After surveying 7000 UK-based teachers and educators on the state of sustainability and climate education in schools, the Rebooting Education Report 2023 reveals that teachers feel the education system needs to change to make values and life skills more important in the curriculum, make the subject content more closely linked to real-life situations and flexible to accommodate pupils' interests and project-based learning.
The responses speak to the frustration that teachers and educators feel about the mismatch between the current priorities in education, such as conformity, exam results and fitting a demanding curriculum into the timetable, and what they believe will be needed for pupils to be prepared for an uncertain future, such as knowledge about the climate and ecological emergency, technology, connection to nature and their local environment, and self-directed learning.
The report also investigates teachers' attitudes towards the DfE Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy, and its ambition for the UK to become "a world leader in sustainable education by 2030", after it was launched in April 2022. Currently only 1% of teachers and educators believe that this goal can be achieved within the education system as it is now, and 35% recognise that radical change would be needed.
If you would like to explore what we offer for teachers and educators looking for tools and skills to embed environmental and sustainability education in their classroom teaching and across the whole school, visit our Teach Earth page.