Sustainability Curriculum

SEEd's Sustainability Curriculum is a new initiative to create a sustainability curriculum, to help schools develop their 'local school curriculum'. The National Curriculum is being slimmed down to represent a body of essential knowledge in key subjects.  To complement the National Curriculum, all schools will be expected to develop their own school curriculum which comprises all learning and other experiences that each school must provide for its pupils.  Although each school will be free to develop their own resources, research increasingly shows that schools using sustainability principles help their pupils to develop positive attitudes to their futures, enjoy learning which means they are more likely to be better behaved, are more engaged in class and attain better results.

The DfE’s recent White Paper clearly states that it is teachers, not Ministers and civil servants, who know best how to teach, and that we must give our teachers more time and space to create lessons that engage their pupils and enable them to fulfil their potential.  The school curriculum will aim to develop knowledge, understanding, skills and attitudes necessary for each pupil's self-fulfilment and development as an active and responsible citizen.

As a collaborative project for the next 18 month subject associations, teaching unions, student unions, teachers, heads, NGOs, teacher trainers, universities, examining bodies will all work together to develop a sustainability curriculum for our students futures.

Who's doing it?

The project will be led by Ann Finlayson, SEEd CEO. Those already interested in participating are the Geographical Association, Climate Change Schools Project (CCSP) in NE  England, London Sustainable Schools Forum (LSSF), Severn Wye Energy Agency, and quite a few schools. A couple have already offered their schools for curriculum gathering and learning events. The Department for Education are interested in seeing how the project develops as an example of how schools can be supported to develop their own school curriculum, sharing resources and best practice with each other and drawing from wider expert knowledge. 

This will also be a collaborative project for us all! It will help teachers stay informed or get started, link action projects to real achievement that can be tracked, ensure that all students can get an understanding and skill set around sustainability (not just the eco-club members). Teachers and organisations that support teachers have been working on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) since the early 1990's.

There is a wealth of experience, good ideas and good practice out there. This is the best time for the last 3 decades to bring this work together, share and develop more.

When?

The project will start this September, and run to September 2013. We have 2 years to gather good practice and thinking, challenge ourselves and deliver a really useful curriculum for teachers both experienced in sustainability and new to it. Then we will roll it out with training around the UK.

Where?

As a national project, and to keep carbon footprint down, we will be coming to you, online and regionally. Teachers and organisations are already signing up and expressing their interest. We will take the consultations and data-gathering workshops around the country in 2012, as well as create an online forum to share, discuss and create together. SEEd has, and is, the leading ESD online provider of online courses, conferences and consultations.

Why get involved?

Schools strongly value preparing young people for a sustainable future and say they need help embedding sustainability in their schools. The outputs from this project will help primary schools develop a creative, integrated curriculum.

Secondary schools will get motivating, real learning examples to weave into their subject curricula. - not just science or geography. 

As a school, you can join in by joining SEEd for free. However, to get us going and to show how we all want to invest in this project, we are asking everyone - teacher, student, parent, educator or organisation - to donate £25 to kick us off. SEEd is donating £5000. Your money will help us raise more and get started: it is an investment. When you want to attend the training sessions from April 2013 onwards you will be able to deduct that £25 donation from the cost of attending those sessions.