DfE climate strategy - new GCSE and plastics targeted

The Department for Education (DfE) have launched their sustainability and climate change strategy for the English education system. Proposals include the elimination of single-use plastics in schools, and the introduction of a new GCSE in natural history.

The new natural history qualification, which is to be available by September 2025, will enable young people to explore the world by learning about organisms and environments, environmental and sustainability issues, and gain a deeper knowledge of the natural world around them. It is also intended that those who study for the qualification will develop skills - such as observation, description, recording and analysis – through structured field study. These skills could help them to carve a future career in the natural world if they wish to.

The DfE is also pledging to eradicate single-use plastics by 2025, although the strategy doesn’t provide details on how this will be achieved. They also pledge to ‘encourage the use of reusable and recyclable materials in schools’. Alongside this there is an aim for all schools to be reporting their emissions by 2024. Ahead of this requirement the DfE will work with Energy Sparks to trial the delivery of energy management systems, such as smart meters, in schools.

Other measures in the strategy include the rollout of carbon literacy training to support at least one ‘sustainability lead’ in every locally maintained nursery, school, college and university, and a requirement by 2023 for further education teachers to build sustainability into their teaching. An annual climate literacy survey will be introduced from this year to ‘benchmark progress in improving the climate knowledge of school leavers’.

A draft version of the strategy was published in November 2021 for the COP26 summit in Glasgow, however not all proposals from that draft made it in to the final document. For example, the draft strategy proposed that the DfE would require suppliers bidding for contracts of £5million or more to commit to achieving ‘Net Zero’ emissions by 2050, as well as produce a ‘carbon reduction plan’ showing how they would meet the target. However, this requirement doesn’t appear in the final document.

Commenting on the strategy’s publication, education secretary Nadhim Zahawi said: ‘It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that young people are already very committed to a more sustainable planet. We should be proud of this, and I want to do everything I can to encourage this passion so they can be agents of change in protecting our planet. The new natural history GCSE will offer young people a chance to develop a deeper knowledge and understanding of this amazing planet, its environment and how we can come together to conserve it.’

Speaking about the new natural history GCSE Julie McCulloch, director of policy at the Association of School and College Leaders, commented: ‘We feel sure that the new natural history GCSE will prove popular when it becomes an option for students in 2025 and provide an educational focal point for the significant interest in the environment that many young people already have. This new GCSE, alongside the launch of the government’s climate change and sustainability strategy, will hopefully become the building blocks towards a suite of environmentally-based courses and qualifications available to young people in the future at both GCSE and A-level.’

The DfE will publish annual progress reports against the strategy, which covers the period up to 2030. The full strategy can be read here: https://tinyurl.com/2p8mdd37 

 

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