Students with banners and megaphones outside the Department for Education
About

Who we are

Teach the Future is a campaign led by secondary and tertiary education students to greatly improve education on the climate emergency and ecological crisis in the UK.

We are campaigning for change across the whole of the UK, but education in the UK is a devolved matter, meaning there are different education ministers and education laws in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. A lot of our work is relevant across the UK, but we also have specific campaign branches in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England.

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Our organisation

We are campaigning for change across the whole of the UK, but education in the UK is a devolved matter, meaning there are different education ministers and education laws in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. A lot of our work is relevant across the UK, but we also have specific campaign branches in Scotland, Wales and England.

Teach the Future is mostly funded by donations from independent foundations as well as individuals. Our finances are looked after by SOS-UK (registered charity 1184011), who commit to only using it for Teach the Future. If you're able to donate, please visit our donations page.

Press

We have a group of amazing, well-trained spokespeople in various parts of the UK ready for media interviews or speaking at events. Email us for details.

Our team

We have a team of over 40 young volunteers working on Teach the Future. Fill out our volunteer signup form if you're interested in volunteering for the campaign.
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As well as volunteers, we have paid staff. While our campaign previously had thirteen staff members, we are currently being supported by some experienced campaigners from SOS-UK - lending their time and advice a day or two per week - and three students on part-time contracts to progress the campaign in each nation. Previously, we had one young staff member working full time on UK-wide work, three student staff in England, Scotland, and Wales working one day a week and one student staff member working on International outreach one day per week.

FAQs

How do I get involved?

There are loads of ways to get involved!

If you’re a student and want to volunteer with us, you can visit our volunteer signup form. Anyone can support our campaign financially by visiting our donations page,  write to their representative in support of climate education, sign our petition or just follow us on social media using the links in this page's footer.

What is the English Climate Education Bill all about?

The English Climate education bill is the first bill in the UK written by students, and sets an expectation for all education providers to teach about the climate emergency. It would embed quality, integrated climate education into the national curriculum and place a duty on education agencies such as Ofsted to ensure this was practiced.

It was submitted to Parliament by MP Nadia Whittome as a 10 Minute Rule (Private Members') Bill, and passed its first reading on the 25th of January, 2023.

What levels of areas of education do you cover?

We want the climate crisis to be taught through the lens of social justice at all levels, right through from primary to tertiary education including vocational training in colleges.

What are your plans for the future?

We are currently focusing on our bill in Parliament, while Scotland and Wales are developing their own nation specific bills.

As well as this we are working to gain more public support for the campaign and raise the profile of climate education.

We're working with teachers across the UK to understand what the issues in the current system are, and how best to solve them.

What are we campaigning for?

Education in the UK isn’t preparing students to face the effects of climate change or help us understand the causes and solutions, we are looking to change this!

Don’t we already learn about climate change in school?

Unfortunately, the climate crisis is only taught briefly in a couple of optional subjects and we’ve found that often where it is taught, it’s not done to high enough quality.

Only 4% of students feel that they know a lot about the climate crisis and 75% of teachers feel that they haven’t received adequate training to educate students about the climate crisis. You can find more statistics about climate education here.

How are we trying to achieve our asks?

We're working on bills in England, Scotland, and Wales, and building recognition and awareness over social media.

We also have specific policies that we want to see implemented in each nation.

When did Teach the Future start?

Planning for Teach the Future started in the summer of 2019, but things started properly moving in December 2020, since then we’ve grown more and more!

Are there similar campaigns in other countries?

Yes! We will be sharing more details about our international network in the future...