Supplementary memorandum by Department
for Education and Skills (DfES)
FOLLOWING THE EVIDENCE SESSION ON 19 JANUARY
2005
STATEMENT OF
VISION
1. When looking at the role that the Department
for Education and Skills can play in educating people about sustainable
development, it is worth reiterating what Charles Clarke wrote
on the Foreword to the DfES Sustainable Development Action Plan
(SDAP) in September 2003:
We must be more aware of how our actions affect the
people we interact with, the local and the global environment,
and the legacy we leave for future generations long after we have
gone.
In education, our job is not only to act on all this
by helping education providers operate in a more environmentally
sustainable way, but to teach it as well. Making sure that children,
young people and adult learners are aware that what they do has
huge implications for everyone in this country and in the world
at large.
2. There is already a lot of exciting and successful
work happening in our schools, colleges and universities. But
we need to build on this work. Our Action Plan is intended as
a starting point for further discussion and development with schools,
colleges and universities, together with national agencies like
OFSTED, TTA, QCA, LSC and HEFCE. We need to spread the good practice,
build capacity within the Department, its agents and delivery
organisations, in order to inspire others to live and learn sustainability.
3. We are approaching this from a number of angles
across the education sector: through the curriculum; through changing
behaviours; and through improvements to the education estate.
When added together, this creates a powerful and holistic approach
to education for sustainable development.
DFES APPROACH
AS OUTLINED
IN ITS
FIVE YEAR
STRATEGY
4. The role of DfES is to set the strategic framework
and to enable schools to operate effectively within it. Part of
setting the framework is to articulate what DfES expects of schools.
This it has recently done through the Five year strategy for children
and learners[6]1
which makes clear that schools should engage with sustainable
development:
"Every school should also be
an environmentally sustainable school, with a good plan for school
transport that encourages walking and cycling, an active and effective
recycling policy (moving from paper to electronic processes wherever
possible) and a school garden or other opportunities for children
to explore the natural world. Schools must teach our children
by example as well as by instruction"
5. The underlying principle of our Five
year strategy is one of freedom and independence for frontline
headteachers, governors and managers with clear simple accountabilities
and more secure streamlined funding arrangements—including
guaranteed three year budget for all schools with per pupil increases
each year, and the new Ofsted self evaluation framework.
6. For schools this translates into more freedom
to teach and to improve. We intend to strip out unnecessary bureaucracy,
give teachers and headteachers more confidence, and treat different
schools differently—challenging those that under perform,
but being less directive with those that perform well. We will
help schools to engage more effectively with parents and the local
community. There will be a major focus on teacher professional
development, linking it explicitly to career progression.
7. DfES encourages schools and provides practical
advice, guidance and tools in a number of areas, including sustainable
development. However, it is up to schools how they take these
things forward, depending on their own priorities, local circumstances
and the needs of their pupils.
8. We recognise this is a different way of doing
things and it will take some getting used to, but Government wants
local people to have the power to do things for themselves, including
in education.
DELIVERY OF
THE SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT ACTION
PLAN (SDAP)
9. It is worth listing a few examples of how
the SDAP is being delivered.
INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION
10. The Global Gateway—a one-stop shop
website funded by the DfES and administered by the British Council
enabling those involved in education across the world to engage
in creative partnerships via its built-in partner linking facility—has
received over 8.9 million hits (as of 18 December 2004), mostly
from teachers. 32 countries have currently signed up as International
Strategic Partners.
11. To celebrate International Education Week
(IEW) in 2004, an annual DfES event celebrating the benefits of
an international dimension at all levels of education, over 80
events were held across England, including events from secondary
and primary schools, colleges, LEAs, commonwealth organisations,
libraries, NGOs and foreign embassies.
12. DfES funds the International Schools Award
(ISA) which recognises good practice in international work. 487
awards have been accredited to schools since its launch in 1998.
A key aim of the DfES International Strategy is that all schools
in England should, in time, gain an ISA. To achieve this, the
DfES is investing an extra £250,000 on top of the annual
DfES grant to the British Council for international education
work they carry out on our behalf, to expand the awards.
POST-16 EDUCATION
13. £50,000 over the coming months to Forum
for the Future for work on sustainability literacy in professional
curricula.
14. LSC launched its Sustainable Development
Strategy for consultation in December 2004. The consultation runs
until 31 March 2005, after which time a final strategy will be
agreed and implemented. The Strategy is aimed at the whole range
of LS-funded providers and staff within the LSC itself. This includes
some 400 colleges delivering programmes for some four million
learners.
SCHOOL BUILDINGS
15. The Building Research Establishment Environmental
Assessment Method (BREEAM) has been developed and was completed
on time in November 2004.
16. All major new build and refurbishment projects
valued at over £500k for primary schools and £2 million
for secondary schools and involving rebuilding or complete refurbishment
of more than 10% of the floor area of a school should be subject
to a BREEAM assessment. We expect all these schemes to achieve
at least a very good rating using the BREEAM Schools Methodology.
There has been a lot of interest in this work from Local Authorities
and other contractors.
17. Energy Certification Scheme: so far over
200 schools have signed up to be part of the Energy Certification
Scheme. This work is being evolved into the SD Website for schools
and SEAM. The Energy Saving Trust is the managing agent for the
Certification Scheme. Their brief has been expended to consider
how best the NGOs working in this field can deliver the energy
them of the SD framework for schools and a conference was held
on 14 December to consult Other Government Departments and the
NGOs on the best way forward. Nine possible action areas were
identified and a report to DfES Secretary of State will follow
shortly.
IMPLEMENTATION OF
THE SDAP
18. £161,000 over next two years for the
Sustainable Development Commission to help us implement the Department's
SD Action Plan, including the recruitment of Dr Jake Reynolds
as Senior Adviser.
