Wild LIVE: Is education failing our young people and the natural world?

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] good evening and welcome to wildlife for march just about march that the end of march we've just squeezed this one in but thank you very much for joining us on what is a lovely summer evening but for a fantastically important conversation a conversation is asking the question tonight is education failing our young people and the natural world it seems like a very very timely question after a year of lockdown when we've there's been a lot of discussion about children spending a lot of time on screens but also a lot of discussion about how people have reconnected with the natural world and particularly with nature close to where they live as we start to think about how we can hopefully head out of lockdown we need to also be discussing what does that mean for education system in the future what does that mean for how our education system needs to make sure that young people and support young people are supported to be able to really understand and tackle the climate and nature emergency now this comes in a context where i for one feel that the biggest source of hope for me over the last few years has come from young people you know over the last five years say we've seen young people at the forefront of campaigning and activism to push for bolder action on tackling the climate and ecological emergency and that's been really fantastic and welcome but it does raise those questions do those young people feel that they're getting what they need from the education system to prepare them for the future and where were the tantalizing lessons about and the models about how we could do this better if only we could scale them up and share them out so that they're available to everyone we've got amazing panel joining us tonight to wrestle with this question and i'm delighted to introduce them to you first we've got dr amir khan who will be known to many of you he's a gp and a gp on television quite often and an ambassador to the wildlife trusts uh amir has also got the amazing credit of he's only the the only person that's ever been on wildlife twice uh he's that good that we brought him back for another one so amir thanks very much brilliant you could join us tonight we've also got bobby benjamin wand from the london wildlife trust she's a keeping it wild project assistant with the london wildlife trust what a brilliant job type title i'm going to be hearing about bobby's work and her first-hand experience as a participant on a project and working through a paid in traineeship from january to march in 2020 and then involved in the young people's forum we've got nile o'brien who's a teacher at the academy of st james in bradford and part of the wildlife trust nature friendly schools network we've got joe brindle campaigner who set up teach the future uh just 18 years old and uh or maybe 90 now joe i'll check that i'll check that in a row uh 18 19 years old and he has had a gap year really working to set up teach the future and make sure that the campaign is there for climate education and then we have our very own fiona groves whose education and learning policy manager with the wildlife trusts who looks across all the work we do at the wildlife trusts with young people and particularly in education and she's got a strong career history of working in a strategic and advise you role around access to opportunities that develop an understanding of the natural world and our relationship with it so a great panel to help us wrestle with these questions tonight and just to start us off to warm us up if you like about what are the issues that we're looking at tonight we've got a fantastic film which has been lent to us by learning through landscapes and it features none other than president emeritus of the wildlife trusts a certain sir david attenborough [Music] natural spaces are essential for human development and well-being and none more so than those we set aside for the use of our children a school playground is a vital space now imagine if you will five extra classrooms being built on this one and then add to that 150 more children this is the nature of the problem facing schools today the hundreds of thousands of additional school places needed to accommodate the growing number of children in this country are putting our school grounds under threat children need to have contact with nature on a daily basis access to open space aids concentration and learning fuels curiosity and feeds their natural sense of exploration but increasingly our children are living in dense urban conurbations with little or no green space for many of them the only contact they get is in their school grounds but the increase in the number of children is putting this contact at risk as the need to build more classrooms on school grounds increases whether they are studying bugs watching tadpoles seeing how plants grow or feeling the changes in the seasons children are learning why nature is important there is no way of getting away from the need to create extra spaces but do we have to take away our children's school grounds there are alternatives we can use unused buildings in the community we can timetable greater use of the school grounds split days and if we have new school buildings how can we ensure that what is left gives the biggest and richest outdoor learning experience if children don't go up knowing about nature and appreciating it they will not understand it and if they don't understand it they won't protect it and if they don't predict it who will [Music] always good to see david at work isn't it anyway let's hear first uh from dr amir khan amir can you tell us just how important is outdoor learning do you think for the health and well-being of young people uh hi craig hi everyone yes i i certainly can outdoor learning is hugely important not just in terms of a learning activity because we know when children spend time outdoors learning it does actually improve their concentration indoors for quite some time after that period that they've been outdoors that's been proven in studies but there are immense health benefits as uh as well so children can be grouped into different categories really from age age ranges to abilities it doesn't matter how you group them but but when you when you put them outdoors uh like i said the concentration level increases they're more likely to be active which will be really good for their weight and cardiovascular health which is something as a doctor i'm really concerned about with young people particularly because of lockdown and time spent on screens um and people with children with learning difficulties actually who who may well spend the least time outdoors stand to benefit the most from from spending time outdoors that's from an emotional point of view from a psychological point of view from a well-being point of view all of these things have been greatly um proven in in studies like like i say uh and actually people with other uh children with other conditions things like uh attention defect deficit hyperactivity disorder adhd autistic spectrum disorder they've all been shown actually when they spend more time outdoors that their symptoms from those conditions particularly adhd does actually improve and their high productivity levels decrease after spending time outdoors as well so the the health benefits are are huge and when they're outdoors of course they'll be connecting with nature uh understanding the benefits of nature uh which will hopefully uh go on uh to form that kind of connection and relationship we want which will foster them to then uh want to conserve it in the future sorry amir what would you think are some of the best examples you've seen of this so like niall i i work in bradford i grew up in bradford uh and um as much as anything you know kids or young people who who um don't have that access to nature who don't uh who who who might live uh in inner city areas particularly socially deprived inner city areas um uh again stand that stand to benefit the most so when i go out to schools and i do go out to schools and i talk about the benefits of nature and we go outdoors you can see that effect quite immediately but i've visited schools as you know in hull uh who have adopted uh an allotment and have started growing vegetables but in an organic way studying the insects that come and visit there and that and that their relationship with nature when i compare that to schools that don't have facilities like that who may not have green spaces uh that they have access to um that the knowledge the relationship with nature the health benefits that those children get are very very apparent compared to the to to those who don't have it one thing i'm really really really keen on is all about access to nature and and i think children from all backgrounds uh from all abilities should be able to access nature equally because there is so much to benefit from it and it's not right that some kids get that benefit and and others don't uh so what i want to see as part of nature in the curriculum is access to nature for all children and amir do you think the realization the understanding of this has grown over the last year during the pandemic or not yeah i think certainly in the first wave of the pandemic you know when it was all new to us when the only thing we could do was get outside uh people really did connect with nature there and children did in a way but children can't articulate it in the same way that adults can i think parents have certainly seen the effects of all this screen time on children's uh concentration on their behavior as well and they've probably noticed what it's like not to be able not just to socially interact at schools but those social interactions that take place outdoors as well which are hugely important in in child development uh and that's all be missing so i think yes i think we have really connected with nature in this pandemic i think we've connected with green spaces more particularly in that first lockdown i think it's important that we hold on to those feelings because already i feel them ebbing away uh slightly as people want to do other things like go back to restaurants and non-nature related activity uh but i i i do think there is more of an appreciation for time spent in nature but the key now is for us to harness that appreciation before it ebbs away great well i mean thank you very much we'll be coming back to you in a little bit but let's go on now to hear from joe brindle who as i said earlier actually set up founded teach the future while studying for his a levels which is pretty impressive isn't it joe tell us about this tell us about setting up teach the future why did you do it and what is it yeah so teach the future it's a campaign pushing for better um climate and environmental education uh it started back in like the end of 2019 and at that point it was just me but um after a bit of work we've grown to about like 60 young volunteers and we've got some student members of staff on our team who are working to campaign that's what i've been doing for the last year during my gap year um so this all kind of