Sixth Form Lecture: Protect and Prepare

On Friday 10 January, our Lower Sixth students were joined by Mark Scoular, Director of Protect and Prepare Ltd, as part of the Lower Sixth Form Academic Enrichment Programme.

Previous to his current role as Director of Protect and Prepare Ltd, Mark has had an extensive career of 35 years of keeping us all safe. He has held senior leader positions within the Metropolitan Police Service, was Head of Emergency Preparedness for the London 2012 Olympic Games, and held key positions working for the National Counter Terrorism Policing Headquarters in the UK.

His whirlwind career first started in the Royal Marines, where he met Wilkins Housemaster Mr Blunt! The two have remained good friends ever since.

Mark Scoular began his lecture with a quick introduction to himself and his career experiences. He then showed a short presentation of many of the terror attacks that have occurred, and also many that had been prevented, in the West from 2014-2017. Some of these our students were aware of through the media, but many, particularly the amount of attacks that had been prevented, were ones that the general public had no idea about. This opening presentation proved the success of the work that protective forces do, but also about how vulnerable the public are to an attack.

Mark Scoular introduced students to the UK’s Counter Terrorism Strategy, which included four key points:

• Pursue: to stop terrorist attacks
• Prevent: to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting them
• Protect: to strengthen our protection against a terrorist attack
• Prepare: to migrate the impact of a terrorist attack
• These four points are the most important factors in reducing the risk of a terror attack.

Mark also told our students about the National Counter Terrorism Security Office (NaCTSO), which advises the government on its counter-terrorism strategy. NaCTSO have to manage that the right things that could prevent a terrorist attack are in the right places at the right time. An example of this that Mark showed the girls was of what looked like a simple modern bench. However, this bench was especially designed to be strong enough to stop a large vehicle, travelling at 70mph, in its tracks.

He then explained to the Sixth Form how the UK prepares for risks, including details of National Risk Assessment (NRA), National Resilience Planning Assumption (NRPA) and the Resilience Capabilities Programme (RCP).

After each attack that occurs in the UK, an independent review is conducted afterwards, evaluating what was handled successfully, and how it could have been handled better. Each review provides new points to learn from, and aids the relevant forces in keeping everybody safe in the future.

Before the end of his lecture, Mark Scoular briefly gave our Sixth Form students some career advice, and answered some of their questions.
Mark’s first piece of advice was, when it comes to your future career, you should prove “what else you’ve got. Do something that someone else will not do.”

Examples of this included volunteering and completing Duke of Edinburgh’s Award courses, of which many of the students in the audience had experience of.
The next piece of advice Mark gave was that “your CV should be forward facing, not passive reflective.” It is important to show your ambition, what you would like to use your skills to achieve, and what you can offer an organisation.

Finally, Mark gave his most important piece of advice: “If you want something, go grab it with both hands, because you’ve got a really bright future ahead of you!”

Our Sixth Form students thoroughly enjoyed Mark Scoular’s talk, and were fully engaged throughout. Mark was able to deliver a sensitive topic in an effective way, and was able to communicate with our Sixth Form students directly and with a shared sense of respect.

We’d like to extend a big thank you to Mark Scoular for coming to speak to our Lower Sixth students, and hope to welcome him back to Queen Anne’s School in the future.