Climate change and sustainability education framework: an opportunity for pre-service teaching

The National Climate Education Action Plan (NCEAP) included 9-actions. Action 2: develop an initial teacher (pre-service) education framework for embedding climate change and sustainability education responding to needing a climate action pedagogy to address the requirements of UK National Policy and Department for Education policy paper ‘Sustainability and climate change: a strategy for the education and children’s services systems’ (Department for Education, 2022). This paper presents a research project for implementing a framework across three age phases: early years, primary and secondary (2022–23). It explores the development and alignment of teaching to incorporate understanding of climate and su-stainability education enabling climate action. A qualitative approach was employed, drawing on surveys, reflective statements and interviews. Using thematic analysis the reflective statements from 10-teacher educators and a student focus group were analysed along with a student end point survey responses from 79 pre-service teachers. Exploring the extent to which the framework had facilitated the development of pre-service teachers’ understanding about how to teach climate change and sustainability education. The findings suggest that, whilst the sample size was small, there was the potential to embed climate change and sustainability education using a flexible framework, underpinned by thinking related to competencies across different initial teacher education programmes. Further research is needed to explore how this framework is applied and contextualised, and the impact it has in developing self-efficacy and competencies. An exploration of early adopters as part of a Delphi study or survey might help to contribute to this important area of research.