This is the 9th in our series of posts about the review of the national curriculum – the Francis Review. Previous posts can be found here. As ever with NAEE blogs, the views expressed are not necessarily those of the Association.
The backdrop to the curriculum and assessment review that is now underway is the (somewhat foreboding) feeling that we are in a time between worlds and on the cusp, therefore, of a new form of civilisation that will eventually supplant western civilisation (which – when you pause to reflect on what the powerful leaders of western civilisation have done to the world – is maybe not all that civil after all).
The next civilisation, or civilisations, that emerge will either be birthed out of a new education era (that we may already be on the cusp of), or give birth to a new one. Given that it can be argued that education is the metacrisis, my hope is that education turns itself around in the shortening time we have ‘between worlds’ so that it helps to shape the successor civilisations that are to come.
It is my hope that, following the Francis review, the next iteration of the national curriculum will provide a (not the) stepping stone to a new education era in England, and that the new era, when it comes, will itself be a stepping stone, this time to the successor civilisations that are coming into view.
We don’t have much time, but I do believe a new era of education can emerge before western civilisation collapses, not to save it, but to help usher in something better and to prevent something much worse from emerging (e.g. something horribly authoritarian, the ‘climate behemoth’ future Mann and Wainwright warn of).
As Bill Scott helpfully reminded us when launching this series, the Francis review is focused on the national curriculum, it isn’t a review of the education system as a whole. We must be careful not to attach too much hope (or despair) to it. It is clear, however, that the system as whole is being reviewed by Phillipson and her team, and despite the ‘evolution not revolution’ rhetoric on the curriculum and assessment review, she has stated clearly elsewhere that she wants the education system to transform. Phillipson told the Guardian in July 2024 that she wants the Labour government to “deliver the biggest transformation in education that we have seen for a generation”.
I, and many others I suspect, would like it to transform too; it is not a benign force; it is the metacrisis. The bigger question here though, is how does that transformation happen? From within, or without? Who is in control? By the sounds of the above quote, and this Government’s technocratic and centralising instincts, Phillipson wants to be in control. However, education system transformation done from the top down does not always go well, or end well.
What if the Government had a decentralising, rather than centralising instinct? What could we (the people) transform the education system into being? Well, for one thing, we might want it to be decentralised, we might also want it to have a national, local, and hyper-local curriculum to hand more power to communities, teachers, and learners.
But, in answering that question, we cannot just talk about the destination. Transformation of complex systems develops in stages, what happens one year from now, shapes what’s possible five, ten, and even twenty years from now. This is why the Francis review is important. Its recommendations will play a big role in shaping the next iteration of the national curriculum and its associated assessment procedures. That iteration will be a stepping stone to somewhere, the question is where? Will it take us closer to the education system that we environmental educators might be longing for, or will it set us off on a different path entirely? Hard to say, but it is ‘evolution not revolution’, which is why it is so vital that we engage with the Francis review but remain realistic.
We can’t jump from where we are now to the education system we need in one giant leap, we’ll fall in the river. Our aim must be the creation of that stepping stone and to secure the wraparound support schools will need to even make it to the stepping stone. This is what we can hopefully help Francis and Phillipson (with possibly a bit of help from Ed Miliband) to do through the reforms they usher in over the next couple of years.
So, we must understand the Francis review as part of a medium-term transformative process not the transformative process. We must also, I think, elbow our way in to decentralise the process as far as we possibly can. To quote a phrase, we need to take back control of our education system, or at least take back a healthy amount. This means responding – with gusto – to the freshly issued call for evidence, attending the roadshow events, writing letters, requesting meetings, and being polite – but persistent – in makings calls and asks. GAP is here to help, as are SOS-UK and others, we’re coordinating our efforts as much as we feasibly can, we want to ensure that the case for climate / environmental / sustainability education is heard loud and clear.
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Dr. Morgan Phillips is Director of Education and Youth Engagement at Global Action Plan. He is an education committee member at Black Mountains College, advisor to the UCL Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education, a school governor, and a former head of Eco-Schools England. Morgan also served for two terms as a trustee of NAEE UK and is the author of ‘Great Adaptations – in the shadow of a climate crisis’ and numerous book chapters and articles on sustainability education. He can be contacted at morgan.phillips@globalactionplan.org.uk