How to find time for Climate School?

Finding extra time for climate change education is challenging. Holly Wilmott argues that the best solution is to integrate it into everything that schools do

When we began to imagine our Climate School 180 project in 2022, ‘climate change’ topped the UK Government’s survey of adult priorities, and became the Oxford Children’s Word of the Year in 2023.

And with this level of climate consciousness, it would be wrong to think that the climate crisis was not being addressed through education. In fact, there are many long-standing and emerging ways that schools have taught and engaged with climate issues through STEM learning and geography, to Green Flags, Let’s Go Zero, and climate action planning.

But we need to go deeper, to fully engage with climate change education by adopting a whole-school approach and a change in culture. We need sustained paths of learning and adaptation that will prepare us for climate change in our everyday lives.

Isolated actions or timetabled learning blocks won’t embed long-term solutions.

So why, when this is clearly a priority, do schools keep struggling with one of the biggest barriers: time?

Time is the biggest barrier to engaging deeply

We embarked on our Climate School 180 project (CS180) in partnership with the University of Stirling. Throughout this project, the schools we’ve worked with have consistently reflected the same big puzzle: how to maintain meaningful support for long-term change when the system is time poor and educators are under a lot of pressure?

Mr Holly Wilmott (right) running Climate School 180 training at Ark Tindal Primary Academy, Birmingham

Tap into the school’s values and ask why?

We’ve discussed this with educators searching for solutions, and it appears a good starting point comes from the school’s ethos and values. Start by asking why there is a need to prioritise climate as a key part of the curriculum. Schools are now realising when this core foundation changes, the ability to evolve climate change education becomes easier.

In our Climate School 180 webinar back in January, we heard from Jennifer McCann, principal of Kirkhill Primary School. She was clear that CPD to build confidence and current practice must be mandatory. Isolated outdoor learning opportunities won’t suffice – a more coherent and progressive approach done in stages is needed. She also suggested that for Kirkhill, looking outward and exploring other frameworks helped support curriculum building.

“We gathered baseline evidence on staff confidence, current practice, and how our outdoor spaces were being used. This really helped us as a team to develop our next steps for not only outdoor learning, but also climate change education.

Before this last session each class had one optional outdoor learning slot per week in their timetable in a shared outdoor space area. While this was definitely a positive starting point that we had prioritised in our timetables it did lead to some inconsistency. We did find when chatting with staff and children as well, was that outdoor learning was sometimes optional as opposed to really truly embedded. It also depended on individual staff confidence as well, and in terms of consistency of experiences, these were varied as well.

So we then explored frameworks from other establishments, both across Scotland as well as England, particularly through the Learning through Landscapes training, which was really helpful, to get our brains together and start thinking about how that would look in our context. We then adapted these frameworks to ensure that they were fully aligned with the Scottish Curriculum For Excellence.” Jennifer McCann, principal of Kirkhill Primary School

This is an excerpt from Jennifer McCann on the webinar. Hear her whole segment here:

The power of culture shift

The power of culture shift under Kirsty Brennan’s leadership at Balivadich Primary School in Benbecula has taken place since CS180 in February last year. Staff are now better understanding how to integrate climate change into the curriculum. The school increasingly makes greater use of its grounds for climate education, making sustainability central to interdisciplinary learning, and deeper staff conversations around climate topics are now commonplace.

Integrate rather than add

Addressing the time challenge requires integration rather than addition. By embedding climate education within existing school ethos, values, and interdisciplinary learning, schools avoid the burden of finding extra time. Climate education must be woven through current practice rather than bolted on as additional pressure – a staged approach of ‘try, test and review’ helps here.

When climate education becomes part of school culture and enhances what already happens, the question shifts from finding time to using existing time more meaningfully, ultimately creating richer, more relevant learning experiences for children living through a climate crisis.

See the Climate School webinar to hear from several teachers who have taken steps in teaching climate change outdoors.