Strong hint from Becky Francis that climate content will remain firmly in Geography and Sciences and not infused across other subjects

Professor Becky Francis' session with the Education Select Committee this morning (8 July 2025) was very revealing on where the Curriculum and Assessment Review (CAR) panel's thinking has got to on climate change and sustainability education.

The first thing to say is that the question Francis responded to on this was broad. Jess Asasto MP asked her:

How can climate science, media literacy and digital skills be embedded into the curriculum and which subjects are best places to incorporate these?

By asking about climate SCIENCE specifically, however, it was also a very narrow question. Here's how Francis responded:

You will have seen in our interim report that one of the key areas of focus for us is thinking about the applied knowledge that young people need for work and life and we hear a lot of concern, including from young people and parents, and employers too actually, that young people need more attention in particular areas. To bring that to life for you, in a large-scale poll conducted by Parentkind on our behalf, almost half of parents wished that their children had had more financial education for example, and that is something that we hear a lot from young people too. 

There’s also as you’ve indicated, the global challenges that we confront at the moment, whether that’s from geopolitics, climate crisis, or for young people to understand politics, and the infusion of AI. All of these areas seem to demand particular areas of applied knowledge, or indeed, more general skills to be able to accommodate. I think it is probably important to say, obviously whether it is climate science, infusion of AI and so forth, what will best prepare young people for both the shocks and opportunities of the future are going to be still, really core foundations in maths, in science, in communication, in human culture and so forth. So, in other words, the mainstay of our knowledge-based curriculum will also support them to take the opportunities of the future.

This is quite a striking response and may raise some eyebrows. There is some logic to it, but it does depend on what those ‘core foundations’ are, what types of knowledge is included in the knowledge-based curriculum, and what is meant by ‘core foundations in human culture’. Francis continued: 

But nevertheless, we’re very mindful that when it comes to areas like digital and media literacy, more can be done and in areas like climate change there are particular subjects in the curriculum that should be better supporting young people to address those challenges.

There is a recognition here that in ‘particular subjects’ climate change could be better taught than it is now. I think we can assume here that Francis means Geography and the Sciences. What she said next is a strong hint as to how the CAR panel will recommend the National Curriculum responds to the climate crisis. 

So, we are taking those points in the round, but we are also looking at the particular subject disciplines that can best accommodate those needs. Because we do think, again, that it needs to be done through the disciplines…

The rationale Francis gave for this suggests that the panel will recommend that content about climate change should only be present in the ‘particular subjects’ when the National Curriculum is updated:

…often, if you try to infuse things through everything, things become a bit meaningless, teachers aren’t prepared for it, and sometimes it can lead to overkill as well.

That seems pretty definitive. It might leave climate-concerned teachers who are not teachers of the ‘particular subjects’ wondering what they will empowered to do to support young people to grapple with the climate and ecological crisis. 

At Global Action Plan, we believe strongly that all teachers can play a role and play that role without necessarily needing to teach about climate change and sustainability. This is a belief we share with colleagues at UCL’s Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education, the NAEE and the Council for Subject Associations. Together, we are working on a White paper that proposes ways forward for subject teachers.  

You can watch the full education select committee session on Parliament TV. The section that we have quoted from above begins at 11.12am on Tuesday 8 July 2025. 

This article first appeared on the Global Action Plan Education pages.

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