started because i was getting close to the end of my time at like kind of like the was it mandatory for my education so when you when you turned um 18 and um i had realized that despite generally good education i've been i've been to a good school and my teachers are really good i've been taught very little about climate change and what i had been taught like often i had to push for and sometimes it wasn't always that like high quality teaching often like outdated resources that weren't really like kind of the up-to-date science and that kind of thing and this was despite the fact that i took uh like biology chemistry and history at a level so all subjects of kind of clear links to environment natural world and climate change yeah really just a small handful of lessons on it and this is this is quite shocking for me because i kind of left education actually knowing very little about climate change i i went on i can't remember i think i watched a aggressive thunder speech and that really inspired me and shocked me because i was like how on earth have i not been told about this how have i not been taught about this it was like a real like real like kind of like shocking and kind of like action-inspiring moment and and that's that's why i started teach the future i think it's really important that the that every young person is taught to understand climate change because we're growing up in a world that's going to be really greatly affected by it and and if we're given a really good understanding of how climate change is going to affect our lives then hopefully we can do as much as we can to try and kind of i guess minimize its effects and adapt to them but also if we talk about how we can contribute to the solutions then i think we'll be able to create a much better more sustainable world through education great job it's incredibly impressive that you were able to do this and uh as i understand it it's also been joined part of students organizing sustainability isn't it that's the wider sort of network do you want to just tell us a little bit more about that yeah so we've got like a huge number of supports and organizations one of those is students organizing sustainability they've kind of been hosting the campaign um so it's a group that it's kind of a sustainability organization that came out of the national union of students um and it's kind of showing how much appetite there is from students to do this um we've i've had both the last two national student presidents have have joined us in our speeches and our events because it's really important to students at university and secondary school that this happens in tc's future we're asking the um every kind of student is taught about climate change not just like in isolated subjects so currently it's taught in optional geography and a little bit in science as i say i took biology and chemistry level wasn't talked much about it what we instead want to see is climate change and sustainability and the environment particularly sustainability as a principle to be key across all of the curriculum across all subject areas so that all students can get a chance to really explore and understand it and understand the kind of really kind of intrinsic links between the natural world and everything else we do and we're hoping that this will mean that whatever kind of job uh whatever kind of you know wherever you live whatever job you do you're still gonna be able to take the things that you've learned from school about natural world and about climate change into your adult lives so that every job can become a green job is the general idea and that needs that can only happen if every subject became the green subject as well if we talk about climate change in all of them you know for example in uh design technology we could learn about sustainable materials in languages we can cover you know talking about environmental issues in english we can look at you know literature from people that have suffered from the effects of climate change and that way it will give us a really good and understanding of climate change and sustainability so we can then go on to kind of contribute to the solutions of fighting those great well joe it's really impressive you've done this and i i have to ask what would you say maybe i've i don't want to sound too much like a job interview but that's i'm fascinated to know what have you uh what have you learned most over this last year of setting that up i mean it must be a huge learning curve and what surprised you yeah i mean i think one of my probably the biggest learning for me is a very general one but young people have a lot of power it's been amazing to see how much we've been able to achieve like in the last year um i've been involved in i mean they had the climate strikes in 2019 which you know immensely powerful and amazing thing to be leading and then we've had the um i mean you know lots of people involved in the black lives matter movement beginning last year we've had um the protests that's the cancellation of the kind of exam grading system all these amazing things that young people have been able to do despite the pandemic and despite all the other things they've got going on despite school and stuff it's been really amazing and honestly my number one learning is just wow young people have an amazing power um if we you know use it well and and that's just been really inspiring to see all the young people just doing amazing things and teach the future and other organizations you've worked with fantastic well i completely agree with that and um i said it before but i'm gonna say it again definitely uh what your generation has been doing these last five years has given me amazing hope and inspiration uh after years of campaigning myself you know actually to see what you've done the last five years or so your generation has been really inspiring and given us all a boost so thank you very much for that we've got great comments coming in uh jen hurst has said let's have more youth voice and real decision making in all our organizations jen i completely agree uh you'll be pleased to know that many of uh local wildlife trusts have now got used representatives on their boards and many more plan to and we're looking at that nationally as well but it's an incredibly important thing to do and you know as joe was saying young people do have power and i think they should have more power as well so let's let's make sure we do that dawn preston has said this is the vital point oh i wonder what point she was making what that was on access to good quality green space for all is critically important absolutely well we're going to go here shortly from bobby benjamin ward from one from london wildlife trust but first of all let's see a video from bobby from london wildlife trust about the amazing project keeping it [Music] wild [Music] my favorite wild place in london is would be wetlands because it's hidden in the heart of manhattan house than you can emphasize i think young people should get involved in keeping it wild because it means they can have an impact on their local area important for young people to be taking the lead alongside the adults for the environment it's a great way to meet like-minded people share some ideas learn some new things the keeping of our project is unique because it brings people together from all different types of backgrounds the environment doesn't just belong to one person it belongs to everybody and therefore everyone should get in and say how to protect it [Music] well isn't that inspiring fantastic to see that project from london wildlife trust so now let's meet bobby benjamin wand bobby it just looks like an amazing project it really was um um i work for a london wildlife trust and it's the only charity that is solely focused on protecting london's wildlife and currently i'm the project assistant for keeping it wild which is an ambitious project that aims to connect young londoners to the natural world on their doorstep so i'm going to tell you a bit about the keeping it world project my journey on the project and also my experience um in delivering informal education and formal education to young people um age 11 to 25 and young children so since autumn of 2018 london wildlife trust has delivered keeping it wild which is a youth engagement project supported by grant funding from the national heritage lottery fund's kick the death programme and this aims to test different ways of making heritage more accessible to young people over the three years we aim to engage 600 young people aged 11 to 25 to become actively involved in the protection and promotion of london's nature and green spaces and the project focuses on young people who are typically underrepresented and underserved in the environmental sector and so these are these include young people from areas of social economic deprivation young people from black asian and minority ethnic backgrounds and people with disabilities keeping it wild has sought to increase diversity and inclusion amongst young people engaging with nature through a range of opportunities including hands-on conservation taster days skills development programs social action projects with mini grant schemes and also paid traineeships which i was involved in and a young people's forum which i was also involved in and so my experience on the project was from january 2020 to april of 2020 i was a full-time patron for three months and this was an amazing experience as i learned about species and habitats in a city i'd grown up in but i knew very little about and from the traineeship i feel like a whole new wildlife world has opened up to me and after my traineeship um ended i joined the young people's forums so that was from april of 2020 to august of 2020 and this was a group of 15 to 20 young people that would make throughout the year training and sharing ideas to help and shape the keeping of our project and then after that in september i began my full-time role as a keeping world product assistant and this is my first ever career focused job so during this time i've gained experience in many different areas um including online project delivery to young people age 11 to 25 and work workshop facilitation and during my time as a trainee and project assistant the importance of environmental education for children and young people has been made apparent to me continuously in regards to formal education i had the privilege of assisting and needing sessions with children aged five to six years of age as a trainee and these school sessions are so important in connecting young people from all backgrounds to wildlife and are especially important in giving some of these children their first experiences in nature the young children i work with really enjoyed exploring the nature reserves and discovering wildlife as well as answering questions around topics they've done in the classroom and it was really lovely seeing the sense of wonderment from both children and the teachers i also discovered um informal education for young people was so beneficial and here are some examples that i found and while doing my work to find that young people had an improvement in mental health and well-being during