Understanding Environmental Education in Secondary School in England: Report 2: The Practitioners' Perspective (original) (raw)

T his report presents a review of the state of environmental education in secondary schools in England from a policy perspective. Our review of policy documents extends across a range of contexts including: national government; local education authorities; Multi Academy Trusts; and schools and subject departments. This research was carried out by the King's College London Environmental Education Research Group during 2017-18. The review was funded by a British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant. The review is timely in that it responds to recent curriculum and assessment reforms in England which resulted in the removal of environmental education as one of four core pillars underpinning the National Curriculum (Martin et al., 2015). The review found that the provision of environmental education in formal schooling is weakly supported by national policies. That is, there is currently a lack of intention or ideological vision for environmental education explicitly articulated in England's education policy. Having no national directive, environmental education across secondary school curriculums is patchy and restricted. The quantity and quality of a student's environmental education is greatly dependent on their GCSE subject choice. That is, where students opt to study GCSE geography (a nonmandatory subject) their exposure to environment-related education is substantially increased compared to students studying science GCSE only. Further, the quality, and breadth, of environmental education is also influenced by the choice of examination board specification. For the specifications sampled, only two offered explicit opportunities for students to engage in what may be considered 'radical' environmental improvement. These were the Edexel geography GCSE, and the OCR (B) science GSCE. More prevalent was the inclusion of conservative reform approaches predominantly focused on technological solutions. The review also found that due to the examination context in England, environmental education provision is focused on content knowledge acquisition. The current specifications fail to offer students' opportunities to gain skills for, and participate in, social and environmental activism, be that at a local, national or global level. National policy, in particular National Curricula, greatly influence the shape of environmental education offered at secondary schools. Hence to facilitate wide and extensive change a clear national policy for environmental education is required. Recommendations • In lieu of varied weakly framed references, a coherent national policy which sets out a vision for environmental education in secondary schools should be established. The policy would shape future National Curriculum reforms and national assessments.