Dear Education Climate Coalition

Thank you for your correspondence of 4 April addressed to the 10 Downing Street Website with suggestions and proposals about global ecological and climate issues. related to teaching and raising awareness in UK schools.

I would like to explain that the role the Department for Education (DfE) plays in raising awareness regarding topics related to climate change and the environment in schools are already included within geography, science, and citizenship national curricula.

Curriculum
From birth to five years old, the early years foundation stage (EYFS) framework ensures that all children develop an understanding of the world and the natural environment. As they progress through primary and secondary school, children and young people continue to build on this knowledge through science, geography and citizenship programmes within the national curriculum. 

The strategy sets out support for teaching climate change – including Science CPD, a Primary Science Model Curriculum and free access to high quality teaching resources.

A Natural History GCSE will be introduced in 2025, an Environmental Science A level is already available. Existing GCSEs such as design and technology, food preparation and nutrition, and economics contain opportunities for students to be taught about the environmental and sustainability context of the processes and principles underlying these subjects. 

The National Education Nature Park will provide many educational opportunities for young people to take part in citizen science, in biodiversity monitoring and data analysis - to translate knowledge into positive action and learn important skills for the future.

Seeing sustainability brought to life in the buildings around them will allow children and young people to gain experiences which will enhance and contextualise their learning. 

Many further and higher education providers are already taking steps to embed the relevant teaching of sustainability and climate change across the full range of their courses. A new occupational standard for further education (FE) teaching explicitly requires all new teachers to integrate sustainability in their teaching, through modelling sustainability practices and promoting sustainable development principles in relation to their subject specialism.

Sustainability Leadership
A key initiative of DfE’s Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy is ‘Sustainability Leadership and Climate Action Plans’. The strategy states that “By 2025, all education settings will have nominated a sustainability lead and put in place a climate action plan”. This includes early years, schools, multi-academy trusts, colleges, and universities.

The end goal is for all settings across all sectors to have a sustainability lead and owned climate action plan, to include plans for curricular and extra-curricular activity, procurement, adaptation, and decarbonisation plans.  The plan will also include how a setting will engage with the National Education Nature Park and Climate Action Award.

Extensive stakeholder engagement has highlighted that settings and trusts have the greatest success in driving change where there is leadership with authority, knowledge and commitment and a holistic plan is in place. 

We want to help every setting engage with the support it needs. By December 2023 we will begin rolling out a free programme of support including: a digital hub of resources, best practice, and tools which will help you develop, or build on, your plan and access to a network of regional coordinators who will provide local expert support and peer to peer learning opportunities.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/sustainability-leadership-and-climate-action-plans-in-education - what-is-needed-if-you-have-already-started provides more detail on the initiatives and how settings can start their sustainability journeys ahead of the support coming later this year.

Green Skills & Careers
Through our education and skills system, we are seeking to inspire young people to choose career paths that support the transition to net zero, the restoration of biodiversity and a sustainable future. We are continuing to support adults to retrain and reskill in line with the needs of the green economy.

The government's Net Zero Strategy sets out in detail how our skills reforms will support more people into green jobs and help grow future talent pipelines.  This includes new T levels, apprenticeships, and the expansion of Skills Bootcamps.

The Green Jobs Delivery Group is the key vehicle for achieving our green skills agenda, including ensuring workers are supported with the transition to a green economy. Government and industry, working together, will develop and own a Net Zero and Nature Workforce Action Plan to be published in 2024 based on sector assessments to be carried out over the next 12 months.

We will support the further and higher education sectors as they deliver programmes teaching the skills of the future and nurturing future leaders. This includes working with the sector and delivery partners to convene the first international green skills conference, scheduled for 2023, to exhibit the best of UK green skills and opportunities at further and higher education levels. 

We will continually seek to improve diversity in the take-up of STEM subjects at all levels, ensuring that everyone can pursue a rewarding career in a STEM occupation.
 
Nature Park and Climate Action Award
The National Education Nature Park brings together all the land from across education settings into a vast virtual nature park. It enables children and young people to get involved in taking practical action to improve the biodiversity of their school grounds while learning about nature’s role in climate change.

The initiatives will provide educational opportunities for children and young people to take part in community science, in biodiversity monitoring, mapping and data analysis - learning important knowledge for the future, underpinned by a strong foundation in numeracy. They will help children and young people develop their connection to nature as well as supporting their mental and physical wellbeing by being outside.

 Within the Park’s online hub there will be a wealth of information and teaching resources to help education settings in delivering climate education, developing climate resilience, and driving decarbonisation.

The Climate Action Award scheme will build on existing awards and will formally recognise and celebrate the achievements of education settings in working to improve their local environment and developing the knowledge of their children and young people in bioscience, sustainability and digital and analytical skills.

The National Education Nature Park initiative was inspired by the Dasgupta Report - an independent, global review on the Economics of Biodiversity led by Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta highlighting the economic value of nature. The development of the National Education Nature Park initiative was led by the Dasgupta report, alongside psychology and sociology insights showing that connection is not developed simply through contact with the natural world, but through developing feelings, and gaining knowledge and insights, which lead to pro-environmental behaviours.

In addition to improving biodiversity across the country, and engaging young people in nature, digital mapping creates an innovative opportunity for young people to collect and share impactful biodiversity data which will help children and young people develop their skills in mapping, numeracy, and spatial awareness. The National Education Nature Park will help pupils and students to develop skills in data visualisation and analysis, encouraging analytical thinking and problem solving.

You may wish to contact the Department for the Environment and Rural Affairs regarding some of the wider issues you have raised related to the UK, and can do so via the following email link:
defra.helpline@defra.gov.uk

I would also like to explain that In the Schools White Paper, published March 2022, we committed not to make any changes to the National Curriculum for the remainder of this Parliament and to maintain our current system of world class GCSEs and A levels.

Regarding your request for collaboration with the department related to teaching and raising awareness about climate change in UK schools.  I am sure you will appreciate that the department receives many similar requests and unfortunately is unable to accommodate your organisation at the present time.
 
I hope you find this helpful and would like to thank you for writing on these important issues and that it clarifies the government’s current position in this matter.