our world action program evening sessions over six weeks young people given mindfulness tasks to complete um each week and they will come back surprised at how certain time in nature can make them feel relaxed and less anxious these sessions also offered a safe space for the young people to learn in a relaxed way and to socialize with other young people and which many had said have really helped them through the challenging look down period young people have gained a range of skills so youth groups that receive funding to create their social action projects which are environmentally focused and made some really amazing and creative campaigns that have not only benefited but improved young people skills in creativity project management ecology and leadership and young people also possess a real sense of um accomplishment so during practical conservation sessions with young people we found that they feel a real sense of achievement by seeing the positive impact they've made um on the environment and something which is really important for nurturing and building confidence in the amazing people of today that's absolutely fantastic it's just such a brilliant project i've got to ask you the same question what what would you say surprised you most over over that period of time more indeed what was the biggest learning for you personally i think how much nature was in london because i come from london i was born here um and i didn't know about london wildlife trust sites i didn't know half of the species that were actually in london i didn't realize how which and diverse and the wildlife was on my doorstep yeah there's so much to discover isn't there when you get into it and uh actually london is an extraordinary city for wildlife you know when you sort of lift the veil on that and i think a lot of my life trusting a great job in in revealing that so it's a really inspiring project so uh thanks so much bobby and thanks so much for all the comments coming in from you tonight we've had uh pru reynolds who's saying sustainability across the world would bring in a much broader global curriculum and in all the inequalities that exist uh cat woolies said about keeping it wild you'll be pleased to know uh bobby love it need more of these projects absolutely why people are loving it out there thanks so much keep the comments uh coming in so let's hear now from niall o'brien who's a teacher at the academy at ofcent james in bradford who's part of the world of trust nature friendly schools project and now tell us about your work and talk about how you're integrating outdoor learning into your own school yeah so um i think first of all it's important to uh say that it's it's great to listen and listening to doc tommy obviously being from bradford as well and and talking about the importance of learning outside the classroom with teams that we're definitely on the right track in terms of the the things he's mentioned you know what's what should be a priority for our young people i think at our school first of all we've we've got an excellent offer well i personally think it's excellent we dedicate a huge amount of time to forest schools and we have sort of five hours a week dedicated to it so that sort of five identified group so again we'll look at our most vulnerable children we'll look at our children that we feel will benefit the most obviously we want all our children to access our outdoor space but fundamentally we're using our outdoor learning to you know to support those children that need it the most whether that be communication social skills you know just self-regulating in terms of behavior and and more importantly self-esteem and confidence um you know that's absolutely vital for the pupils in our community within bradford a couple of things i'd like to mention that we were also incredibly proud of we've got a fantastic link with the parent volunteer who has um built us by hand an outdoor classroom which is situated by our nature reserve that's on site it's been great to obviously link with nature friendly schools because we're able to tap into environmental scientists and lots of support to kind of look at developing that area but as i say the parent who has um created this incredible space it's almost finished we're actually after somebody to open it so i think there could be someone on the panel this evening that might open it for us um but yeah next to our nature reserve and our outdoor classroom we've got um we've got a brand new just recently installed fire pit reading area so we're hoping to bring more more groups outside um to enjoy our space we've got a lovely site we're very fortunate obviously we're still in the middle of bradford but we have an area um pity back and the wetlands just beyond our school um i've never been so excited to install a gate in our school which gives us uh direct access to beck and wetland so we can uh go and go and enjoy the new newly developed space down there we've very lucky again to have incredible wildlife our children the deer you know very sort of native british birds um invested in some binoculars through nature friendly schools and again i out i was so surprised you know that the children absolutely adore using binoculars and it's something that we've embedded into our physical active enrichment offer which is something that i think kind of sets our school apart um we dedicate a whole school approach on friday afternoon every single class um is outside and most of the activities are you know within nature itself we have um a nature walk on the school site nature photography as i say within our forest school session we offer them building fire lighting school use and picture orienteering on the site it's a it's a fantastic offer we've recently had bbt coming to to have a look at that and um it was just wonderful to see our children responding to a well um outside and just enjoying our space and i think something else that really important to mention and it was difficult kind of covered but just before we thought not only do we want to sort of enjoy our own um green space it's important that our children get to you know explore and experience our local green spaces as i said before we're incredibly fortunate it's fortunate in terms of where we're situated and you know hopefully our trust will shortly let us back out on our mini bus so we get grouped weekly out to our our local green space just for our students and i really appreciate those areas that they might not get the opportunity to visit with their family um yeah so i think when i look at our work with nature friendly schools it's just amazing to be able to tap into expertise and support because as a school i'm just one individual that's trying to obviously encourage the rest of our members of staff to to take the learning outside and and we're slowly but surely developing an offer that's as i say something to be proud of and i can see that we've got key stage leaders both in key stage one and key stage two are taking their learning outdoors and hopefully the gates that we've just installed down to our beautiful green space at pitty back that will just be a catalyst to hopefully inspire our teachers to take you know whatever subject that may be whether it be geography or science or all the core subjects it's just something i'm looking forward to uh seeing sort of flourishing in the coming months great niall thank you very much she just sounds amazing i love your lovely description of that gate it sounds so enticing it really does uh can you tell us a little bit more but in a very practical sense how being part of a project like nature friendly schools has it helped you as a teacher sort of build the confidence and skills needed to deliver outdoor learning yeah i think it's important i've not mentioned that we've um within the the project nature friendly schools we've been able to access um lots of amazing training through young minds so looking at academic resilience looking at taking the curriculum outside and sometimes it's difficult as one individual to sort of change the culture i guess in a school but we've been able to you know allow many different members of staff to access this training i think when you get somebody who touches myself that's actually in it that's just one person but we've got we've had teachers accessing the training with our mentors accessing training i think that's been huge because our mentors over obviously their full responsibility in school is looking at the mental health and well-being of our pupils so being able to draw them in and it's almost uh spreading the message and sort of a ripple effect across our staffing team and uh yeah i think that that's been important alongside the more practical nature um it's interesting because we've just recently sort of started to develop a loose past play area now this is very much kind of i would say an early years approach um yeah most of it is natural material or or things that we've managed to again engage parents and parents have donated items such as tires and crates and ropes and but it's been really really interesting to see that our pcs two people you know that are almost ready for high school are engaging and immersing themselves in outdoor play in our natural space at the same level as you know children in the early years so that that's been something that's uh kind of part of my eye and we're looking to develop further and get more support through nature friendly schools great okay and let me ask you this why would you say why is outdoor learning not more widely available despite the clear benefits would you say and then i'll sort of come to emir and ask him the same thing you know because i knew i know me has got to go before too long but i'd love to know first of all for you now what what why does it feel like it's not more widely available despite the clear benefits i believe it's it's probably confidence of staff and i think you can go back to initial teacher training um i've obviously listened to colleagues so far and you know there are elements that i missed out and i think certainly confidence competence and i think it boils down to boils down to risk you know cut teachers support staff may not be confident to you know allow children to explore and you know be in a situation where there is risk but you know it's probably my job and you know other advocates to sort of engage those people who are unsure and you know it's that risk benefit analysis how much benefit are our children getting in comparison to the risk so i would definitely say it's training and confidence right well i have to tell you um emma in london has said lucky children at your school niall it sounds like a wonderful place to grow up so uh people are loving this hearing about your description there emir what is your sense of it why you know it's it seems like such a no-brainer doesn't it it just seems ridiculous that we're even having to sort of discuss this tonight and so on what do you think of being the big blocks here what why is this a bigger thing yeah well first of all i'd like to say nile you're making me proud to be for bradford that stuff sounds amazing i'd love to come visit uh i'm just round the corner from you so we've got to make