Climate Change & Schools – Northumberland Education

Climate Change and Schools

The DfE hoped that "by 2025 all education settings will have nominated a sustainability lead and put in place a climate action plan"

DfE guidance on sustainability leadership and climate action plans in education

Let’s Go Zero’s Climate Action Advisors give free, tailored advice to help schools understand their carbon emissions and create effective climate action plans

All education settings in England can now join the National #Education Nature Park

Climate Ambassadors support climate volunteering within schools

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What role can schools play in tackling climate change?

Climate Change is the biggest challenge facing our children. By educating young people, we can grow a generation who are environmentally conscious and armed with the knowledge and skills needed to build sustainable ways of living and adapt to the challenges ahead. 

Schools are a crucial catalyst for change as they can nurture young people to develop the knowledge and passion needed to help build a sustainable future. 

Northumberland Climate Change and Sustainability Resource Pack

Northumberland County Council has developed a Climate Change and Sustainability Resource Pack especially for schools in the county to help with this. It supports teacher to tell the story of climate change through a Northumberland lens. 

Click here to access the resource

The video on the left describes the resource

Schools in the Climate Change Action Plan 2024 – 2026

Read more about how the local authority are supporting schools across the county in our Climate Change Action Plan

Engaging the wider school community

Schools can help drive the vital societal shift needed to tackle climate change by engaging their community, sharing advice, and leading by example. Children's learning has a ripple effect – for instance promoting active travel to school could prompt friends and family to re-think their wider travel habits.

Decarbonising school buildings

Schools in England contribute a quarter of public sector carbon emissions, making them crucial in achieving the UK's net zero goals. By cutting energy usage, schools can save money and involve students conserving energy, transforming global concerns into meaningful local action.

Whole school approaches to sustainability

OASES: Free resources or subscription with support from a team of sustainability education experts to support your school in creation and delivery of your climate action plan.

Ministry of Eco Education: Collection of free resources to help teachers embed sustainability in every subject combined with a 5-step, whole-school climate change journey.

Northumberland schools sustainability network meetings

Join a pioneering network of schools and teachers in Northumberland taking action - the Northumberland Schools Sustainability Network.

Joining the network can help your school to:

Become a pioneer in climate change education
Access a programme of talks, projects, activities and shared teaching resources through the wider UK Schools Sustainability Network
Gain confidence in teaching climate and environment topics
Learn from each other and network with other like-minded schools across Northumberland
Become more sustainable, through advice, support and best practice shared across schools

It can also help you to support your students by deciding on action and network priorities and collaborate on projects across schools in Northumberland.

Join the network here!

Free trees for schools

Every year in November and December we offer free saplings to Northumberland residents, including schools. We have 15,000 tree saplings to give away yearly to increase carbon sequestration across Northumberland, promoting the Council’s climate change agenda. Keep an eye out for more information coming later in the year.

COP events

COP, which stands for Conference of Parties, is the series of formal meetings Conference of Parties, where governments assess global efforts to advance the Paris Agreement and limit global warming to 1.5°C as informed by the latest science. At COPs, world leaders come together to measure progress and negotiate the best ways to address climate change. 

In Northumberland we have hosted our very own COP events to raise awareness of the Conference, and to bring students together. The events aim to get schools engaging in environmental and sustainable activities, to allow schools the opportunity to learn about what NCC are doing in the climate space, to give schools the opportunity to understand more around climate change attitudes across the world, to think more around climate action within their own schools and to give students the opportunity to increase their presentation, debating and public speaking skills.  

Please look out for more information for further events later in the year.