The Curriculum and Assessment Review
MARK HODGSON
It’s more than four years since I wrote Climate Alarmism – the Religion that Unites us all. In a comment under that piece I made reference to a Guardian article which complained:
There is still no mention of the climate crisis in the national curriculum for England in primary schools, and in key stage 3 science very little of the curriculum relates to climate education. Incredibly, the last major update to the national geography curriculum for England in 2013 saw the then education secretary, Michael Gove, attempt to drop climate change.
In essence, the causes and effects of the climate crisis are now taught in most secondary schools. What’s not being taught are the practical skills needed to transition towards a net zero lifestyle. Climate change isn’t tangible – young students lack the frame of reference to care if daffodils flower earlier every year or each summer is hotter than the last.
So what needs to change? We need a green curriculum that starts in early years and extends through all key stages. Properly taught, climate change education should be a thread through all subjects – not just science and geography….
Well, all that might be about to change. The Curriculum and Assessment Review’s Final Report was published last month. It may be a fine piece of work in many respects (or it may not). I am not qualified to comment, my involvement with education extending no further than making my way through the education system as a child and young adult (my further education ended almost 40 years ago) and acting for a few years as school governor at a primary school (also many years ago). Thus, I express no opinions at all regarding the bulk of the Report; instead I focus on one part of it alone.
That part of the Review is the section (or several sections, since it runs through it at every level) that the Report heads “Climate education and sustainability” (page 40 onwards). It’s worth noting the opening words of the section (on page 40):
The climate crisis is already impacting our physical landscape and many connected aspects of our lives.
I have two points to make in connection with this. First is a matter of personal taste – “impact” is a noun, not a verb. If you must use it as the Report does, then the correct usage, I believe, is “impact on”. One might have hoped that a Report written by a panel of eminent educators might know that. The second point is the use of the phrase “climate crisis” in an official document that seeks to affect the way the country’s children are educated. “Climate crisis” is a political coinage, not a scientific one. The IPCC does not use the term. It is an invention of the Guardian, and a phrase that is now also regularly used by the BBC – in both cases with political, rather than educational, motivation. Its use in a Report such as this is deeply disturbing.
A word search reveals five uses of the term “climate crisis” and 62 references to the word “climate”. On page 82, we’re told “The climate crisis is the most significant environmental challenge of modern times…”. That is a matter of opinion, not of fact. Of course, it’s an opinion held by most, if not all, of the members of the current UK government (and establishment, for that matter), but it’s deeply concerning that contentious opinions of this sort are embedded in an education report. Even more concerning is the way in which such contentious beliefs are, as a result, likely to be taught to children as though they are facts. And so education becomes indoctrination. How is this likely to play out, assuming the Report is implemented in full?
The quick and lazy way to see (I confess this is the route I have chosen) is to take a look at the Report wherever the word “climate” appears, and see what the Report then has to say. Thus:
Preparing learners for a changing world
This section of the Report is to be found at page 34. It commences:
Our curriculum must equip young people for a world that is changing quickly. Rapid technological advancements, including the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI), are likely to significantly change the way we work. The climate crisis brings wide-ranging, urgent challenges to address – but also opportunities to seize, as we seek to restore our environment. Global geo-politics and means of communication are also shifting. New media channels are enabling greater connectivity than ever before, whilst amplifying the risks posed by online harms or misinformation.
Whilst this is largely unobjectionable (to me, at least, save for the “climate crisis” reference), it’s also a bit worrying in this context to see the reference to “misinformation”. If this means that pupils will be told to ignore sceptical websites asking intelligent questions and probing the official narrative, then I will be more than a little annoyed.
Under this head, we are told that one of the “applied knowledge areas (frequently referred to as ‘life skills’)” is “education on climate change and sustainability”. So long as it is education, and not indoctrination, I trust that all will be well. Nevertheless, I am worried.
Media literacy
This is where things take a turn, possibly for the worse:
Misinformation and disinformation can take many forms, including scientific (as in the case of anti-vaccine campaigns or climate change denial)….
As we sceptics never tire of saying, there is all the difference in the world between denying the science around climate change and questioning the validity of aspects of it. If “education” around this subject strays into rendering verboten discussions about the policy implications of responding to climate change, then that would be deeply problematic.
Climate education and sustainability
As we have already seen, there is a section under this heading. This section strikes me as highly political, and consequently a matter for considerbale concern. As well as the words highlighted above, we find things like this:
Climate education is critically important to the economy and for providing learners with the knowledge they need for future work. The solutions to the climate crisis require the expansion of green technology, and this in turn is creating new industries and jobs, and affecting nearly all sectors of the economy. If young people are to make the most of these opportunities, it is crucial that they acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to do so.
Those are political opinions, and arguably have nothing to do with education. The next paragraph seems to suggest that we should provide instruction to areas that young people demand, rather than instructing them about what, objectively, is important. The problem with the following paragraph is that (ironically, given the Report’s concerns about misinformation) children have been influenced by the drumbeat of propaganda around climate change, and so they ask for education (propaganda?) in areas where they have already been softened up by endless propaganda.
Young people have been clear about their desire for a greater focus on this area in their education. As well as being a common theme in our engagement with young people, polling emphasises their level of concern and significant appetite for further information on climate change and climate science, including their desire to support solutions.