it happen um now i think traditionally all of this nature friendly schools is so so important but traditionally this is all new stuff in the curriculum and these schools you know the schools have been there for quite some time a lot of the buildings have been in their situations for quite some time and nature wasn't incorporated into the curriculum when these schools were built so a lot of them won't have green spaces around them certainly i have a school uh just opposite the surgery i work at and there is no green space there's a main road and there's a paved playground that is it uh and for for we know now that nature is really beneficial to learning but but it wasn't really thought about back then uh when these schools were put together and now getting children to green spaces particularly inner city children if it's not via buses and cars teachers do have to walk them there themselves and now we'll know more about this than me but that can be quite hazardous and like i said there's there's risks involved to taking large groups of children out on foot crossing main roads and that kind of thing uh so it's almost like an afterthought once everything was put in place and then we go actually now we know green spaces work for education if they work for health how are we going to kind of shoehorn that in so what and this goes back to what i was saying before really we need to bring these green spaces to the schools to the inner city areas so these children don't have to travel to get anywhere uh uh where that involves a green space i think that's that's really boring that magic gate that nile's talking about there i think every school should have one it does sound absolutely amazing suzanne the comments are really coming in thick and fast now thank you very much suzanne says of your school how you're how wonderfully inspiring however it demonstrates that too often it's down to an individual teacher who might have an interest in wildlife rather than education policy in place josie fitz says i think if you uh learned indoors and have been taught to be a teacher indoors it takes a lot of confidence to bring your teaching outdoors dawn preston says wonderful to hear more children and young people being given the opportunity space and time to play and then gemma goldenberg i'll put this to you emir this work is more important than ever post-covered do you agree yeah yeah so important uh so important so so um nature being outdoors in nature you know what we've known about through koved is how underlying health conditions obesity uh affect your ability to survive certain things and kobe being one of them when people spend more time outdoors their risk of type 2 diabetes cardiovascular disease high blood pressure even things like alzheimer's dementia all of this goes down and that's simply just from spending time outdoors being active outdoors engaging in activities and engaging your brain with outdoor uh activities so it's a it it's a bit of a public it's a no-brainer really we've got to get people out there uh improve their health uh which will have long-term benefits and you know we can talk about the pandemic as much and that the way it started in our relationship with nature in that regard as well but you know we have got to improve all of that because that highlights how uh a poor relationship uh with nature can lead to untold health hazards you know we've just lived through it we're still living through a year of it uh and and so everything goes full circle it all links back to a good relationship with nature good health for us good health outcomes for us and eventually that will uh make us uh humans are very very selfish aren't they things benefit us that's where we'll help it and nature benefits us uh and so we've got to help it and that's why we want these young people to engage in and um what's been the reaction of parents niall i'm i'm just interested to hear that i mean is it has it been wholly supportive or sometimes have been somewhat a bit questioning you're not not quite sure no i think that we're quite um quite busy on twitter um and and we have another social media platform just for parents which is class dojo and every time we celebrate anything in the outdoors it gets a lot of traffic and again i think any time we're kind of after some donations or talking about our plans going forward particularly with the the outdoor classroom so many parents were eager to to join in to obviously support they couldn't do to covered which was a real chain but um otherwise there will be further opportunities in the future because that's what we want we want our school to be a beacon of you know good practice in the outdoors we want to share our fertility we want it to be um you know a community site so it can be used in the school holidays it can be used in the evening it's not just for our pupils we want families to be able to access it as well and we feel like we're well on our way to that great okay well uh i am i know you've got to go very soon so uh because you got a consultation with a patient um but i just asked you a final question because i i'm sure boris johnson and gavin williamson are watching tonight they always tune into wildlife and um so what how would you sum it up what would be the message you would pass to the prime minister and the secretary of state for education at this precise moment or you're mute sigma think i'd have learned this by now right so what i would say to uh to gavin williamson is is forest schools there's so much evidence behind it learning in nature there's so much evidence uh behind it and our children deserve that every child in the uk deserves access to green spaces not just uh for social activities but for education as well and and what i would say to boris johnson is and i i'll try not to be too controversial what i will say to boris johnson is um you know we have read all the recommendations we have read all the evidence what we need is action now you know having report after report after report recommendation after recommendation after recommendation we've had enough of that we know what the evidence is we need action great thank you well um we're trying to tweet that clip of you saying that to him in the next few days uh i know you've got to go thank you so much for joining us tonight we really appreciate it and as ever we really appreciate you being ambassador for the wildlife trust thanks oh it's my pleasure completely thanks guys see you take care so uh let's move it on and uh we've got a fantastic video now featuring charlotte willoughby a teacher at um woodson infant school uh in guildford really talking us through how taking how to take learning beyond the classroom and her experiences of doing that hi my name's charlotte willoughby i'm deputy head and full-time teacher at wood street infant school in guildford in surrey i've been teaching for well over 10 years now and in all honesty i could not imagine doing my job without teaching outside outdoor learning is a huge part of our curriculum at wood street it's been something that we've worked on really hard over the last five years it's part of our everyday practice as well as an enrichment for our curriculum we go outside as much as we can we offer woodland school sessions we have bespoke outdoor areas for both our early years and our key stage one classrooms and in all honesty we do as much as we can out in our local environment and in our school grounds we regularly go off-site to our local woodland area all children have access to an outdoor space where they can play make explore and get muddy we also value practical skills such as woodwork which we do outside for us at wood street getting outside means getting in touch with nature exploring having fun taking risks working together there are so many benefits and in light of covert being outside in nature in the environment it's a safe place to be and it's something that i think we probably took for granted although our school grounds are concrete we've found ways to grow we care for and harvest from our school garden and use it to cook in our kitchen so much of our curriculum can be covered by teaching outside exploring and playing the way that children learn their best so i could not advocate outdoor learning anymore isn't that yet another inspiring video about just what can be done in this area when we put our minds to it and as i said as i keep saying all night you know it just seems so obvious that we need to be doing this but let's hear now from fiona groves who's education and learning policy manager at the wildlife trusts and fiona tell us a bit more about the work the wildlife trust does in this area and of course also what are the policy asks we're asking the government for here okay thank you craig i think firstly i just want to build on something that that's been mentioned all the way through which is about sort of developing skills and confidence and i started my career as an education ranger in sherwood forest at the right old age of 23 and uh what i discovered on my my second day at work is that having a biology degree was actually no good at all and i needed more skills i needed know-how in sort of making connections with the natural world i needed to know how to bring in really big concepts um to small details and i just wanted to pick that up because um at the wildliterals we work across the uk we've got 46 wildlife trusts and every day our staff and our experts are engaging with children and young people doing many many different things and i wish i'd had access to some of that know-how at that ripehold age of 23 myself so over over the trusts as well as the projects like nature friendly schools we have got other programs we've got a massive youth program called our bright future which is engaging uh young people of 18 to 24 year olds in getting more say if you like but we've also got things like care farms we've got um observe observatories on reserves where children and young people can go and watch beetles and bees and birds we're working with refugees in deprived areas we've got beach schools we've got forest schools we've got so much happening over the uk um and so the expertise is there and i think one of the things that we know is that schools and some teachers and children and young people find it difficult to access some of these things if they haven't got the right confidence they've not got the right skills and they don't actually know how to to access so i was pleased when um charlotte um said in the film about this is a way to cope with recovery because i agree that nature recovery and covered recovery could now go hand in hand and it's what we're looking for at the wildlife just really a fundamental um shift if you like in our education so that children young people and adults as well can uh if you like have a natural learning journey that can occur at any age or any stage so as well as so learning in nature outdoor learning um learning about nature is really really important and we want to see that to be commonplace in curricula integrated and across every and stage and we also want to see learning through nature to be much more accessible so on the doorstep where we live where we work and when we play so our big