Teach Secondary Issue 14.2

Reality check Elena Lengthorn explains why an informed awareness of the realities concerning climate change can, and should become a core component of every teacher’s practice A s a teacher educator, I want to ensure that we give our secondary teachers a grounding in the challenges that today’s children will face from growing up in a declared climate emergency. The campaign group Teach the Future has produced a set of 10 guiding principles that could inform a newNational Curriculum (see tiny.cc/ ts142-S1). These include drawing links between the ecological crisis and social injustice; recognition that the concept of ‘sustainability’ can be interpreted differently within the various subjects students study; and encouraging the development of creative and critical thinking skills, as well as a preparedness to confront uncertain futures. Adeeper dive In the meantime, we at the University ofWorcester and others, including Dr Paul Vare from the University of Gloucester, and Dr Elsa Lee fromHomerton College, University of Cambridge, are exploring ways of embedding those principles into teaching practice more widely via avenues already available to us, without having to wait for major curriculum reforms. We introduce sustainability on day 2 of our PGCE course, showing our trainees ways of being sustainable themselves while learning with us and after they’ve graduated – from keeping reusable cups to hand for their teas and coffees, through to making shared ABOUT THE AUTHOR Elena Lengthorn is a senior lecturer in teacher education and lead for the PGCE secondary geography course at the University of Worcester travel and parking arrangements and using public transport. In January, after the trainees have completed their first placement and got a general idea of what’s happening in their schools, we’re then able to dedicate time and space for the whole cohort – not just the geography trainees I teach – to engage with a deeper, more extensive dive into what climate education involves. Climate-anxious teachers This year, we invited a group of pupils from one of our local partnership schools, The Chase, who had been trained in the ‘Teach the Teacher’ course run by the charity Students Organising for Sustainability (SOS-UK). This equips pupils with the skills and knowledge needed to deliver a one-hour lesson on climate change to an audience of teachers, explaining what it’s like to be a young person confronting the climate crisis, and emphasising the need for climate education. The school’s formidable sustainability leader, Sarah Dukes, accompanied the pupils, who then shared their perspectives with us. This was a chance for all of our trainees to hear some key sustainability messages – ranging from the projected number of future climate migrants, to the size and number of areas at risk from flooding. More importantly, they were hearing these sustainability messages from children, who were fully aware of the difficulties relating to climate and ecological emergency, and concerned for their futures. There’s been some recent research around the growing proportion of young people who are climate-anxious. What we perhaps need now are more teachers who are climate-anxious themselves, and who can channel their awareness and concerns into their classroom practice. Ageographer’s burden Inmy own experience, I’ve seen how geography teachers in schools can find themselves becoming the ‘sustainability person’, the ‘eco schools co-ordinator’ or similar. The DfE’s 2023 ‘Sustainability and Climate Change’ policy paper (see tiny.cc/ts142-S2 ) talked about encouraging all schools to appoint sustainability leads, and providing themwith carbon literacy training by 2025, but it wasn’t a statutory requirement. I know that anecdotally, some of our graduates have felt empowered to ask questions at their schools about the sustainability policies they have in place, and the forms those should take. We’re seeing applicants now citing sustainability concerns as among their reasons for wanting to train with us – and a growing recognition across all subjects of the need to support our children as they confront the climate and ecological emergency. ATEACHER TAUGHT “Our ‘Teach the Teacher’ session took place in front of the whole PGCE cohort – around 180 adults in total. The children fromThe Chase were aged between 11 and 13, and were brilliant in how they portrayed the climate emergency. They weren’t especially emotive in what they were saying, but everything they said really hit deep. They gave a highly engaging lesson on why we need climate education in schools, citing various statistics relating to environmental harms.With my background in conservation and sustainability I knew some of the facts already, but I could see that some trainees in other subjects were shocked by what was being said. Hearing the children explain these issues to us – it felt really emotional.” – Anna Inglis PGCE geography student 49 teachwire.net/secondary P E D A G O G Y