use this as a lever to broaden the experiences of their learners. Through this work the school also has the opportunity to establish global relationships with partner schools and create opportunities for personal communications between learners from different cultural backgrounds.

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