A Scottish government policy from 2013, entitling young people to “learning for sustainability” (LfS), did not result in the necessary cultural shifts in schools.
LfS is defined by the government and others as an umbrella term for sustainable development education, climate education and outdoor learning - although one might say that isn’t a definition at all. I prefer to define it as a transformative approach to learning that consciously puts young people’s future first, with an emphasis on climate and nature.
For what is sustainable or viable about a future with a destabilised, hostile planet? LfS is education’s best chance of helping to prevent that scenario.
Little room for sustainability in education
However, the cultural moment we’re in, with an overstuffed national education system, leaves very little room for LfS to get a foothold. Thus it is most often seen as a “nice to have” rather than a core component of school life - an add-on instead of a guiding ethos.
Agitators like me have tried to make the opposite case. Why do we? Because LfS is in the General Teaching Council for Scotland standards as a requirement for teacher registration; it’s also all over How Good is our School (HGIOS) 4, a document that school leadership teams use to draft their improvement plans and that forms the basis of school inspections.
Every major recent educational report - such as Ken Muir’s seminal 2022 report - recommends that schools take a holistic approach to ensuring that young people receive their entitlement to LfS.
The City of Edinburgh Council has gone further than most Scottish local authorities by ringfencing budgets to ensure that one staff member in each school (which until recently included me) has protected time to take responsibility for LfS. The staff in question are labelled “champions” and given 0.1 full-time equivalent - roughly three hours per week. The council recently renewed the associated funding.
I can take a certain amount of credit for this initiative because I was on the steering group that put it into place back in 2023. And, having now mentored and heard from many champions, I can say there is a common thread in our experiences: teaching is an intense job with or without an extra LfS responsibility, and the champion role simply cannot be contained in three hours per week.
Also, the role is sometimes seen as a series of self-contained projects, such as bug hotels, pupil-voice initiatives, interdisciplinary learning and outdoor lessons, which often have a great impact on kids. However, the downside is that when pupils come back to “normal” schooling and are surrounded by behaviours and a culture that show little concern for nature or the climate emergency, that can be deeply depressing or lead to climate anxiety.
Need for school-wide approaches
Teachers are also vulnerable to climate anxiety when we see people turn away from LfS and climate-based issues. We want to help create an environment that respects nature and children’s future, but we have no real authority to do so; the lack of a school-wide approach can put us in an impossible position.
Even when we have a team behind us, our work ends up feeling very much like it’s outside normal schooling, because in many ways it is. It isn’t about assessments or preparing kids for assessments (the two major pillars of education at the moment), it’s about nurturing their appreciation and understanding of the natural world.
Times are changing. The Scottish government’s Target 2030 initiative - while full of “asks” and very few demands - points to LfS being a core element in oncoming reforms, including the introduction of new national bodies charged with redeveloping the qualifications system. Could it be that school inspections will start to place more emphasis on LfS?
While I remain sceptical about the government’s commitment to cultural change, if it does successfully mandate LfS, the days of relying on school champions will be over. However, we should not wait for this. The only way forward is for schools to move as one, to shift the onus of LfS leadership on to school management teams.
The truth is that teachers like me have chosen to take on something mammoth and unconquerable, so our work is simply not sustainable in the long term if we are alone. Schools shouldn’t have champions - unless those champions are the ones in charge of setting the agenda and culture for the whole school.
Tom Bird is a maths teacher and a learning for sustainability officer in Edinburgh
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