Joint letter to DfE on climate strategy in the curriculum

The NEU, NASUWT, NAHT, UCU, UNISON, GMB, and the NUS, alongside SOS-UK, The Edge and ThoughtBox, have today written to Secretary of State for Education, Nadhim Zahawi to share joint concerns that the curriculum needs to address and reflect the importance of sustainability and the effects of climate change. 

The proposed Department for Education strategy to sketch out the changes needed in our education system to reflect this importance is welcome, the signatories say. 

Yet there remain areas of concern where proposed changes do not go far enough, and other issues have been overlooked. The organisations say the language around resource and finance is vague, whilst certain key targets are far less ambitious than required, and climate education is confined to discrete subject areas rather than embedded holistically. Instead, they propose concrete and ambitious alternatives, including:  

• Embedding sustainability and environmental education throughout the whole curriculum.  
• Prompt action to tackle gender disparity within STEM subjects.  
• Establishing, and keeping to a target date of 2030 for the retrofitting of the school estate. 
• Development of a detailed policy on green travel for students, staff, and parents. 

These steps will better enable educators, children and young people to achieve the fundamental change necessary for future generations to thrive. 

Editor’s Note 

The full text of the letter follows below. 

The Rt Hon Nadhim Zahawi MP  

Secretary of State for Education  

Department for Education  

20 Great Smith Street  

London    

SW1P 3BT 

24 January 2022

 

Dear Mr Zahawi                                                                                                                                

Sustainability and Climate Change: A draft strategy for the education and children’s services systems 

As organisations who engage directly with children and young people, or whose members are tasked with helping to prepare those young people for the challenges they face in moving towards a more sustainable future, we welcome the opportunity to play our part in shaping the final DfE Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy.  Each of our organisations is submitting individual feedback but there are certain core principles which we all share and which we believe are so fundamental to the success of the strategy, that we are putting forward a collective position. 

We greatly appreciate the opportunity to engage with staff from the recently established DfE Sustainability Unit - and appreciate their knowledge and dedication - and will continue to contribute positively to meetings and prepare written feedback.  However, given the importance of this engagement, and to demonstrate that the Government will listen and act, we would, in addition to these engagement opportunities, urge you to establish a formal consultation process compliant with the HM Government’s Code of Practice on Consultation.  At COP 26 you gave a clear commitment to worker consultation.  We would, therefore, urge you to make good on this undertaking.  It is not too late to establish a formal consultation process with a deadline for responses in April 2022. 

We all agree that there are positives within the strategy to build upon – the Climate Leaders Award and National Nature Park are positive initiatives as is sustainability training for early careers teachers. 

Areas where we feel there needs to be much greater ambition are as follows: 

Embedding sustainability and environmental education throughout the whole curriculum 

The commitment to sustainability and the net zero transition requires deep change in every aspect of our lives, and world-leading education for sustainable livelihoods requires curriculum and pedagogical reform towards this end. To achieve “excellence”, it is not enough to “increase, support, training and resources for teachers” within the confines of “science, geography and citizenship subjects”. Children and young people need to be able to make meaningful connections between all the disciplines and then to apply them in context in order to solve sustainability problems. They need to be able to develop their leadership, collaboration and creativity skills in the process.   

Sustainability and environmental education must be embedded through the entire curriculum so that it is preparing and mobilising our society for a sustainable future. As a step on the road to this transformation we would urge that the Government supports Jim Knight’s private members’ Bill to make provision in the national curriculum for sustainable citizenship and protection of the environment. 

In addition, we feel it is essential that the strategy focuses on more than simply transferring knowledge. Whilst the content of the curriculum is important, the purpose of climate education must be to bring about change in our world and our behaviour. Young people should be empowered to act on what they learn. The curriculum must enable this, and recognise the capacity of young people to act, innovate, and bring about change. 

We welcome the fact that teachers will not be expected to present climate change denial as a valid viewpoint but have concerns that if the current emphasis in the draft strategy is maintained, staff will feel constrained in engaging with pupils about values and attitudes out of fear of being deemed to be ‘partisan’. We must rely on the professionalism of our teaching force and not allow them to become fearful about encouraging the widest and most transparent discussion. 

Green skills  

The sectors identified as ‘green’ lack imagination - the care sector and public sector are green sectors, in being carbon-neutral. If these are not recognised as such, it could have negative implications for incentivising young people to enter these sectors (leading to a capacity crisis) as well as minimising leverage to improve pay and conditions in these sectors as they continue to be undervalued. What’s more, all jobs must be sustainable - the narrow identification of green jobs does not acknowledge this. The focus on STEM should be balanced by recognising the equally valuable contribution made by the humanities, literacy and the arts, in order to lead, communicate and inspire others to action.

It is concerning that the delivery group in this area does not include unions. It is vital the ‘essential’ green sectors of the future have good working conditions to ensure retention of the workforce. Unions are core to just transition.

Finally, it is essential that gender and ethnic disparities are consciously addressed in recruitment and not left to inertia (which will lead to existing patterns replicating themselves). 97% of construction workers are men at the moment. There is no need for that to be the case for workers doing retrofitting, for example. There is no acknowledgement of the gender disparity in STEM subjects or how this might be addressed – the vague reference to ‘anyone, regardless of their background, has the opportunity to pursue a rewarding career in a STEM occupation’ does not indicate how this might be achieved. 

The need for a comprehensive plan to decarbonise the entire school estate by 2030, as part of an overdue refurbishment and repair programme 

The retrofitting of the existing education estate is a crucial element of the draft strategy. We need a target date for this to be completed and an investment commitment to make sure that it can happen. It is essential that the government commits to proper resourcing, including sufficient funding, for education providers to achieve this. We believe that the target date for achieving this should be fixed as 2030. 

Development of a detailed policy on green travel for students, staff, and parents 

There is only one mention in the draft strategy of delivering initiatives to increase active and safe travel to school such as Bikeability, Walk to School Outreach and School Streets, to improve wellbeing, reduce carbon emissions from the school commute and improve air quality.  

Yours sincerely