asks really for for education is around this integration so that we can give everybody the skills that they need and when we say everybody do mean teachers but also the young people and also governors school leaders parents and carers so that we can really get this whole school whole education uh approach and we can't do it on our own either so to get action for nature in the way that we want um we actually do need to work in collaboration with with communities uh around around our countries and we need more than anything a government to recognize the importance of this being integrated so that the things we want to see i think we've got a a great opportunity at the moment so rather than returning to school with coats on with the windows open to get that safe ventilation for kobe why don't we just start right now and take all all lessons outdoors as much as possible great fiona thank you very much um but what about money let me ask you about that what about the funding for this i mean how how good has the funding been today is it what's required is new funding required to enable this to happen and what sort of scale are we looking at so it's a really good question craig um there's been a lot of mention of major family schools one of our one of our projects but it is a time-bound thunder project and this is one of one of the challenges really is how we get that thread through over time for being in learning about our natural world and also having access to those spaces and places how do we get that over time when programs and projects are only two three or five years long um and often those are funded by uh other agencies so the findings and learnings from nature-friendly schools are going to be absolutely vital because it has had some core funding it's not a lot to see the massive impacts as knowledge as shown and could get us out quite easily um but it does need governments and i say governments because we're talking about uk governments uh they need to take this more seriously and put the funding in so that we can have long-term change so that nature can benefit but also education can work and benefit along with it so when you say governments then you mean in the different developed parts of the uk as well so yeah yeah so the uk government but also the welsh scottish northern ireland yeah yeah and and actually um track record in some of the dubai governments uh scotland wales in particular have been a little bit more supportive in integrating some um even if it's just guidance you know they were really early uh last year to come out with guidance for early years getting outside uh in scotland in particular so um i think if some of those governments could work together as well and really look at how this is sort of key to get it integrated in our curricula in our education settings and right across the board well when you're saying on the funding thing there then it needs to be i mean obviously it needs to be scaled up but you just want to end the stop startup nature of it really to move beyond project to make it make it core yeah okay great joe um in the work you did uh with teach the future where did you kind of get to in terms of your policy asks what would you say are the big things that you think after looking at it you think are needed to to scale up outdoor learning yeah that's a good question so obviously a diff is a bit between each nation in the uk because education has devolved but generally what we need is the introduction of a new a new new act a climate a climate emergency education act is what we're calling it that would make sure or make it essential that climate change is talked about in every education institution and that means primary schools secondary schools climate change and nature i should say primary schools secondary schools universities colleges everything but then importantly to enable that to happen we need to make sure that teachers are being trained on climate change and sustainability and environment we did some recent research and it found that um 70 of teachers say they feel they haven't received adequate training to teach on climate change so like almost three quarters of teachers haven't received enough training on it um and 41 of teachers say climate change is rarely or never mentioned in their schools which is really really shocking there's a huge huge issue which is really really important needs to be talked about and talks about much much more so we need to make sure teachers are trained um we also need to change i think um i kind of like vocational courses uh courses that kind of train you up for jobs to make sure the skills you're being given are green skills skills that can help us make the world more sustainable um rather than skills which are continuing to kind of perpetuate unsustainability and finally we need to transform our school buildings and school environments so that they are carbon uh neutral um and amazing biodiverse places um which can be used for students to really explore nature within their schools and around their schools um i mean like a lot of schools are getting solar panels in their rooms it's a great first step but we need to be doing seeing so much more and i think the big issue of government funding there yeah absolutely okay but and um bobby let me come back to you marina rob has said uh of you amazing young woman after you're speaking you'll be delighted to know bobby uh and i want to put a question to you uh from finley hutchinson says as a young person who's in year 12 i see daily how disconnected children are to nature a lot of that i believe is down to it being uncool how can we remove this negative stigma associated with nature what do you reckon bobby so um a lot of keeping it wild and a lot of the project is working with kind of like media and journalism and i actually did like an ocn accreditation in media journalism with a focus on the environment and it was really amazing because i feel like young people are very kind of consumed by social media and their phones and they're quite creative and it was a kind of amalgamation of the environment and using your creativity to kind of spread the word um so we've as as like keeping it wild we've tried to um kind of like steer the communications of london wildlife trust to try and engage a lot more a lot um a lot more of a diverse and younger kind of audience and showing young people kind of like yourself actually going out exploring nature and getting involved in conservation it is really fun and can be cool great uh we had a comment from claire skidmore says i recently moved to sheffield hope to find a local nature club for my seven-year-old outside school however i haven't found anything i would volunteer to run something but not sure how so claire let me say i i think you should give um give sheffield and rotherham wildlife chance to shout i'm sure they'll be delighted to reach out to you and and see how they can help so sheffield and washroom wildlife trust uh look at their website see uh what they might be able to do to help i'm sure they'd love to hear from you chris tolson has said uh we have been working with nature friendly schools for a year and learning outdoors is having a huge impact on our children every day i'm really proud of the work niall is doing so there's a lot of love for the panel coming in here tonight which is absolutely wonderful uh question for you fiona uh chris hammersley says our wildlife trust reserves making spaces for schools to use as classrooms and we have i'll give you my favorite statistic that i give every wildlife the wildlife trust we have more nature reserves than mcdonald's house restaurants in the uk a thousand more so i've got to get that out fiona so are we using our wildlife trust reserves to make spaces for schools to use as classrooms yeah i think we do have education activities going on at many many of our reserves some some trusts have dedicated buildings classrooms that are a springboard if you like for going out into the reserves and some trusts actually deliver um programs and activities in smaller reserves some that aren't openly accessible to all the public and whether that's near schools or in communities but the other thing to say is a lot of our staff are also delivering if you like in community settings and they're delivering on behalf of the local authority if you like on some programmes in targeted places so yeah our staff are everywhere helping with that and obviously some schools and some teachers are taking their own classes and doing what they can on those reserves that are open as well so yeah a real really big mixed picture and i've just been absolutely in awe of the range and scope of activity that goes on at nature reserves and wildlife just across the country it's just uh phenomenal really great fiona thank you niall there's a whole plethora of questions for you you'll be delighted to know um reynolds has asked are you able to get the parents involved as well and monitor the impact on their mental well-being and while you're at it how about this question from roberta in italy did you notice any positive effects on teachers as well as on children niall yeah first of all in terms of parents um just before i arrived at the school um down by the our nature reserve and we had parent volunteers and they were more than happy to come down and move the timbers in they started to build our raised beds uh planters um a ramp down into the nature reserve and some steps obviously um since then that's kind of come to our halt um what was the second question sorry uh and have you noticed any positive effects on the on mental health of teachers and uh you know how you felt you and other teachers have felt this and indeed uh perhaps parents if parents are getting involved do you think it sort of helps their well-being as well yeah certainly in terms of teachers um as i say our offer is pretty significant in terms of time spent outside whether that be physical education our active enrichment or our forest school work um i think obviously some of our pupils were off for such a long time and as we're members of staff so i think coming back to school probably in lockdown too my memory serves me well um i think our support staff and our teachers were inspired to be outside and i think that was largely based on the reaction of our children because they are a resilient bunch children all over the country don't quite think we give them the credit sometimes um or to see them outside in our green space um enjoying being physically active enjoying nature i think that was inspiring to teach us as well and they've certainly bought into our enrichment offer i'm pretty confident that if we were allowed to invite parents to our active enrichment of offer i i think we'd get um quite an influx yeah absolutely loads more comments coming in little alice said it's absolute travesty that children aren't being taught about climate and nature crisis gemma goldenberger says we save more money doing this due to reduced need for mental health support in future and it's an investment and um uh josie fitz has a big push in scotland for outdoor play and learning especially in the early years so let me throw a question to all of you sort of on the