Our students might be working towards futures that are hard to predict, but the state of the planet they’ll live that future in is in no dispute: it’ll be very different from the one in which their parents grew up.

We have some sessions planned into the year where students teach the teachers about what sustainability and systems thinking mean. This is another element towards student voice and choice, in taking a role in helping teachers understand how to take projects and practice and make them sustainable in the long term. Working with a mentor based in the US, our students will begin their learning journey online before joining teachers in their professional learning days at school.

But we also want to move beyond specific sessions or projects: we want environmental action to become a daily routine. The annual Earth Hour makes a mark on our students, as we switch off all our electrical tools for one hour. But how might attitudes change if we unplugged ourselves more often?

Finally, we are taking a look at our curriculum. Although there are environmental topics throughout a child’s time at school, we want to undertake an audit of the entire curriculum to make sure every student at every age and stage, and across subjects, is entitled to explore the theme of environmental action.