Would you die for your country?

Pupils are engaged in passionate debate about the rights and wrongs of war with Iraq. Caroline Haydon visits a school where the conflict has politicised students and examines the advice that the Government is giving to teachers at forces' schools

The girls are angry. They've listened to the news, read the papers, and they've come to the conclusion that Tony Blair isn't being responsive. "He's behaving like a dictator," says Ayesha, not mincing her words. "He's not listening. A large percentage of the population is against the war, and he's just saying, 'I'm going to carry on', and I don't think that's the way for someone in a position of power to behave."

As the troops fly out, and the newspaper columns fill with the latest twists in the weapons-inspection saga, schools face their first big test since citizenship became a compulsory part of the curriculum last September. And here at Burntwood, a comprehensive beacon school in south London, Fatima, Ayesha, Natasha, Nadia and Eleena are filling me in on the details of a debate they've just taken part in with two other local schools, and it's pretty impassioned stuff.

Sixteen- or 17-year-olds are not thought to be very political these days, but the sight of schoolchildren demonstrating outside Downing Street last week should tell us otherwise. Nadia tells me that this topic has made her buy the newspapers to follow what is happening, and has engaged her more than other "big" debates – those on, say, cannabis or abortion. "This is happening now, and those are old debates."

This is a girls-only school, except in the sixth form, and perhaps unsurprisingly (with 70 per cent of women in the country said to be opposed to war), all five girls are in the anti-war camp. A small deputation went recently to see the head to ask if they could put up posters about the London anti-war march around the school. The answer was positive, as the issue was deemed political though not party political. Today, a pile of leaflets still lies in the sixth-form block, and the topic is a live one in the common room. But at the debate, the girls listened to views opposed to theirs, including those of a Kurdish boy who was anti-Saddam and passionately pro-war, though they weren't too impressed by his arguments. "He was very violent about it and quite vengeful, and wasn't willing to take on our ideas," says Fatima.

And critical-thinking exercises at AS-level forced Nadia to articulate the pro-war case, even though she doesn't agree with it. "It was just after the debate, and I felt quite emotional about it. I found it really difficult." she says.

Schools are not required to make citizenship a discrete topic, and at Burntwood it is handled in different ways at different levels. Lower down the school, every curricular area has a role to play, and teachers report a number of earnest, spontaneous discussions in class. In one Year 8 English class, students comparing Churchillian and Shakespearean speeches became so caught up in a discussion about the language of war that their teacher allowed it to run for the entire lesson.

And in Year 9, students were asked to answer the question, "Would you fight for your country?", after a visit to the Imperial War Museum. This elicited a wide range of responses, from the patriotic to the pacifist – "people should find other ways to settle arguments". And from one Iraqi girl, the firm riposte that she would defend her country but not this one – "I wouldn't fight for this country because they are bombing mine".

Some of the answers were very moving, says Jane Anthony, one of the citizenship co-ordinators at the school. "This country has given me a stable and pleasant life, education, medication, home – I wouldn't hesitate to fight for my country," was one of them. "Some of the answers raised the whole issue of the gratitude of first- or second-generation immigrants to Britain. It was the sort of sentiment you might expect to hear more from the older generation, but here it was", she says. "Citizenship studies here have shown that students have strong moral feelings about this sort of thing, and they can be a useful reminder to adults that young people sometimes have a clearer moral view and a refreshing idealism".

Certainly, they can take a dim view of politicians whom they deem to be pushing a line. "It's easy for George Bush to say we don't blame Muslims, but he's really got to mean it from the heart," says Natasha. To Fatima, a Muslim, it "does seem like an anti-Muslim war". And Eleena cites the "unfairness" of attacking Iraq while ignoring North Korea.

Free and frank discussion of this nature, however, is one thing in schools where pupils do not have parents serving in the armed forces. Where future conflict might mean separation from and fear for fathers – or mothers – sent off to war, however, the issue is more sensitive.

Malcolm Wheeler, head of the Wavell School in Hampshire, which takes around 25 per cent of its pupils from the nearby Aldershot garrison, says that schools may often have students or members of staff with relatives likely to be affected without realising it. "It's worth knowing whether you have kids or staff who might be affected. It just means that a tutor knows the situation – it doesn't have to be the subject of a conversation. It just creates an alert state," he says.

At Wavell, the school asks the authorities to let them know before parents depart for the Gulf, so that the pastoral team can keep a watch on their children. This, he says, is particularly important if the student is already under pressure at home or at school. He checks, also, whether staff have close relatives in the forces or the Territorial Army who might be called up. There is talk in staff meetings on signs to look out for in pupils experiencing stress, and policy reviews on how to act in major crises. "Even if we don't expect the worst, we need to be prepared for it."

"Above all we try to keep a sense of normality," he says. "For these children, school is not simply a place of education but a place of safety. And we try to keep a sense of proportion – during the whole of the last conflict, of those who went, not a single parent was seriously injured. But now, of course, we are dealing again with the perception, the possibility, of loss."

Normality is a key word in an important briefing document that all schools affected by possible deployment have now been sent. The Service Children's Education (SCE), an agency owned by the MOD, has asked educational psychologists and social workers to put together a package of advice. Largely for schools in Germany, in which the children of service personnel make up the entire roll – in one school over there, 95 per cent of children have parents who have already been sent to the Gulf – it has also been sent to schools here to update advice from the time of the Gulf War.

The deputy chief executive of SCE, Mike Smith, says that it was produced largely in response to the uncertainty of the current situation. "We were unsure of the length of deployment or what would happen on deployment – what the troops were actually going to face," he says.

In the briefing, schools are, crucially, referred to as "havens of normality", and advice is given on best practice in maintaining that normality, as well as dealing with potential crises. Frequently asked questions are answered with practical advice. Is it good to allow angry behaviour? Answer – yes, but staff should at the same time aim to refocus expression into passive tasks such as talking, writing, or physical work.

And the advice on the toughest question of all – "Will my Daddy be killed?" – is to be honest. No one really knows the answer, and false reassurance such as, "No, of course he won't", just won't do. It might be better to deal with the emotions underlying such questions, rather than trying to provide a direct answer.

John Cummings, head of the Duke of York's school in Dover, a boarding school for the children of service personnel, stresses, however, that the main discussion goes on between the children themselves. In schools like his, the peer group is the best support a child has. "What we as adults can do is to be there. If it becomes a case of being more proactive, we provide a listening ear," he says. "It's a question of not highlighting things. The speculation in the popular press can be really distressing for children."

At the same time, if a parent is lost in a war, then the school knows what to do, whom to contact – "There is a tremendous infrastructure in place".

Back at Burntwood, the discussion, luckily for the girls, remains academic. But if we do go to war, every school will, in some way, be affected.

education@independent.co.uk