panel here i mean what where do you think we should start what would be the most again if um as you know but i'm sure boris johnson and gavin williamson are watching so what would you say where to start in this issue how to what's the most important first thing to really get cracking i'll jump in then charlotte go on joe um okay from a bit of a climate perspective for me cop 26 is at the end of this year or probably at the end of this year it's a really good opportunity to show the great show other countries you know what important climate policy can look like show them what what they'll be doing if the government right now announced it was going to review the way it teaches about climate change and nature and the way that our schools work in relation to climate change and nature the moon have a great opportunity to not just change our schools but also change schools across the whole world there are a great campaign to work on as an international level that's really really really important so hopefully we'll see some better commitments from the government in next year and that will have a knock-on effect across the world so you're giving them what five six months warning to to make that announcement yeah yeah yeah absolutely sounds good sounds good to me and of course the biodiversity cop the uh that was going to happen in china in may has also now been moved to october it's still at the moment it's still planned to happen in china we'll see but that's the un biodiversity summit as well so we've got that in october and we've got the climate summit at the moment scheduled to happen in november it's possible both of those might move again just a report on that today but at the moment that's happening in october the biodiversity one climate one here in the uk in glasgow in november so just as joe says great opportunity uh for the for the all the governments in the uk to step up their commitment to outdoor learning and uh making sure that our education is is right for teaching around climate change and ecological crises ahead of october and november um what about the rest of you where would you all start bobby let me come to you so i'm going to come from it from a project angle because that's what um my experience is in so i would say more funding for the projects and specifically funding so that the projects can last longer than as um joanna said like one two three years sorry that's my dog in the background um one two or three years um because i think it takes you all of those years to actually find the communities that you want to work in build up that relationship with those young people with the people that you want to educate and by the time that the project is ended and that's when you're only beginning to see the actual like beneficial results from your project so only now like in keeping it wild after the two three year mark we can um kind of get feedback from our participants and then change the project accordingly so it's uh as beneficial to them as possible so i would say yeah definitely longer um funding periods niall what's your sense of this what would you what would be the sort of big push to give to really take it to the next level yeah i think on the back of what bob was saying there it is about funding and i think about um the nature premium that i've come across um on social media channels and i think fence funding similar in respect of the physical education premium where there would be key indicators that the funding would have to be spent in line with and obviously that would be completely ring fenced and schools had just would have to spend it directly um on developing outdoor learning education around the nature that would be i think a reasonable request yeah well there's a lot of comments coming in tonight about funding we've got schools recycled devon has said we've lost funding in devon over the years our council environmental education program comes out of the waste budget and we do a lot with very little money but all the same isn't it kind of crazy that it has to come out the waste budget mike winstanley has said it's surely essential that nature friendly schools continues in order to produce the necessary evidence and best practice to encourage schools and decision makers to integrate nature-based learning well mike i would completely agree we've got funding for the next year for nature friendly schools but it's uncertain after that so if she soon asks this thing you might want to think about how he can fund the world i've tried to do future years of nature friendly schools as well it's very good return on your back wishy honestly i promise you uh so fiona what about you how would you take it up to the next level uh can i have two things yes so uh my first would be is what we can do right now so the government's talking about uh covered recovery and again scottish governments welsh governments northern irish governments we're all looking at how we recover from this so why not combine it with learning more about our natural world and particularly if we're looking at captured lessons and funding for catch-up lessons over summer use getting outside and learning about nature to do that even if you're doing maths even if you're doing english do it outside and use that catch-up funding to do that and i'd like to see the government coming out with really strong messages and support around this because they're very patchy at the moment and i think to me one of the biggest things we can do is um get government to be more serious about teach training and teach training has become so fragmented over the over the years at one point it used to be easy to enter into and get messages into um all teachers but we've we've got new regional hubs being set up 81 of them and i think now it's a really good time to look at where we can put in learning teaching about our natural world and about climate and our young people's future where we can put that in and i would say for both those things let young people participate more please they're more than capable in fact they're more more capable than than many of us please let them have the the ways to participate properly um to help in these decisions any reviews any decisions that are made please draw in young people with with their know-how yeah absolutely well on that theme charlotte alton has said please can we see joe and bobby at cop 26. uh absolutely i know just no one's calling for myself or niall or fiona to be a cop 26 that it was fine absolutely fine um okay also just imagine we talked a lot about funding here but imagine if funding wasn't a problem if something we we could scale up the funding what would be your biggest problem after that i mean you know we've talked about how this is a no-brainer it's got to happen it's absolutely obvious it's the right thing to be doing funding is the first obvious problem but actually you know as practitioners as people that have studied this closely what are the biggest challenges beyond funding to really take it uh to really get it going i mean no what would you be say your experience that that would be again i think we've implemented something kind of similar um in terms of the school development plan i'm very lucky we've got an incredibly supportive senior leadership team and a non-negotiable around physical activity um has been implemented into that school development plan so every teacher is expected to take their child out at least once a week from active learning so obviously by and large that will be out in nature but i think if all the schools were to adopt a similar approach and it's not like not in terms of like a threatening fashion it's like you know this is an expectation alongside other subjects that you're teaching we want to see you know at least one less if not more obviously but one lesson a week dedicated to uh learning outside the classroom and obviously we can we can build from there i think one lesson a week would be fantastic that there may be clutches that are already doing more than that but you know for those members of staff that are a little bit more sensitive that that would be something i'd suggest yeah lucy lyla said something similar nylon that said my children were turned to school only to do weeks of tests no recovery curriculum or use of outdoor space their school has so as you say just get it get it in there into the into the routine uh bobby what would you say would be the biggest sort of challenges after funding i'm gonna have to say maybe trying changing people's mindsets towards how they see wildlife and how beneficial it is to them i think um maybe a lot of parents and young people don't actually realize how amazing it is to spend time outdoors how good it can be if your mental health your well-being for your physical health um and i feel like when we kind of overcome those barriers it will become less separate and more integrated in actual life and just becomes a norm yeah absolutely uh joe fiona what would you say after funding if we could wave a magic wand on funding is no longer challenge yeah from from my point of view about getting climate change taught more in schools um i think there's obviously the issue with um teachers or like you know what teachers able to do so there's like a lack of a lack of knowledge currently or like training currently which needs to be fixed but also the fact that the teachers have a lot on their plates so might have the time to figure out how the climate change sustainability environment can fit into their own subjects my mum's a teacher i know she's very very busy all of the time so there needs to be a really good support from the government not just financially but also in the resources they give and the great training they give we teach the future we're asking for the creation of a national climate information institute that could kind of give out a bit you know amazing team of scientists and educators who work together to create amazing resources and information that teachers and other groups can use to better understand climate change in the environment i think that'll be really key to making sure that learnings are up to date and that kind of thing so that that'll be an important next step as well fiona i like that idea what joe said no for me oh if money wasn't a barrier um i think we could do a lot around giving parents carers and young people skills and do more around where people actually live work and play so again create nature spaces on people's doorsteps create the corridors between your walk from home to school have more green space in school because i think once that environment is around you the access would happen naturally um and i know here in the wildlife trust we we talk about a nature recovery network so i would like to see that nature recovery network extended to include communities of people parents carers governors schools communities community organizations youth organizations coming together in local spaces and places and just in improving their locality and getting more nature in there and doing it all in a green way of course and blue way and in that way maybe it becomes a community recovery network as well alison mcintosh has said we do need a policy shift in education to embed climate