Blog post

Introducing Teach the Future Wales

Hannah Prior
February 25, 2021

This is the first blog by, drum roll please, Teach the Future Wales! Today we are introducing the campaign that our volunteers have been working on tirelessly over the last few months to set up. We have created our 4 asks that we have for the Welsh Government!

External

Since Teach the Future England was launched in October 2019 and Scotland’s group in July 2020, Wales have established our own group. Our parent organisations are UKSCN Wales, which many of our members are part of, and SOS-UK.

Our group is currently made up of eight Welsh volunteers who, while working alongside English and Scottish staff and volunteers, have created our 4 main asks of the Welsh Government;

  1. WFGA Review
    Hold a review under the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act into how the new curriculum will fulfil obligations to educate students on the climate emergency and ecological crisis, and have the government commit to following its recommendations;
  2. Teacher Training
    Provide comprehensive training so that teachers are fully prepared to be able to educate and communicate the reality of the climate crisis to their students;
  3. Sustainable Schools
    Guarantee that all new and existing educational buildings are built and/or retrofitted to be carbon neutral and enforce policies of sustainable practice across the education sector.
  4. Climate Education Bill
    Enact a Welsh Climate Emergency Education Act, making it compulsory for all schools to teach on the climate emergency, in addition to the allocation of financial assistance to new vocational qualifications and student empowerment schemes.

To date, we have had successful meetings with Plaid Cymru MS Llŷr Gruffydd, Labour MS's Jenny Rathbone and Mick Antoniw, Conservative MS Janet Finch-Saunders and Propel MS Neil McEvoy. We have discussed our asks and how we can support each other. 

We have also had an exciting meeting with Tom Davies. Tom has piloted a climate education framework in some Welsh primary schools; we hope that his work’s success will show how necessary climate education is in all Welsh schools. 

Ahead of the 2021 Senedd elections, our plan is to contact and work alongside as many local councillors and assembly members as possible to have our asks included in party manifestos and, therefore, at the forefront of the party agendas and campaigns for the parliamentary term ahead. We hope to learn from England and Scotland’s success in the last year to create a successful Welsh group!

Follow our social media accounts to keep up to date with our campaign! 

Instagram: @ttf.wales, Twitter: _teachthefuture, Facebook: Teach the Future