Worcester educator climate assembly: promoting sustainability leadership through participation. A community approach to education in climate emergency

Abstract

Our urgent state of “Climate Emergency,” as declared by the UK Government on 1st May 2019, has done little to change our secondary education system or educational leadership. As we collectively begin to move into acceptance of the irreversible nature of a portion of the environmental damage and its long-term consequences, we need to explore the purpose and practice of education and educational leadership in climate emergency. How should we prepare teachers and educators to lead and develop young people in a time of climate crisis and who should be involved in making the decisions? This article reports on the findings of a Green Impact project, an online Educator Climate Assembly that took place on World Environment Day 2021, with West Midlands education stakeholder participants. The following themes are explored: responsibility, process complexity, confidence, sense of scale and communities of practice, with an invitation to readers to adapt this process and use it in their own education settings. Suggested further research includes trialing the process in a range of settings and a longitudinal approach to measuring the impacts.