literacy as a mandatory national curriculum subject preferably embedded in all subjects or standalone then watch the funding flow what about this what do you all think about this debate about to what extent teaching and education around the climate ecological emergency to what extent should it be stand alone and to what extent integrated across all subjects but you know it's pros and cons either way niall i think i understand what you mean by by pros and cons i think that you know everything that we try to do at our school is very much cross-curricular that that's the theme that's the way our children seem to learn the best and develop the knowledge bet so for me i would i would personally go across curricular theme obviously it lends itself very well to kind of science and geography um quite lucky our science and geography leads uh are really really good at what they do and i i think that there'll be a discussion that i could be having um i'm not sure they'll appreciate it but i'll um certainly be uh looking to see how we could implement that at our school but that would work for uh our school our community i would say great joe bobby particularly interested your thoughts on this is to what extent in integrated or across all subjects or i'm quite strongly on the all subjects um point of view so like currently the way climate change is taught is it's pretty much just in geography and the problem with that is it's an optional subject um past like year 9 or something um and it means that not everyone is talk about climate change but those that do also perceive it as just a geographer's issue and they understand it relates to all of them i know it seems a bit stupid but the way like our subjects often like kind of framed in school is that like each subject is kind of preparing you for a different job area in a way um and and and particularly comes the optional subjects that you pick at gcse or a level because it's kind of steep that's what you're going to go to then study at a level and that's what you're going to do your job of it so you so people start thinking oh climate change only matters to people that are going to go and you know work in climate change remember in reality you can't change an environment matter to all of us and that's a bit of a problem with the idea of like a stand-alone climate literacy subject or a standalone natural history gcse i think those kind of can increasingly picture the idea that climate change is like a separate silo but actually the way we understand it the way it relates to a world it's actually it's embedded for everything you know the the difficult thing about climate change to understand is that it's actually a threat multiplier it it makes existing threats worse it kind of it sits on top of things that are already happening and that's much kind of be similar to how we teach about it too and said it like in and around other subjects so that people can really understand how it relates to the different parts of them also different people learn in different ways some people learn through reading stories some people learn through you know maths and science but having climate change or the environment in just one of those means that those are people that learn in different ways miss out on them so i think it's really important it is cross-curricular thanks joe well i'm a proud geographer myself still consider myself as that i normally think geography is the answer to everything but i actually uh you know i very much agree with you on this i think it has to be integrated uh bobby what's your sense of this well that was an amazing answer joe and i've got to agree with joe that it should be integrated um i can't i can't remember me personally if i actually learned about climate change when i was at school i didn't do geography and i can't remember if i did um but i always remember something that my philosophy teacher told me and that was that everything um related to everything like not every subject was its standalone subject they all relate to each other in some kind of way and i think that's the way that we should approach um climate change as well integrate it to all of the subjects because it is relevant to everything as well that we live in um and it should be approached that way so if you so many of you in the chat are agreeing here you've got little algae harrison mcintosh catholic and also yes it needs to be integrated across the piece but of course that uh that makes it even more of a challenge around teacher training doesn't it fairness like you know actually we're talking here that this has to be covered in in all teacher training not just for geographers yeah now i agree and i think certainly my experience of doing this outside with groups um i think i was fortunate to be um doing it at a time when we we had really fantastic leads in local authorities so we had arts leads we had environmental education leads and actually would work with those leads in authorities to help develop the teacher training that was was sort of deemed as universal and also built into cpd with whole school school uh teams as well so there is a way to do that with school teams and integrate it in that way but i agree that you know to integrate right from um sort of early years right through to sort of tertiary education to find a thread which is learning about our natural world and to find that thread and where it where the hooks are in every subject would be fantastic and also creating time in the curriculum to allow that to happen at primary school level it can be a little bit easier and we can ask for those things we ask at the moment for at least an hour outside every day and that can be easier but secondary curriculum is is a bit more of a challenge but other countries are looking at some solutions and an example of one is to give um students 20 of their own time to follow something they want to follow which is learning about climate our planet the natural world and i think i'd be interested in looking at that and sort of giving it a sort of learner-led approach as well um and i think the other thing is um about specific topics and i know there's been a lot of conversation about the natural history gcse we actually support the natural history gcse at the wild nitrous we don't see it as the only thing that should be happening but it came from a naturalist mary cowell it had the most phenomenal response that almost any gcse has seen so that over 2 000 respondents uh 200 of those were young people and it shows us a real interest in that um that that proposal that consultation was done by the examining board acr and they've actually sent the proposal to department for education at the moment and this we're waiting to hear whether there'll be a wider consultation and the reason that um we think it's so important um as well is one it brings it does bring the teaching of natural history our natural world and climb it into one place and to joe's point about whether it's science or humanities and art and the way you might deliver that again it's not going to be a science and it's not going to be an art subject or a humanities subject it aims to bring things together in a very holistic way and i think the key stage where you have a gcse is so important it's really vital we already know from research that at the age of about 14 there's a real drop off in nature connection with teenagers obviously they're finding many more things to do at that particular age but if you were to have a dedicated subject to that age i think it would make teenagers actually think about the natural world with it being a subject and also i i do think you know as part of the teaching of that natural history gcse if we can incorporate the how to teach not just the what it's not just about the subjects or the topics it's how you teach it how do you get connection with the natural world what's that about you know it's not just about iding things or being able to name things so i think that will be crucial so if it's done in the right way i think it could provide a block for things to happen either side of the curriculum and certainly afterwards if you've studied that at gcse level it would really affect your choices for a level and then into workplace thinking and i actually totally agree with joe in that workplaces should be places where skills can be utilized and an understanding of our natural world our place in within it you should be able to practice that in any job that you do shouldn't just be the realm of environmental jobs or what i like to call dig and do jobs um it it can be woven into any single job and maybe end up working for issues soon i can change the whole of you know the way economy happens who knows okay well uh red hen kids has said thank you for mentioning early years fiona this is where the foundations are laid uh we've also had a comment from wild dairy name who's uh from ireland saying we are facing the same issues in ireland congratulations to the panel very inspiring involved in outdoor coastal education here really see the positives amongst kids teachers and parents and cheryl mcgeechen has said i work with university students and they are so passionate about learning more and differently about climate change love the activism of teach the future so inspiring and then we've also got local authorities from allison mcintosh local authorities could help i'm an environment education officer for wigan council but lots of local authorities have cut in completely in the last 10 years a real problem there um let me ask you another question to the panel here i mean there's a danger that we kind of make an assumption here that sort of every school has access to green space this is easy for every school to do because for some schools they don't have access to easy access to green space now what needs to be done in those kind of circumstances um niall can i kick you off because let you kick yourself first yeah i think again with my experience with nature friendly schools there you know there are many opportunities to look at developing the school space or greening of the school space i've got colleagues in bradford in a city where they're looking at how how are they going to develop their site and there are ways there are ways to do it perhaps luke turton i also think that it's important to you know speak with your senior leaders because if you're passionate about something or you want to make something happen there are resort is out there and we have a plethora of uh schools in bradford that are absolutely incredible when it comes to their outdoor learning offer and i think that's what we've built up we've built up a community in bradford and in leeds um you know of schools that are willing to share best practice in terms of what they've done and you know what works well for their schools and that inner city schools and schools with green space so you know it's about sharing good practice and supporting colleagues in the community bobby this must be a really big issue for you at the london wildlife trust i mean how do you tell us how you work with schools that don't have easy access to green space um so we'll um we've worked with like youth clubs that would come to us and we can give them funding