Click here to read the letter that GAP has sent to Brigid Phillipson about the Curriculum and Assessment review that was recently launched.
It begins:
“Many congratulations on the General Election result and on your appointment as Secretary of State for Education. We wish you well in your role and are keen to work with you and your team to bring about the changes in the education system that are so urgently needed.
At Global Action Plan, we strongly welcome your commitment to commission an expert-led curriculum and assessment review. We fully agree with the need for this review and support your recently stated intention to move quickly on this.
As an environmental charity, actively working with a community of more than 7,000 education system stakeholders, we are keen to engage with the review and urge you to ensure the climate and nature crisis is a core part of the commissioning and review process. England needs an education system that is resilient in the face of the climate and nature crisis, and set up to play its part in addressing it.
Today, despite significant efforts – including by Global Action Plan – to engage schools and young people, sustainability education and action remain at the margins of the system. More often than not, these opportunities are only open (if at all) to a privileged few, and often absent entirely from schools in deprived areas. It is crucial for all young people in the English education system to have the opportunity to develop a strong understanding of climate and sustainability issues and the ability to take action for good of people and the planet.
We stand ready to support the curriculum and assessment review by engaging our growing community of educators, providing input and insight as a pioneer of values-led sustainability education, and as a critical friend of the existing English system and the Department for Education’s Sustainability and Climate Change strategy. In particular, we would be keen to understand, as soon as possible, how and when the experts who will lead the review will be selected, and whether experts in Earth systems science and sustainability education will be invited to join any associated advisory groups?
In a recent interview, Professor Graham Donaldson, who was commissioned by the Welsh Government to undertake a curriculum and assessment review in 2014, revealed that he was asked to undertake – in his own words – ‘a radical review. It wasn’t a kind of tinkering review. The agreement with ministers was that it would be as radical as it needed to be based on what I found.’
The 67 recommendations made in Donaldson’s final ‘Successful Futures’ report reflected this mandate and have been a springboard to the era-defining education system change that children in Wales are now benefiting from. This transformation, leading to the Curriculum for Wales, has been strengthened by the appointment of the first of its kind Future Generations Commissioner and Wales’ Wellbeing of Future Generations Act (2015).
… .”
Given the terms of reference of the English, a radical re-think does not seem to be what Phillipson wants.