Whose freedoms? Whitehall hunts extremists but others see pluralist values at risk

It is not what anyone would want for a school. As well as educating more than 1,300 children, the teachers at Barclay primary school, in Leyton, east London, have been meeting weekly with police to discuss "new evidence of online abuse and criminality".

- Daniel Boffey 

A bitter row over whether children may wear pro-Palestinian pins, flags and badges on their uniforms prompted a war of words involving parents, with one protester standing outside the school gates with a placard saying "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free". The school even had to close early for the Christmas break as a result of fears for the wellbeing of staff.

"Do not let the misguided actions of a disaffected few be the reason [the children's education] is disrupted further," parents were urged in a letter from the Lion Academy Trust.

To some, the unsettling events at Barclay school, where pupils aged three to 11 are taught in what Ofsted called in 2021 a "friendly" and "outstanding" setting, will be taken as further evidence that Britain has a problem with extremism.

Just as the streets of London were said to have been taken over by protesters threatening "mob rule", as the prime minister Rishi Sunak put it last week, so Barclay school is seen by some as held to ransom by extremists using "malicious misinformation", as the school has described it.

Another viewpoint is that the events at Barclay school highlight what can happen when people feel they are losing their voice.

The trouble at the school started when the parents of children who had dressed up in Palestinian colours at a Children in Need day were sent letters threatening referrals to the government's antradicalisation programme, Prevent.

They were told not to use their children as political pawns. There were then claims, vehemently denied, that an eight-year-old from a Palestinian family had been "bullied" by staff for refusing to remove a Palestine flag patch from his uniform. The fact that the school had written to parents in February 2022 to express horror at the events that followed Russia's invasion of Ukraine and to encourage fund raising for humanitarian relief, drew claims of double standards.