Back to school
Speakers at a recent Westminster Education Forum conference discussed how England’s education system can prepare young people for a rapidly changing world
For years, climate change and sustainability education has lacked firm footing in England’s school system. While there is broad consensus that the issue matters, until now, whether it is actually taught has depended more on the interest and enthusiasm of individual teachers than on any statutory requirement.
Now, that may finally be starting to shift. Against the backdrop of the UK Government’s Curriculum and Assessment Review, a recent Westminster Education Forum conference examined the next steps for climate change and sustainability education in England. The event gathered education leaders, subject bodies, industry and environmental organisations to discuss what a more joined-up approach might look like.
The curriculum review specifically identified climate change and sustainability as needing stronger and more coherent coverage. Revised programmes of study are expected to roll out from 2028. Speakers agreed that climate change and sustainability should be interwoven throughout the curriculum, and described the review as a rare window for meaningful reform – particularly in primary education, where there is currently no statutory requirement to teach climate change.
Wendy Litherland, Director of Sustainability at St Christopher’s CE High School, Lancashire, summed up the mood. 'The question before us now is not whether sustainability belongs in education, but whether our structures, our curriculum design and our measures of success are actually aligned well enough to make that policy intent real for every child in every school.'
'There’s a real opportunity to make real improvement to teaching and learning, and we must not lose that opportunity,' echoed Lauren McLeod, Head of Education Policy at the Royal Society of Biology. She warned that another major review might not come around for 10-to-15 years.
Golden thread
While Geography and Science classes may seem the obvious home for climate education, speakers argued that although these subjects would remain foundational, sustainability should become a ‘golden thread’ running through the wider curriculum and school culture.
Dr Rebecca Kitchen, Head of Professional Development at the Geographical Association, warned that otherwise climate change risks becoming the 'incidental final chapter in a much longer story' within Geography, 'and it also means that story can be quite depressing'. At Key Stage 3, pupils are typically taught 'how the climate has changed from the Quaternary Period, 2.6 million years ago, to the present day…and then we just finish that particular topic and move on.
'With the new curriculum, there absolutely needs to be a focus on geographies of hope,' she enthused. 'Yes, we do need to discuss causes and impacts, but we also need to focus on ways in which humans can adapt to and mitigate against climate change.'
Professor Sylvia Knight, Head of Education at the Royal Meteorological Society, highlighted the cross-sector 10-point plan on Delivering High Quality Climate Change, Nature and Sustainability Education for All. This sets out priority areas for improving climate education following the curriclum review, and calls for schools to apply a 'climate lens to every subject'.
Rather than teaching climate change as a standalone topic revisited in fragmented ways, she and others argue for progressive sequencing across subjects and key stages.
The proposed reforms would weave sustainability through different subjects and year groups, letting pupils build on ideas over time rather than meeting them in one-off lessons. For instance, pupils might explore sustainability and ethics in citizenship classes, sustainable materials and product design in Design and Technology, and green jobs and low-carbon industries when weighing up vocational courses and career pathways.
Ruth Carter, Stakeholder Relationships Manager at Cambridge OCR, outlined the qualification awarding body’s work on climate, nature and sustainability, including a soon-to-be-launched Natural History GCSE. This follows a new Level 3 Certificate in Sustainability launched in September 2025, the content of which 'allows students to explore the fundamental aspects of sustainability and encourages them to see positive ways of mitigating some of the pressing sustainability challenges faced by governments, organisations and individuals'.
Qualifications, she argued, must keep evolving alongside wider societal and economic change, helping to signal the knowledge and skills that society increasingly values.
Skills for a changing economy
For many speakers, this was about more than environmental awareness, it was about equipping young people for life and work in a rapidly changing economy. 'There’s going to be huge demand for skilled workers as part of the climate change transition,' McLeod reminded delegates.
Dr Tanya Lawes, Head of Routes & Funding at Skills England, argued that sustainability should be embedded throughout technical learning rather than treated as a specialist subject.
Skills England, which owns the occupational standards underpinning apprenticeships and technical qualifications, has threaded sustainability through every standard and flags opportunities via a ‘green badging’ system on its career route maps.
Lawes pointed to clean energy as a good example of how sustainability is integrated with engineering, construction and project management. 'There aren’t that many occupations where [sustainability] is their sole focus.'
She reflected on conversations with students at Manchester Metropolitan University and noted that many wanted to contribute to environmental solutions, but struggled to see how their skills fitted in. 'There will still be opportunities to find jobs, whether the job has ‘environment’ in its title or it doesn’t,' she said. 'When you enter a workforce, [there is always an opportunity] for you to influence how that works.'
