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We are excited to launch our new Teach the Future England campaign asks 2023, which we have updated to include our Climate Education Bill and to reflect the publication of the Department for Education’s sustainability and climate change strategy. We want politicians to back these with meaningful actions and for the Government to put them into policy.
The final version of the DfE’s Sustainability and Climate Change strategy, whilst having some good ideas, has very few measurable targets and commitments. We’re asking the Department for Education to review their strategy to include more funding and targets with clear deadlines, which would help ensure that good intentions of the strategy are actually felt by students and teachers on the ground.
Our Climate Education Bill, with cross-party support, is currently making its way through parliament. If passed, it would remove the siloed nature of climate education, which is currently included in science and optional geography, and instead embed climate change and sustainability throughout the curriculum. For more information about what it would mean for the education system in England and Wales, read our MP Briefing.
70% of teachers feel they haven’t received adequate training to educate students about climate change. We’re asking for learning about the climate and ecological emergency to be a substantive and compulsory part of all teaching education courses, from primary upwards, for both new teachers and existing teachers through continued professional development.
Schools should be practical teaching and learning resources of how the built environment needs to be adapted to respond to the climate crisis and ecological emergency. Most of the c33,000 schools in England remain on the timeline to be retrofitted to net zero by the legislated date of 2050, rather than the 2030 that we have been calling for. We’re asking for the Treasury to commit £14.5bn, over the parliaments between now and 2030, for the retrofitting of all English schools to net zero before 2030.
You can help us to continue to make great strides towards repurposing the entire education system around the climate emergency and ecological crisis by: