This is the second in our series of posts about the review of the national curriculum – the Francis Review. The first post can be found here. As ever with NAEE blogs, the views expressed are not necessarily those of the Association. In what follows, the authors argue that although what and how we teach are important, the Francis Review must start with ‘why’.
Blow the trumpets, roll out the bunting: we are delighted that the new Secretary of State for Education, the Rt Hon. Bridget Phillipson MP, just one month into office, has prioritised a much-needed curriculum and assessment review [i].
The review’s aims, in a nutshell, are to identify ways to refresh the curriculum to ensure it meets the needs of children and young people and to support their future life and work.
But as the review chair, Prof. Becky Francis, forms her panel and sets it to work, we implore her to open deliberations by asking ‘why?’
- Why are we educating young people today?
- Why should young people attend school if their education is serving them poorly in the present, as is suggested by patchy attendance and high levels of anxiety?
- Why should young people attend school if their education will also serve them poorly in the future, because it fails to help them tackle real-world challenges, locally and further a-field, namely climate change, biodiversity loss, air pollution, and ecosystem degradation?
- Why are we persisting with qualifications systems, accountability measures and building aspirations for future workplaces when the planet that young people will inhabit is on course to be irreversibly damaged?
- And why, given the breadth of alarming evidence, are we persisting with systems of education which largely ignore that climate change, biodiversity loss, air pollution and ecosystem degradation are already here? [ii]
These challenges aren’t easy to tackle, but they should not be ignored. Denial is not an option [iii].
We’ve said the following before [iv], and it still rings true:
National policy needs to recognise the numerous perspectives and responses required to answer climate change and biodiversity degradation…To signal a shift in values towards a pro-environmental vision, a responsive national curriculum needs to be written to incorporate language concerning notions of care for the environment, for other species, for fairness and for empathy.
Envisaging the type of future we want is vital when reflecting on the purpose of education, and the systems necessary to support it. Simultaneously, and following Biesta [v], it is also essential to maintain ‘a view of the present’: education needs to consider what students will do now with everything that they have learnt.
Thus, we advocate wholeheartedly for an education system that enables humans and more-than-humans to thrive, not just survive [vi]. One pragmatic way to achieve this, whilst also meeting the current government’s ambition to support more young people to ‘get on’ [vii] via growing the economy, could be to establish a Green Economy as a temporary bridge. [viii] The potential economic and social value of the Green Economy, based on developing technical solutions to environmental issues, is clear. However, as we and others have asserted, it is controversial and should be dealt with as such: as a transitory route to traverse the different visions. [ix] [x]
A pro-environmental adjustment within the review which adds ‘green’ to ideas of economy, ‘green’ to notions of careers, and ‘green’ to visions of the future, requires deep thinking about the systems which support and constrain us today, about the life and work that students are preparing for and, crucially, about the world in which this will take place. As a device, adding ‘green’, will help to adjust thinking, wrenching it awkwardly into new territory at first but, over time, enable it to flow more naturally.
In practical terms, this focus on ‘green’ would allow care – for the environment, for other species, for other people – to shift from the shadows and stimulate its integration across the curriculum and the school community. Ultimately, this tweak to our thinking and educational approaches could cultivate a readiness to engage with the more radical reforms that are necessary for a transformative education. [xi]
Advancing a renewed culture of ‘why’ to the agenda would also open the review to swathes of existing expertise, encouraging educators and researchers who have rich and important interconnecting ideas to step out of the shadows too. It would mobilise ideas from fields of democratic education, environmental education, global citizenship, dark pedagogies, place-based education, spiritual education, indigenous education, to name just a few. It could also build on the excellent efforts developed elsewhere including the NAEE’s 2022 Manifesto [xii] and Governors’ [xiii] framework.
But if our plea for the ‘why’ falls on deaf ears, perhaps it will be heard more clearly if the words are those of a practising teacher. Below, we offer the Francis Review the thoughts of Tom Gatens, a secondary mathematics teacher. We very much hope that they will listen.
I adore my job and struggle to think of something else that I would rather wake up at 6.15 for. But I do wonder if I still truly believe in the message I am asked to convey. I preach the beauty and sophistication of mathematics to all who will listen, but nagging in the back of my mind are all the lessons I am not teaching… As teachers, we should be ensuring that every lesson and learning opportunity offers the chance to connect with nature and the world around us. I think this could be done without too much stretch in the national curriculum if we encourage students to feel part of a worldwide system and show them they have the power to make a difference. If students feel empowered and emboldened by small actions taken on a daily basis, their inclination to take green actions will surely increase. [xiv]
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Kate Greer, Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education, University College London
Melissa Glackin, Reader in Science & Environmental Education in the School of Education, Communication & Society, King’s College London
Heather King, Professor in Science Education, in the School of Education, Communication & Society, King’s College London
Email responses to melissa.glackin@kcl.ac.uk
[i] Department for Education (DfE) (2024, July 19). Government launches curriculum and assessment review. DfE. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-launches-curriculum-and-assessment-review
[ii] IPCC. (2018). Global warming of 1.5°C. An IPCC Special Report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty. Geneva, Switzerland: World Meteorological Organization.
[iii] Glackin, M. (2022). ‘Denial is not a policy’: Our national curriculum must respond to the call for action. Research Intelligence, (150), 34-35. Article 150.
[iv] Glackin, M., & King, H. (2020). Take Stock of Environmental Education in England – the what, the where and the why. Environmental Education Research, 26(3), 305-323. doi:10.1080/13504622.2019.1707513
[v] Biesta, G. (2021). World-centred education: A view for the present: Routledge.
[vi] Raworth, K. (2017). Doughnut Economics. USA: Chelsea Green Publishing
[vii] Department for Education (DfE) (2024, July 19). Government launches curriculum and assessment review. DfE. https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-launches-curriculum-and-assessment-review
[viii] Glackin, M., & King, H. (2020). Take Stock of Environmental Education in England – the what, the where and the why. Environmental Education Research, 26(3), 305-323. doi:10.1080/13504622.2019.1707513
[ix] Huckle, J. (2010). ESD and the current crisis of capitalism: Teaching beyond green new deals. Journal of Education for Sustainable Development, 4(1), 135-142.
[x] Glackin, M., & King, H. (2020). Take Stock of Environmental Education in England – the what, the where and the why. Environmental Education Research, 26(3), 305-323. doi:10.1080/13504622.2019.1707513
[xi] Glackin, M.& Greer, K. (Under review). Bringing to life the qualities of a meaningful transformative. Australian Journal of Environmental Education.
[xii] National Association of Environmental Education (NAEE). (2022). Young People’s Learning and the Environment: a Manifesto. https://naee.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/NAEE_MANIFESTO_2022.pdf
[xiii] National Association of Environmental Education (NAEE). (2020). Developing Sustainability: Helping school governors influence whole school approaches https://naee.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/NAEE_GOVERNORS_PUBLICATION.pdf
[xiv] Gatens, T. (2024) Educating the heart and hand. In M. Glackin, S. Hine, & S. Perry (Eds.) Heartwood 2. More voices from environmental education: Academic research meets head, heart and hands. https://www.kcl.ac.uk/ecs/assets/kcl-heartwood-2-high-res-singles.pdf