Footnotes to this section include this:
A survey by the Lancet (16 to 25- year-olds) similarly found four in five young people (84%) feel moderately to extremely worried about climate change, and over half (56%) feel powerless to tackle it: (Hickman, C., Marks, E., Pihkala, P., Clayton, S., Lewandowski, E., Mayall, E. et al. (2021).
And this:
A survey by the Woodland Trust & YouGov (of 16 to 24-year-olds) found that over two-thirds (70%) of young people are worried about climate change and nearly half (46%) feel they have no influence over it (YouGov / Woodland Trust (2023).
When and how did the carrying out of such surveys get to form the basis for deciding what should be included in the National Curriculum?
Consequently, I find the “therefore” in the following sentence to be somewhat confused and inappropriate:
We therefore make recommendations to bolster the presence of climate education and sustainability in the Science and Geography curricula, and to emphasise sustainability in the D&T curriculum….It is important to note that curriculum content is only one part of the issue: pedagogy has an important role in applying an engaging climate lens to existing curriculum content.
Citizenship
Here things take a strange turn:
Citizenship has a key role in teaching many areas of knowledge and skills that support young people to become active and thoughtful citizens. In addition to the three areas above, these include topics such as climate and sustainability…
Why? Still under the “Citizenship” heading:
Climate education: primary curriculum content should explore complementary and age-appropriate issues, including sustainable choices and habits and climate justice.
Again, why? Especially in the context of citizenship?
Still under this heading, putting climate change next to “misinformation” and “disinformation” is also suggestive of a determined establishment narrative to deny alternative views to be heard with regard to any aspect of the climate debate, including around policy choices.
Aligning with primary, content should also be strengthened to address societal changes in an age-appropriate way; for example, equality, equity and countering discrimination and hate, financial education, climate change and the rise of misinformation and disinformation.
Personal, Social, Health and Economic Education (PSHE)
It appears that climate change is to be inserted into just about every aspect of the curriculum. Under this heading, we find the following recommendation:
We recommend that the Government…Introduces a statutory measure to ensure that all are taught a core body of essential Citizenship content at primary (including elements of financial and media literacy, and climate change and sustainability)….Updates the secondary Programmes of Study for Citizenship to clarify their purpose, improve specificity and improve progression from Key Stage 3 to 4 or to the optional GCSE (including a renewed focus on financial literacy, media literacy, climate and sustainability, equality duties and challenging discrimination, and democracy and government).
Geography
This is starting to sound very much like indoctrination:
The current Geography curriculum has notable gaps in relation to climate change. Responses to the Call for Evidence highlighted strong support from subject experts and young people for greater attention to this in the Geography curriculum. The climate crisis is the most significant environmental challenge of modern times and, given that climate and weather are anchored in the existing Geography curriculum, it is essential that the Geography curriculum embeds climate education and sustainability appropriately across the key stages. In addition to the presently scant mention in the curriculum, the present overall purpose of study in the national curriculum does not explicitly identify climate change as a key concept. This has not prevented schools from teaching climate-related content but integrating it successfully has depended largely on the initiative of individual teachers or school leaders. The purpose of study in the national curriculum should be amended to ensure explicit wording, empowering the next generation of geographers to understand and tackle climate change through suitable climate education.
The indoctrination aspect is reinforced by the recommendation that follows:
Embeds climate change and sustainability more explicitly across different key stages, including across the physical geography, geographical applications and human geography sections of the curriculum, ensuring early, coherent, and more detailed engagement with climate education.
The problematic and highly significant word is “embeds”. The climate change narrative is to be embedded within the national curriculum.
With no apparent sense of irony, given everything that we have already touched upon, the Report’s authors generously qualify the recommendation thus:
This should be done without risking curriculum overload.
This recommendation is repeated towards the end of the Report.
Science
I suppose it was inevitable that this area of the curriculum would also fall prey to the climate crisis narrative. In fairness, this seems a more appropriate area to teach children about climate change than, say, under the citizenship heading:
As set out previously, climate change is a significant challenge that affects many aspects of modern life, and young people have been clear in their desire to see an explicit focus on climate education. Climate science is also critical to supporting the wider economy, with the growth of the green economy expected to double the number of STEM jobs in the UK. 325 The Science curriculum currently makes only limited reference to climate science and scientific work to combat climate change, and some content in the Programme of Study is outdated. This should be addressed. Giving appropriate attention to climate science should empower young people to understand the scientific causes of, consequences of, and potential solutions to climate change. Achieving this requires a coordinated approach across scientific disciplines, ensuring that environmental and climate-related content is integrated meaningfully and coherently rather than only being presented as a standalone topic.
After this justification, we find the following recommendation:
We recommend that the Government…Ensures that, in relevant areas, the Science curriculum explicitly develops students’ understanding of the scientific principles that explain climate change and sustainability and the global efforts to tackle them…
This recommendation is repeated towards the end of the Report.
I suppose I should be pleased at the reference to global efforts, since students ought to be taught that the UK’s territorial emissions are too insignificant to make any difference to “climate change”. But will they also be taught that after 30 COPs to date, global emissions just keep rising?
As a final thought, I note that the Report’s tag-line is “Building a world-class curriculum for all”. It seems that even the Government’s hubris (“UK shows international leadership in tackling climate crisis”) has found its way into the Report. Things can only get worse.
This article (Education or Indoctrination?) was created and published by Climate Scepticism and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Mark Hodgson
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