Can a school prevent extremism?

For a school that is in "special measures", it doesn't feel like Carlton Bolling College is failing.

Exam results are good, improving and, if headteacher Adrian Kneeshaw and his team have got it right, they will be ahead of comparable schools within a year.

But it is not the GCSE results that were the problem here. It was the school's ability to govern itself and, critically in Ofsted's view, protect its predominantly Muslim students from extremism.

On Monday, we visited Carlton Bolling for a BBC Radio 5 Live three-hour special looking at how a school in special measures turns itself around.

Last year, Bradford City Council sacked the governors at the overwhelmingly Muslim school after a devastating Ofsted report.

It found the school had inadequate measures in place to protect children from harm - in particular a failure to educate children about the risks of extremism.

A former headteacher had quit amid pressure from a minority of governors to shift the school on to a conservative Islamic footing, including segregating the sexes and restricting the curriculum.

Sounds familiar? These are the kind of problems that had already been played out in schools in Birmingham in the so-called "Trojan Horse" affair.

Human rights poster: shared rights are at the centre of the school's message

The well-reported crisis over Carlton Bolling's governance and direction felt to some like a "told you so" moment.

In the 1980s, one of Bradford's headteachers, the late Ray Honeyford, was at the centre of a national media storm after he warned about cultural segregation.

Thirty years later, the debate over the role of our schools in preventing extremism and fostering strong cohesive communities has rarely been louder.

Carlton Bolling students tell 5Live what they've learned about radicalisation

As of July, schools in England, Scotland and Wales are under a duty to do what they can to prevent people being drawn into terrorism.

The new law has many critics - but they are not at Carlton Bolling.

If anything, the Ofsted special measures regime - and the public debate over extremism - looks like it has been a blessing in disguise.

Adrian Kneeshaw has tried to get his students to think deeply about citizenship

Staff believe their new approach to tackling extremism head-on, and getting students to respect each other's backgrounds, has lessons for teachers who fear where to tread.

Adrian Kneeshaw says that when the school began developing its counter-extremism strategy, they didn't just take government guidance off the shelf and read it out to students.

Instead, his deputy Jane Girt assembled a tight-knit team to look at how they could devise materials that spoke the same language as their own students - and taught them to think for themselves.

The official policy says: "Our definition of radical or extreme ideology is 'a set of ideas which could justify vilification or violence against individuals, groups or self'.

"Carlton Bolling College recognises its duty to protect our students from indoctrination into any form of extreme ideology."

The school's counter-extremism curriculum is focused on getting the students to think about it in all its forms, wherever it takes place, rather than lecturing them merely about jihadist groups.

It begins with some general ideas relating to extremism and animal rights - and then widens the debate over time to more complex themes about identity, terrorism and political violence.

When it comes to al-Qaeda style extremism, the school doesn't flash up pictures of the twin towers coming down on 9/11.

Honeyford controversy:

Ray Honeyford was the head teacher of a school in inner-city Bradford where more than 90% of pupils were non-white.

In 1984 he wrote an article for the right-leaning Salisbury Review in which he argued there were a "growing number of Asians whose aim is to preserve as intact as possible the values and attitudes of the Indian sub-continent within a framework of British social and political privilege, ie to produce Asian ghettoes".

He also criticised "an influential group of black intellectuals of aggressive disposition, who know little of the British traditions of understatement, civilised discourse and respect for reason".

In other words, multiculturalism - by Mr Honeyford's definition, allowing different cultures to remain separate within the same country - was wrong.

In April 1985 he was suspended from duty, but he appealed to the High Court and was allowed to go back to work in September.

However, disgruntled parents and others formed an action group, with large-scale protests taking place outside the school. About half the pupils ceased to attend lessons.

In December 1985 he agreed to retire early, with a pay-off of more than £160,000 from the council.

Instead, it tries to foster critical thinking about the nature of citizenship, belonging and violence.

"We're not the experts on the Quran and Islam," says Adrian Kneeshaw.

"We need to use the people with the right knowledge to help us get the message right."

Key figure

One of the school's English teachers, Hafiz Rahman, is also a local imam - and he has become a key figure in making sure the language and tone is right for the audience.

"We're very fortunate - we have the right pieces of the jigsaw in the right places," says Mr Rahman.

English teacher Hafiz Rahman is also a local imam

"The kids respected what we talked about because we were talking about contemporary issues - about travelling to Syria.

"We were asking them [to debate] why these people are travelling, should they really be travelling - do they understand the root causes of Syria itself?"

When Ofsted recently came back to Carlton Bolling to assess its progress on safeguarding, the inspectors commended an assembly led by Mr Rahman because of his "uncompromising" approach to getting the students to think through the dangers of Syria.

Many critics of the government's agenda to prevent violent extremism say security-driven political rhetoric around Syria is making it harder for young people who are angry to speak honestly because they fear being labelled potential terrorists.

Yet the students we met were quite prepared for some robust debate about Syria, Israel, the Palestinians and the West.

All of them were very conscious of the threat of extremism in their own community and, what they could each do to help marginalise it.

Students discuss radicalisation on 5Live

"Radicalisation is when you want to go and join ISIS," one year seven student told me.

"Debating isn't radicalisation - it's voicing your opinion - and we've got to debate why some people believe something can be solved by becoming violent."

Looming large over the debate in Bradford is the story of the family of 12 from the city who disappeared to Syria.

Carlton Bolling hasn't had to face the same tragedy - so what would Adrian Kneeshaw do if he uncovered extremism in his school?

"We'd go to the police, the local authority, follow the guidelines - and take advice and go from there."

And what would he say to other schools worried about educating their kids about extremism?

"We could offer them help and we'd charge them a lot of money," he jokes.

"Know your kids. Don't just lift something off the shelf - do it for the proper reasons - keeping them safe and preventing harm."