Same grooming machine. Different product.
KS3 · The Safeguard Hub · Press F11 for full screen, scroll for next slide
Radicalisation only affects one community. People choose extremism because they're evil. Telling an adult gets your mate arrested.
All three: myths. Let's see why.
Attention. Belonging. Isolation. Escalation.
That's grooming, from your earlier lessons. Radicalisation is the same machine selling a different product: a story about who to blame and a group where you finally matter.
Not a type of person. A person with a gap: lonely, angry, grieving, bored, wanting to matter.
Which is everyone, sometimes. That's why "it couldn't be me or my mates" is the most dangerous sentence in this subject.
Push: isolation, grievance, identity crisis, trouble at home.
Pull: belonging, purpose, status, adventure, a villain to blame, and the flattery of "seeing the truth".
Feeds learned that anger holds attention. One curious click trains it to serve something stronger. Then stronger again.
Nobody plans the journey. The feed walks you down it, one recommendation at a time.
Jokes lower your guard. Each one walks the line one edgy step forward.
Then come the private channels, where the serious material lives and people compete to be the most extreme.
Jokes hardening into real contempt for a group. Language that sounds downloaded, not thought. Old friends dropped for an online crowd. Secrecy, anger when questioned, obsession with violence.
One sign alone? Maybe nothing. Several, or a sharp change? Act.
Voluntary. Supportive. Mentoring, and help with what's actually going on underneath.
Not handcuffs, not a record, not a punishment. Most people referred get help with something else entirely, because something else was the real story.
"Telling an adult gets your mate arrested." False.
Telling early is reaching your friend while reaching them is still easy. Staying loyal and silent is how they get further away.
Any trusted adult in school. Childline 0800 1111.
ACT Early: actearly.uk, 0800 011 3764, specialist advice for worried friends and family. 999 if someone is in danger or planning harm.
Write down one sign you would now notice, and one adult you would tell.
That pair of answers is the whole lesson.