and they get transport to come to our wildlife trust sites but it is a big challenge for schools that don't have any kind of green spaces near them i went to a school in central london um and that was a car park that's all we had for our kind of lunch times and and i think that possibly creating a space where you could create a garden and have a pond and have an area where the young people could actually plant their own wildlife that would be really amazing and i've seen my little sister who's eight her school actually has um like a wildlife garden in it and it is amazing and i can't believe that that actually exists and that is in central london and so definitely creating if there isn't a place you can get to creating however small it is um a wildlife space and in the school and that's the thing it doesn't need to be that larger space does it to make a big difference you know um and you know the comments be made here by alison mcintosh says that working council were looking at school grounds to naturalize i've been staggered at the amount of green space some schools have but only allow play time on the tarmac playground because of being risk averse and uh you know i've noticed that sometimes schools actually can create a little bit of wildlife space in a bit of land perhaps at the side of the car park or something like that that they previously had just neglected and not really thought about um joe fiona what's your sense of this and particularly you know schools which have uh find it harder to have access to green space you've got any further thoughts on that uh one of my one of the things i used to do is um i used to work with a lot of schools from the center of nottingham and and even before they they came out on a visit to woodland i would go into school and i would almost take nature with me so i'd make sure i was debt as far as possible without damaging environments of course uh take take those into classrooms and spaces and many schools were able to really easily see just from doing that that they could turn window boxes into place to grow things they could actually use part of their very small playing field if you like if they had any or um tarmac's area to dedicate it just to doing nature activities and that would be i don't know taking art frames outside making your own sculptures doing your own art getting that hawkiner in there in a quite uh creative way if you like initially uh but again i think um being able to walk from school into other green and open spaces it's crucial um i mean it's not only good for nature because nature needs you know wildlife needs to move around as well through these corridors but you know if we could have um waves corridors even to get to i don't know a canal a riverside uh another park and in those local parks excuse me and in those local parks um have more have more nature there don't leave it to concrete play items introduce more nature in those and i think um play spaces in parks are a great place to start you know introduce natural play rather than play equipment so again that sort of link to play and socializing make sure we do more on that yeah and joe any any thoughts on this hollywood i mean i've always been really lucky to live in a very uh green space i live in wiltshire which is like a very um green and very rural um county my house backs onto a nature reserve so like i've always had an abundance of nature around me and that's been so key to me growing up but i i you know i i really couldn't live in a huge big city because because i just wouldn't say that that would be so weird and not being surrounded by trees but um i mean this is really important and i think just just interesting but my school actually well i know it's really more than what was my school has actually recently had to sell some of its field in greenland because it just it just could run out of money and couldn't afford money to i couldn't afford to like maintain the school without selling land i really don't think schools should be in a situation where they're having to get rid of green space so it can be developed on for housing you know making it so that students are more kind of like surrounded by by rather than green's base i think that's a real scary step backwards so we need to make sure that schools are being given enough money for their buildings they don't have to sell their land um yeah it's really sad okay well thanks it's been uh wonderful hearing from you all tonight we've run out of time i'm afraid so i'm going to come to each of you in turn and just ask you just kind of final thoughts and uh asking the question that we have the heading for tonight we still ask the question is education failing our young people and the natural world i think you're kind of all asking that but what would you say has been the biggest hope you've you've experienced to deal with that let me come to you first fiona is education failing our young people in the natural world and what will be your biggest hope to point in the right direction uh i don't think it's completely failing but i think it's very a very patchy picture and it needs to be more uniform and it needs to be universal and access to it needs to be universal and include everybody um and what was the second question sorry and what's been your sort of biggest hope so sort of to for the future if you like my biggest hope is has been um something joe said and and hearing bobby as well is how we are seeing what young people can do and let left to their own devices as well let young people take over i say niall how how much do you think it's sort of failing generally at the moment perhaps not in your school are you yeah well that's that's the thing i don't i really desperately don't want to admit defeat so i i know in my region i don't think it is failing but obviously i'm aware of the bigger picture and i think it is up to advocates i know people are training the chat that each it's unfortunate it's one person that's kind of driving it but i believe that every school needs that one person as a catalyst to start making things happen and i think that um my hope would be that you know particularly through social media that schools not just in our region but across the uk a team what we're doing in terms of dedicating time to outdoor learning and nature and and hopefully i'll get some inspiration from that and begin to develop their own offer great thanks niall joe what would you what would you say is your sort of biggest inspiration on this and uh your overall assessment of where we are now i mean in my opinion we're not in a good place now um so we've done a lot of research to teach the future i said earlier 70 of teachers don't feel adequately trained to teach on climate change in england four percent of students only four percent of students say they know a lot about the environment and climate change only four percent that's really horrifying but i think we can make some great progress there's great there's the progress is happening in scotland and wales um it's not quite the road we wanted to happen but we're working with those governments to get somewhere which is really great um so so i think there is good there is there is hope um i'm gonna plug teach the future petition really quickly but we've got our petition into 21 000 signatures and we're going to get 25 000 soon it's the future dot uk slash petition please go ahead and sign it and also write to your mps and msps um it'll be really really helpful if you can do that thank you i'm sure we can give that both boost on wildlife across social media the next few days as well joe we're happy to do that and bobby uh tell us what's your would be your oval assessment at the moment what gives you the biggest hope i have to agree with you now i think possibly that the education system at the moment is failing but education as a whole there are so many amazing projects and there's so much amazing work that i've experienced i've found out about and so i can't say it's completely failing and i'd say the biggest hope is definitely the young people that i've worked with they are absolutely amazing and from young people that haven't really had any experience in nature and being so enthusiastic and wanting to bring their own kind of like flair and spark to it all the way to young people that are younger than me and are kind of birders and like species specialists i think the young people definitely would give me hope and so there you have it it's the end of term report coming i think and it's not quite enough uh but it's definitely a need to improve and actually we're looking to help from the government to enable us to improve and to really make sure that education isn't failing young people and the natural world you know it is a thing isn't it if education is uh really supposed to prepare the next generation for the future then we have to ask ourselves as a question is it just to prepare the next generation as worker ants for the uh economy which is a phrase that i heard once used or is it actually to prepare the next generation to be a integral part of society and a part of society that is delivering on real progress for humanity which surely is learning to live fairly within environmental limits and as i said before if you look at the young generation now they know how to do it they're already inspired but just think what could be achieved if we gave that little bit of extra help in providing an education system that really really supported our young people to be prepared for the future they're not inheriting a great future from us older generations not as good as it should be surely the best we could do now is really make sure they get the best possible education to help them for that future that they inherit thank you very much for joining wildlife tonight the next one will be in early may and it will be focused on environmental economics we're putting the panel together now so uh look out for that and we will let you know soon what the date is once that's confirmed i'm really looking forward to that discussion which could be quite heated i think could be quite interesting and fun that one in early may and uh please do share this on social media once it's there on on youtube share it out so that as many people watch this as possible but as ever thank you so much for watching tonight thank you for all the comments sorry if we didn't get your questions there's always so many more than we've got time for but my big thanks of course goes to the panel to fiona groves from the wildlife trust to joe brindle from teach the future from bobby at london wildlife trust from neil o'brien brian telling us about the amazing work he does in his outdoor classroom and of course to dr amir khan for joining us and helping us understand this issue tonight very much hope you've enjoyed it until next time thank you and good night [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] my [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: The Wildlife Trusts

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Rating: 4.9047618 out of 5

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Id: oy4biQ2m3V4

Length: 99min 47sec (5987 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 31 2021