Professor Julia Myatt, Academic Director of Sustainability Education and Professor of Collaborative Education at the University of Birmingham, UK, argued that sustainability should no longer be seen as 'an optional add-on' but as essential preparation for the future. At Birmingham, rather than confining it to environmental courses, the topic has been built into thousands of modules across disciplines and made a core graduate attribute. 'It’s a core element of preparing all of our learners, regardless of what degree programme they’re on, for the future world of work,' she said, adding that many of tomorrow’s roles do not yet exist and that learners will help shape them.
She also pointed to a problem running through the whole pipeline – a lack of shared language. 'What do we mean by a green skill? Can anyone actually define one?' she asked.
For some, it means systems thinking and interdisciplinary working. For others, it is about the technical knowledge to install a heat pump. 'If employers and educators aren’t talking the same language, we’ve got a real challenge there.' She warned that without clear coherence between schools, further education, higher education and employers, fragmentation between each phase 'will just hold us back'.
That employer perspective was reinforced by Andrea Debbane, Chief Sustainability Officer at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR). She warned that the current education and training system is not keeping pace with industry demand. Citing Skills England data, she said advanced manufacturing is described in The UK’s Modern Industrial Strategy as 'the backbone of our economy', but already faces around 49,000 vacancies, 'and that gap will only widen as we move faster toward net-zero, electrification and sustainable manufacturing.
'Sustainability skills must be foundational, not niche,' Debbane argued. Like others, she called for climate and sustainability literacy to be embedded across all subjects and modules, 'so that young people can apply a sustainability lens automatically, whatever role they go into'.
'Employers have a critical role to play,' she added, describing how JLR helped develop the new Level 3 Certificate in Sustainability with Cambridge OCR, and embeds live sustainability challenges into university courses and PhD research with its engineering teams.
'And…we’re piloting T-level industry placements, offering 45-day placements across areas like prototype engineering, bodyshaping and instrumentation, exactly where Level 3 demand is strongest.' JLR also runs apprenticeship programmes from Level 3 to Level 7 across engineering, manufacturing, digital, finance and supply chains, with sustainability threaded through – 'from circular supply chains to environmental reporting'.
However, apprenticeships alone cannot close the gap, she said, backing reform for a growth and skills levy to allow shorter, targeted upskilling. 'A low-carbon transition must also be a high-skill transition and that requires a coherent, employer-connected education system.'
That picture was echoed by Chelsie Naylor, Sustainability Lead at Bradford College, which delivers largely vocational and apprenticeship routes. Much of its work involves upskilling the existing workforce, offering heat-pump qualifications for working engineers or solar training for qualified electricians. The college now makes a sustainability qualification standard for all Level 2 construction learners.
However, a stubborn gap remains. Drawing on research from the Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges, Naylor noted that while sustainability had become mainstream over the past decade, there was 'a widening gap between ambition and delivery', with employers reporting shortages of technical skills such as retrofit installers and heat-pump engineers.
'Our net-zero targets [depend] on the skilled workforce,' she said, 'but we know that currently there’s a real risk of these skills shortages slowing down climate action.' She argued that we should treat ‘green careers’ as standard rather than separate, and align provision with regional job demand.
Naylor’s point was picked up by Councillor Robert Webb, Executive Member for Children, Young People and Education on the City of York Council and a secondary school science teacher. Too often, he argued, pupils learn the science without connecting it to the industries on their doorstep. He told delegates how he had recently taught a class about wind turbines 'in a very abstract way', with the aim of linking it to the offshore developments in the nearby Humber estuary.
Webb explained that with traditional local employers long gone, the task is to rebuild that connection through emerging sectors. He pointed to bioscience, agritech and sustainable farming in North Yorkshire, and using the combined authorities’ convening power to map the jobs and skills a region actually needs. Crucially, he added, young people need to know these pathways exist early, while their subject choices are still open. 'We absolutely have to be making sure that they know about them when they’re 12, 13, 14, so that it gives them hope for the future.'
Leading the charge
While the speakers agreed on the end goal, they were clear that getting there would be the hard part. Matija Tomanovic, National Campaigns Manager for Curriculum and Assessment at the National Education Union, welcomed the review’s recognition that young people need 'a stronger understanding of climate science, sustainability and the green economy', but warned that curriculum reform alone would not deliver the change required. 'Implementation is going to be just as important as what’s in the programmes of study,' he said. He suggested that accountability structures heavily based on statutory assessment and league tables can discourage schools from broader or more innovative approaches. 'If those things don’t change, it’s difficult to see how the curriculum can change.'
