This is the 5th 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.
Reading the ministerial statement [1] introducing the Francis Curriculum Review is a breath of fresh air, especially if we reflect on what has been on offer in recent years. It is open, it focuses on a range of learner needs, it engages challenging questions about the culture of schools, and it values teachers. It offers those of us, linked to the NAEE network, an opportunity to take stock of what has been achieved by many schools. The Review process will enable much dialogue and creativity if we take the offer up.
The Review offers the opportunity for fresh thinking about the role of teachers responding to learner needs in the context of global realities, including climate change. Tide’s experience shows that this can only be meaningful if it also values the creativity of teachers and their own learning.
Young people taking part in the youth climate strikes posed many challenges to education. There are posters from the those strikes that get me thinking. Take for example “Why get an education when nobody listens to the educated?” The recent political climate has fuelled division and tended to dismiss issues that are of concern to young people as ‘woke’. This made it more difficult for teachers because it undermined their professionalism. The more so when seen in the context of a curriculum system that has drifted to more and more central control.
The need to improve “children’s agency” is one of the core ideas emerging from the education community. Learners developing the ability to take more responsibility for their own learning, to make connections with different aspects of their learning and apply this to real life situations is also important to those of us concerned about improving responses to matters such as sustainable development. We therefore need to avoid advocating a quick fix that only improves curriculum content on, for example, climate change and does not engage with the wider debates – about the needs of learners – the role of teachers – and the nature of global realities.
Teachers have a role in helping equip students with skills, ideas, knowledge and dispositions for a future society that will be impacted by climate change and the complex local and global consequences of that change. To have a chance of doing that well all teachers deserve space – time and support – for their own learning. They too need agency and opportunities, individually and collectively, to develop the skills of agency over the curriculum. Can there be student agency without teacher agency?
Climate change is a dynamic and complex reality. It is a global issue, and most solutions also raise other questions, not least, about global justice and development priorities. This can impact our disposition to the future. Nevertheless, we need to avoid institutionalising the notion of certain doom about the future. This would not be help educationally, nor is it the only scenario.
Hannah Ritchie [2], is a good example of those seeking hopeful positive contexts for considering the issues. She explores how we could become the first generation to build a sustainable planet. An exciting and positive prospect that she cross-examines in detail without avoiding any of the issues.
Anxiety, and uncertainty – or a certainty of doom – often provides the lens though which these matters are seen. There is anecdotal evidence that providing learners with opportunities to engage with the issues can help reduce anxiety. This is an area that needs more work. But in the context of the debate I seek, it reminds us that curriculum needs to offer the development of skills to engage uncertainty – and avoid inventing new apparent certainty.
There are many things to welcome in the plan for the Francis Review. A style that values teachers and engages with the idea of change evolving are not superficial niceties. The many recent tributes to the late Sir Tim Brighouse [3] demonstrate the impact of a style that values teachers. It was core to the significant quality change that was achieved, for example, in Birmingham and through the London Challenge.
The slowness of UK political engagement with climate change issues has been frustrating – and confusing. But recent Tide~ work [4] found many good examples of imaginative school initiatives responding to climate change, despite the lack of supportive policy.
A key challenge that faces the Francis Review is the need to accelerate and encourage further school initiatives rather than defaulting to new ‘tick boxes’ and use of the central curriculum control model that in effect closes down such creativity. As an ET magazine article [5] put it …
“Just as in the natural world diversity helps to ensure the resilience of a habitat, so the educational eco-system could benefit from a multiplicity of approaches and interpretations.”
The Tide~ project exploring the educational implication of climate change stimulated many conversations – and advocated more. This is ‘Talk as Action’ – such conversations have the potential to influence positive change, to unlock our ideas, to see new opportunities appropriate to our own situation, and to engage a wider range of people in thinking things through. What can networks linked to NAEE offer to support such creativity – to help build an education ecosystem, rich with initiative?
Another poster from the youth climate strikes asked “The climate is changing – why aren’t we? Tide~ used this to focus on the ‘we’ of the education system. I propose that it is time for the third sector, NGOs, campaigning organisations and student movements to the ask the same question of ourselves. The process of the Frances Review offers us that opportunity.
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Scott Sinclair was Director of Tide~ global learning until 2010. More recently he is a Tide~ Trustee and co-editor, with Jeff Serf, of the Elephant Times magazine. Currently, the Elephant Times Association [ETA] is working on the legacy and reflecting on the work of Tide~ global learning. The educational charity Tide~ is in the process of closing. The aim is to make ideas and resources available through an active archive and partnership with other organisations. The ETA will also enable people to reflect on Tide~ experiences in the context of current education debates. He can be contacted at: scott.7cs.org@gmail.com
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- Ministerial Statement July 2024
- Hannah Ritchie ‘Not End of the World’; Vintage 2024
- See for example the ET article about Tim Brighouse’s involvement in The Educational Implications of Climate Change project.
- See Elephant Times 4.2 ‘Seeking Conversations – Education and Climate Crisis
- Stephen Scoffham & Steve Rawlinson in the ET magazine …