The government unveiled new impartiality guidance for teachers on Thursday that it claims will help them to avoid “promoting contested theories as fact” in areas ranging from climate change, the British empire and racism to homosexuality, historical political events and elections.
It’s a long document and it contains several scenarios highlighting the sorts of issues that teachers might encounter in the classroom to try and give schools clarity on how the new guidance should be interpreted.
The launch of this new guidance, unsurprisingly, generated a lot of media coverage and commentary, with claims that the government was trying to control “woke” teachers and ban certain topics from the classroom.
But away from the debate and disagreements, what does the guidance actually say and what does it really mean for schools? Tes has been through it to pick out the key insights and information that schools need to know.
Who does the new impartiality guidance for teachers apply to?
The guidance covers all schools - including independent schools - and so it needs to be adhered to across the entire sector.
Does the guidance bring in any new legal powers?
No. The guidance is not backed up by any new laws or powers.
The Department for Education says the guidance is designed to help explain the “existing legal requirements relating to political impartiality in schools” that are drawn from the Education Act, Equality Act, Human Rights Act and Prevent duty.
These laws essentially put two legal duties on to schools:
- They must prohibit the promotion of partisan political views.
- They should take steps to ensure the balanced presentation of opposing views on political issues when these are brought to the attention of pupils.
However, Ben Fullbrook QC and Fiona Scolding QC, at Landmark Chambers, tell Tes that although the guidance does not “change the law”, it does bring more oversight into ensuring impartiality, so schools now have a “legal duty to have regard to [the guidance] when devising teaching and activity for students”.
They note, too, that if any issues around teacher impartiality do find their way to court - as they have occasionally done in the past, such as in the 2007 case Dimmock v Secretary of State for Education and Skills when the court ruled that using the film An Inconvenient Truth as part of teaching on climate change was “political” - then the guidance could be used to guide judges in future cases.
“[The guidance] will be used by all those working in the education sector, and the courts if there is litigation, to examine how that duty [to be impartial] is to be discharged in practice,” Fullbrook and Scolding add.
What do teachers need to avoid doing then?
Within the guidance one word that appears a lot is “partisan”. Seventy-one times, in fact.
This word is used a lot because the DfE says existing case law provides a definition of partisan as being “one-sided” with regard to views being expressed with a “political purpose, such as to further the interests of a particular partisan group, change the law or change government policy”.
As such, teachers need to avoid being “partisan” in how they talk about issues and instead ensure that any topic covered is done so with a “balanced presentation of opposing views”.
The guidance says this does not mean that teachers cannot give opinions as “there is no blanket prohibition on teachers and staff expressing their own views on political issues that are being taught to pupils”.
However, it does say that staff must be aware that they cannot do so in a way that could be seen as “promoting a partisan political view” - especially as teachers and staff are in a “position of authority and will typically be respected and trusted by the pupils they teach”.
The guidance also stops short of saying that schools should put policies in place on this but suggests it may be something leaders or employers think about.
“School leaders and employers will need to judge whether it is necessary or helpful to have a school-wide policy on teachers expressing personal opinions on political issues in the classroom, or whether this is best left to teachers’ own judgement on a case-by-case basis,” it says.
Does avoiding being ‘partisan’ mean giving equal weight to all arguments?
The guidance repeatedly tries to make it clear that although there is a need for “opposing views” to be heard, this does not mean teachers should give equal weight to all views in any given area.
For example, in a scenario in the guidance in which climate change is being taught in the classroom, it says schools “do not need to present misinformation, such as unsubstantiated claims that anthropogenic climate change is not occurring, to provide balance”.
However, where the guidance would kick in is in the political interpretation of events - such as how to tackle climate change, because this may “constitute a political issue” given that different groups, including political parties and campaign groups, may have “partisan political views on the best way to address climate change”.
A similar attempt to explain this is made in another scenario looking at how schools may discuss racism.
The guidance says that saying racism is wrong is not an issue because it is a view that “schools should reinforce”.
However, the issue would come if a teacher were to refer to a group like Black Lives Matter and not acknowledge that it is a “specific campaign organisation” and, as such, may mean a promotion “partisan political views” on how the government should tackle racism.
“Examples of such partisan political views include advocating specific views on how government resources should be used to address social issues, including withdrawing funding from the police,” it says.
The guidance also touches on the issue of “unsubstantiated theories and conspiracies” and acknowledges that pupils may raise such views, given there is “widespread misinformation online”.
However, it says teachers do not need to give credence to these in debates: “Teachers should be prepared to challenge factually inaccurate claims if they deem this appropriate and necessary.”
Scolding and Fullbrook say this is a point that schools should note as it shows that in the face of social media, which is often a “a peddler of half truths, misinformation or downright propagandist lies, schools have a vital role to play to provide facts, evidence and information” to pupils.
They say it would be “wrong for this guidance to be read as provoking a ‘chilling’ effect on teaching or discussion of issues”.
Does this apply to outside speakers in schools, too?
The guidance has quite a lot to say about the need for schools to look through a lens of impartiality at how they use outside speakers.
Firstly, it notes that inviting a political individual to school - such as an MP - is usually always permitted as an “effective way of engaging pupils’ and building their understanding of democracy”.
However, if a general election is on the horizon, schools would need to be “mindful” of ensuring that they give pupils a chance to hear a range of views.
Speakers can still be brought in to talk about wider social events but the guidance urges caution on how these are engaged and used.
For example, if an assembly is held on racism and an outside speaker is brought in, the guidance says the school must be aware of the implications this could have.
Specifically, it says that if the “school learns that the speaker has publicly advocated partisan political views on issues related to race and social policy reform” that would go beyond the purpose of the assembly, it should tell the speaker to avoid espousing these views.
If, though, a speaker still does this, the school would then be required to consider if it needs to take additional steps to rectify this by potentially teaching more to students on issues raised to help them “understand other views on the issue”.
In a third example, the guidance says that bringing in a ”women’s group” to talk about the history of the British feminist movement as part of celebrations marking the anniversary of women’s suffrage in the UK would be acceptable.
But if the group then talked about having a petition calling for companies to implement a mandatory gender balance quota for their executive boards, the school would have to make it clear that asking students to support or sign the petition during the session would “not be acceptable”.
Should staff be trained on impartiality?
The guidance seems to appreciate that all of this is complex for teachers and, as such, it suggests leaders may wish to arrange “training on political impartiality for teachers and staff” - especially for new staff or those either in, or working towards, leadership positions to help them get this right.
Doing this should mean that those running schools ensure that staff have the skills to “ensure their teaching is balanced and [have[ an awareness of commonplace risks to political impartiality”.
How should impartiality complaints be handled?
The guidance says that schools should already have processes for engaging with parents or carers, from whom any complaint is likely to come.
It says the hope would be that issues can be resolved informally in most cases by explaining what was said in the classroom and reassuring the parent that nothing untoward took place and giving them reassurances that the guidelines on political impartiality are being met.
However, the guidance says it may be necessary for pupils to receive “further teaching” or some form of “clarification” if it is deemed they did receive “imbalanced teaching”.
If this does not prove satisfactory, the DfE says parents or carers could raise a formal complaint in line with a school’s complaints procedure.
Dan Worth is senior editor at Tes
