Source: CEA

Progression of Big Ideas in Sustainability Framework.pdf

Climate change and sustainability education is crucial in today’s world due to the increasing urgency of the climate crisis. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report warns of intensifying extreme weather events, rising sea levels and threats to ecosystems. These changes will have profound social, economic and environmental consequences. Education plays a vital role in equipping individuals with the knowledge and skills to understand and respond to these challenges. UNESCO’s work on Education for Sustainable Development emphasises the
importance of fostering critical thinking, problem-solving and action oriented learning. Sustainable Development Goal 13 specifically calls for education to promote climate change awareness and action.
Recent Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reports highlight the need for integrating climate change and sustainability across all levels of education, from primary school to higher education. This includes not only scientific understanding but also social, economic and ethical dimensions of sustainability. By empowering individuals with the necessary competencies, education can drive behavioural change, innovation and informed decision making for a sustainable future. Many teachers have concerns about teaching sustainability, such as lack of subject expertise, worries about triggering eco-anxiety, and dealing with conflicting information and misconceptions.

About this Resource
The focus of this progression framework is to identify the Big Ideas in sustainability. Instead of a list of learning outcomes, it contains a series of Big Ideas, expressed in an age and stage-appropriate manner, that will allow you to plan for progression in developing pupils’ understanding as they progress through their education.
The Big Ideas in this framework are expressed as a series of progression statements. They are introduced with short statements followed by explanatory paragraphs. This content is then translated into a series of statements for each key stage, outlining what pupils at that key stage could be expected to understand.
Each subsequent key stage builds on what has gone before, so teachers in the earlier key stages can have a clearer idea of where the content they are delivering is leading to. Similarly, teachers in later key stages can look back at earlier key stage statements and help pupils connect new learning to what they already know.