Teacher confidence, workload and access to professional development surfaced repeatedly as barriers. Knight noted that, despite many organisations already offering climate CPD, provision remains fragmented and uneven. 'We need teachers to have the incentive and maybe even the mandate to upskill,' she said.
Good teaching, several speakers stressed, depends on more than accurate facts. Kitchen noted that climate change remains a politically and ethically contested topic despite scientific consensus on its causes. 'Climate change is also a controversial issue,' she said. 'Teachers absolutely need support with subject knowledge, but also pedagogy to deal with this controversial issue. Just because something is now in the national curriculum and must be taught, doesn’t mean that it is automatically taught well.'
Schools are not the only place young people encounter climate information. McLeod cited surveys showing that around 69% of 16-to-24-year-olds get climate information from social media. Students need 'solid skills to review information from a range of sources', she said, and to spot 'misinformation or common misconceptions'.
Many teachers, speakers noted, worry about heightening children’s anxiety through climate education, or they themselves lack confidence in balancing urgency with optimism in the classroom. That, Knight argued, is why 'solutions-focused education' matters.
The Royal Society of Biology deliberately avoids focusing 'entirely on the negatives and challenges of climate change', McLeod supported. 'We’re aware of the impact of climate anxiety on young people, and we feel that shouldn’t be compounded in the classroom.'
Likewise, Kitchen argued that Geography must move from 'doom and gloom' towards constructive engagement with adaptation and mitigation. David Drake, Director for People and Nature at Natural England, linked that mindset to future skills, noting that repeated experiences in nature can shape long-term environmental decision-making and even career choices, giving children 'a strong foundation for navigating through these challenges'.
Litherland framed sustainability education less as a set of rules than as preparation for engaged, responsible citizenship. 'Values cannot be taught and tested in a conventional way,' she argued. 'They can only be modelled, practised and lived.'
Living laboratories
Several speakers agreed that sustainability education is most powerful when pupils experience it first-hand. Drake suggested nature-based learning offers a more practical and empowering way into climate issues. 'We know that climate change can feel intimidating,' he acknowledged. 'Nature gives us a great way to think about climate change, as part of a practical solution and a way forward.'
He pointed to research linking outdoor learning with improved attendance, engagement, emotional resilience and cognitive development, and to schools tackling climate adaptation directly. In one example, students helped design and plant green infrastructure to cool an overheating building as part of a Physics lesson. 'They identified a classroom that overheated in summer, then helped plan, build and plant large raised beds and vertical planters,' he explained. 'The students used a thermal camera, which showed a 10°C difference in the surface temperature of the cladding of the building between the areas that had the planting and the areas that didn’t.'
Dr Jessica Tipton, Head of the National Education Nature Park at the Natural History Museum, described the park as one model for involving young people in environmental action. As part of the nationwide programme, schools and colleges collect biodiversity and habitat data from their own sites and improve green spaces. This gives pupils experience of evidence-based decision-making, while building a national picture of biodiversity across schools, colleges and other education environments.
Michelle Williams, Geography and Climate Education Lead at St Peter’s Primary School, Harrogate, described building a programme that combines curriculum content with wider school culture. The school developed a climate action plan, set up a pupil ‘climate crew’ and embedded sustainability across daily life, including a ‘green team’ for children with special educational needs who benefit from time in nature. 'Climate education really has become something that we just do as part of our daily life at school,' she said.
Rachel Tomlinson, Headteacher of Barrowford Primary School, Lancashire, outlined a project-based curriculum built around the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, children’s rights and real-world challenges, with pupil-led initiatives. 'Our children know that they can themselves create change – for themselves, their families, their class, their school, their community.'
Taking action
For all the challenges, there was a sense that climate and sustainability education is becoming more firmly embedded in national policy. Closing the conference, Juanita Shepherd, Strategic Policy Lead for Nature at the Department for Education (DfE) and a former Geography teacher, called it 'an incredibly exciting time to be working in this policy area', while acknowledging the responsibility now resting with government.
'I realise how much trust people are putting in us to use our policy levers and help put in place those changes that you are calling out for,' she said. She pointed to the DfE’s Sustainability Support Programme, which helps schools, colleges and nurseries plan and deliver climate action, and argued that lasting progress depends on these efforts becoming embedded across the system.
That optimism was tempered by the scale of what remains unresolved – curriculum reform, teacher development, funding, accountability and resource quality. But, as Litherland put it, the question is no longer whether sustainability belongs in education, but how it is delivered. 'Ultimately, sustainability education is not just about environmental outcomes,' she said. 'It’s about relevance, coherence and trust.'
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