FOUR PRIORITIES
FOR THE
COMING YEAR
19. There is much work being undertaken as a
result of the SDAP in the DfES and among its partner organisations.
Four priorities for action are:
Development of a web-based portal for teachers.
20. This is being designed:
— To get schools to take sustainable
development seriously; and
— To bring together existing schemes in
a way which will encourage sponsorship and make it easy for schools
to access information, schemes, resources and local support.
21. We have engaged web developers and are working
with a range of internal and external partners including the World
Wildlife Fund (WWF), Heads, Teachers & Industry (HTI), and
the Energy Savings Trust (EST) and other government departments
and agencies. The Department's Sustainable Development Adviser
is also playing a key role in developing the web service.
Supporting Forum for the future in their Sustainability
Implementation Group
22. Forum for the Future has convened a group
from the education and business sectors to examine the best ways
to integrate sustainability literacy into post-16 professional
qualifications. DfES funding will enable Forum to co-ordinate,
stimulate and support the group over the coming year. DfES is
keen that sustainability literacy becomes a core competency for
graduates from the post-16 sector.
Local and regional ESD links
23. One of the roles of the recently appointed
Senior Adviser on Sustainable Development, Dr Jake Reynolds, will
be to examine and strengthen the local and regional links for
ESD. This will include mapping existing activity, and examining
the best ways to improve these links.
DfES internally
24. There is a need to continue to adopt best
practice in environmental management within DfES and its partner
organisations. Examples of achievements so far include:
— more than 90% success rate in recycling
out of date publications and passing IT equipment onto schools
and charities.
— DfES has reviewed its purchasing policy
on green vehicles and has chosen to replace around 20% of its
fleet, by April 2005, with ECO4 Diesel cars which emit less CO2
emissions.
25. Next steps include raising staff awareness,
and developing a policy for using recycled paper for all DfES
publications and paper based products.
FURTHER INFORMATION ON POINTS RAISED AT THE EVIDENCE
SESSION ON 19 JANUARY
PUBLICATION OF
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
ACTION PLAN
26. As mentioned at the EAC evidence session
on 19 January, the Sustainable Development Action Plan (SDAP)
was made available on the DfES website, and practitioners were
also made aware of it via our other communications streams, such
as Teachernet website and our Teachers magazine. This approach
is identical to what happened when the Enterprise Education Strategy
was published.
27. The Action Plan is a high-level description
of action and so it was felt that it was not essential to send
it to every school, particularly as part of our aim of reducing
bureaucracy.
SCHOOL TRANSPORT
28. The Travelling to School action plan
sets out a series of measures for schools, local authorities and
central government in England to take, which are intended to reduce
car use on the school run. Most do not require legislation, and
we have put in place a network of school travel advisors to help
schools, local education and transport authorities to work together
to promote walking and cycling for pupils wherever these are safe,
realistic options for travelling to school. Similar initiatives
are underway in Wales
29. School travel advisers, who are now in place
in every Local Education Authority (LEA) in England, have already
helped many schools survey their pupils, analyse their journeys
to schools, and work with local authorities, bus providers, parents
and the local community to prepare travel plans. Through the school
travel advisers we want every school to get the support and encouragement
it needs to tackle rising car use on the journey to school.
30. We have always seen the Bill in the wider
context of our work on sustainable home to school travel as laid
out in the Travelling to School action plan. We recognise
that the original draft prospectus accompanying the Bill did not
make the links between walking/cycling and schemes with sufficient
clarity. We have done more work on the prospectus to ensure that
scheme authorities will make these links.
31. When we published our response to the Education
and Skills Select Committee, we also announced that, depending
on the number of pupils covered by a scheme, we will provide up
to £200,000 as a grant to the initial scheme authorities
to assist them in building capacity at a local level to design
and implement their schemes. The prospectus requires applicants
to set out their track record in improving sustainable school
travel in recent years, and that a track record of productive
collaboration between LEAs and local transport services is essential.
It also makes it clear that applicants must be able to show that
they have a strong team with the right skills mix to tackle the
cultural challenges that piloting will bring, and where gaps exist
in their expertise, the measures they are taking to fill those
gaps.
LANDFILL TAX
CREDIT SCHEME
32. On the issue of Landfill Tax Credit Scheme,
the Committee are encouraged to look at the supplementary memorandum
provided by Defra officials which includes this topic.
WORKING WITH
NON-GOVERNMENT
ORGANISATIONS AND
ENGAGEMENT WITH
SCHOOLS
33. In order to embed ESD successfully, we are
working closely with Defra as the lead Department on sustainable
development, both at an official and at Ministerial level. The
evidence DfES sent to this Committee in November 2004 was a Government
response, with contributions from other departments including
Defra, DCMS and DTI.
34. DfES also works with a number of non-governmental
organisations (NGOs) to help engage the sector in ESD, such as:
— Association for Citizenship Teaching
(ACT)—to draft ESD schemes of work.
— Association for Science Education (ASE)—to
draft ESD schemes of work.
— Royal Geographical Society (RGS)—to
draft ESD schemes of work.
— Geographical Association (GA)—to
draft ESD schemes of work.
— Design & Technology Association (DATA)—to
draft ESD schemes of work.
— Heads, Teachers & Industry (HTI)—to
convert a sustainable management tool for industry to a school-friendly
tool.
— Council for Environmental Education (CEE)—to
manage the drafting of ESD schemes of work by subject associations.
— DfES funded the Education and Community
Involvement category of the Water Efficiency Awards 2005 where
we launched BREEAM Schools.
January 2005
See also Appendix 52 (Ev 277)
6 1 http://www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/5yearstrategy/ Back
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