Top CCAC designers urge Government to put climate change into the school curriculum

In a letter to Bridget Phillipson, Secretary of State for Education, the designers highlight that the climate crisis, and how to tackle it at home and globally, are not curriculum entitlements for primary school children. They urge the Government to end this injustice.

The CCAC designers represent the following organisations:

Below, we publish their letter in full. 

Right now, at the V&A in London, you can see young children’s radical visions for surviving the climate emergency.

We, as designers, have worked with hundreds of children to realise their exciting visions. Together, we have produced designs for flood-proof houses, schools that keep cool in the desert, communities that thrive in tree-tops, clothing for extreme environments, woodland habitats shared by people and animals, and food that needs no refrigeration. 

This amazing and inspiring work has shown us how much children want to learn and make a difference.  One said: “I feel that we’re learning about how we can make the climate better for when we’re adults and when we have more power to do things like this”. 

But these children are the lucky ones. Most will learn nothing at school about why climate change is happening or ways to tackle it in homes, communities, and globally.

Climate change is not a required, inspected or examined primary school subject. Climate change isn’t even named until secondary school, and then only in subjects that are optional – science and geography – which many children drop.

As a result, we leave too many children in ignorance, anxiety, and powerlessness about an important issue that will dominate their lives.

As designers we are doing our bit to correct this neglect, working through a small charity, Climate Change All Change. In our classroom work around the country, we’ve seen how Design and Technology (D&T) can engage children with climate change. Schools and teachers are willing and enthusiastic.  But it’s an uphill struggle when there is virtually no time or resource for D&T in primaries.  In secondaries, the subject is in freefall: the numbers taking GCSE D&T have fallen by 82 per cent since 2003. There are just 6000 D&T trained teachers left, down 60 per cent in 15 years.

Two bold steps by the government in their review of the school curricula could transform this unfortunate picture.

First: make climate change a key part of the curriculum, aligned with subjects like Design and Technology that promotes teamwork, problem-solving, planning, experimenting, building and making. These are vital skills in tackling the climate crisis. 

Second: work with us and other creative professionals to support teachers and to empower children with skills and knowledge for designing our world to meet the impacts of global heating.  

We’ve seen the value that children place on this way of learning.  A child from an ex-mining community who designed an outfit for extreme weather said: “If I didn’t know about sustainability or fashion designers, I wouldn’t have liked to be one. It’s opening-up new jobs, and it’s good because it shows that children can do what they want, when they put their minds to it”.

We thank the V&A for showcasing the way forward. “We know that climate change is on children’s minds,” explains Dr Helen Charman, who as Director of Young V&A has organised Imagining Tomorrow. “It will inspire children to think about design solutions that help address the impact of climate change, which they are already seeing in their daily lives”.

Now we need the government to act by transforming the way we teach children about climate change.