Tag: Education Scotland

January 2026 Learning for Sustainability News

This blog post offers a summary of national and local LfS news plus upcoming professional learning and partner offers which might be of interest to you.

 

Education Scotland and the national Curriculum Improvement Cycle:

Education Scotland’s Youth Voice Toolkit is located here: Youth Voice Toolkit | Resources | Education Scotland

Local News

Keep Scotland Beautiful are funded by the Scottish Government to provide support via the Eco Schools accreditation programme, Climate Ready Classroom and resources and professional learning for educators. They provide a quarterly report outlining Falkirk establishment engagement with all of these – here are the headlines:

 

  1. 12 Falkirk establishments are actively engaged in the Eco-schools programme – that = 19% as compared to the national authority average of 29%
  2. 78 pupils from 4 classes attended Climate Ready Classrooms training (involving 6 teachers) at the start of this school year.
  3. One or more classes from 7 schools attended live KSB lessons.
  4.  The most popular eco-schools topic choices are Climate action and Biodiversity then Health and Wellbeing.

Our second Falkirk Energy Competition for secondary schools is underway. Between October 2025 and March 2026, young people and staff in 6 of our 10 secondary establishments are aiming to reduce the amount of electricity used in their buildings. This will reduce carbon emissions AND running costs for their schools.

Bo’ness Public and Deanburn Primary Schools are in their third year of a heritage-based collaboration project with Historic Environment Scotland and Illuminate UK. Click here to view a video which captures the impact of this project during year 1.

In the new year, Bowhouse and Slamannan Primary Schools will take part in a Callendar House focused performance project with Falkirk Council Heritage Team colleagues and Illuminate UK. Both of these projects represent learning within our Learning for Sustainability Framework bundle plan 3 – connecting with culture and heritage.

 

Young people and staff at Falkirk High School have calculated and balanced their 2024-25 school carbon footprint with the help of the One Carbon World Grant Fund. Here is a little more information from Liam Mason from Falkirk HS:

We are proud to share that Falkirk High School has achieved the One Carbon World Carbon Neutral International Standard for 2024/2025, alongside the successful retirement of our verified carbon credits through the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism. These milestones reflect our strong commitment to Learning for Sustainability, reducing and balancing our carbon footprint, and supporting high-quality global projects that contribute to a net zero society and sustainable development worldwide. Thank you to everyone involved in making this achievement possible.

Resources – primary and secondary sectors unless otherwise noted: 

Keep Scotland Beautiful has a range of offers and opportunities for the new year:

Scotland’s Development in Education Centres (Scotdec):

Other offers and resources:

  • Staff in some local authorities include a mock-COP (Conference of the Parties) event for their young people. These involve young people in taking on the roles and perspectives of countries worldwide and can be profoundly meaningful as a result. More information here
  • Futures Institute at Dollar Academy have an excellent collection of teaching materials linked to LfS (see info slide above). Their units begin from primary 5 upwards and include the SCQF level 6 diploma course which Samantha Wilson-McCaw piloted at Braes HS. These are built around a series of real-life based challenges but can be used in various ways to make them adaptable to timetabling, staffing, student numbers and degree of independence in learning. Email Smith-JA@dollaracademy.org.uk  if your school is interested.
  • Nature Scot’s Nature Discovery Map – good entry point for getting schools to think about their environment – schools looking at all sorts of things from safe active travel routes to schools to nature assets and potential on school grounds. Nature Discovery Map Scotland | NatureScot
  • Facing History & Ourselves – Resource collection – Wide range of social justice-related lessons Teaching Resources | Facing History & Ourselves 
  • Development in Education Centre collection – resources relating to eco-anxiety – useful during Children’s Mental Health Week Climate Signposts Guide, Tackling Climate Anxiety, Exploring Climate Justice (secondary) 
  • Respect for Diversity: antiracisted.scot, Empowering Young People as Active Citizens for primary and secondary , Equality and Human Rights from Amnesty 
  • International Mother Language Day celebrates linguistic and cultural diversity, These Clothing and Sustainable Food planners explore the intersection of language, culture, and global justice, helping students understand the importance of cultural respect. (scroll towards the bottom of the page to access the planners)  
  • The Sustainables Academy: Free Sustainability and Circular Economy Curriculum 
  • RHET (Royal Highland Education Society) range of professional learning here 
  • Outdoor Learning Directory here 

Professional Learning – 

Falkirk CPD Manager Courses:

  • Growing Food in schools and ELCCs part 1   20.1.26     4 – 5.30 pm
  • Growing Food in schools and ELCCs part 2     3.2.26     4 – 5.30 pm
  • Climate Emergency Training LfS 25-05r         10.2.26     4 – 6 pm

 

Keep Scotland Beautiful – Register for all of the below here

  • Learning for Sustainability & Nature Connection in winter 15.1.26
  • Becoming a sustainable setting  10.3.26
  • Becoming an Eco-school 23.4.26

November 2024 LfS Update

  • Register here for our Falkirk Carbon Ready Classroom training for upper primary pupils between 9.15 and 2.45 pm on Thursday 28th November. This training is provided by Keep Scotland Beautiful colleagues and supports class teachers to work with their upper primary children to build a Carbon Ready Classroom(CRC) and become climate-informed together. The CRC experience can contribute to your school’s Eco Schools journey and supports upper primary teachers and their classes with this vital aspect of Learning for Sustainability.  The teacher support materials for this will be shared in advance of the training. Keep Scotland Beautiful are also offering a teacher training session for CRC Primary on Tuesday 5th November at 4pm, which teachers may want to attend if they missed our session in August. This is the Teams link to join the meeting: Click to join CRC Primary teacher training Tuesday 5th November 4pm.

 

  • Eco Schools Journey – The Eco school process has been simplified to make it less bureaucratic and more pupil-led. We cancelled our online Eco-schools training sessions for children and young people in October/November due to lack of uptake, but our Keep Scotland Beautiful colleagues will contact schools directly regarding alternative dates. A new Eco School Support channel has been created in our Falkirk Learning for Sustainability Team.

The new national Education Scotland LfS site is now live – this comprehensive resource is a key action within the LfS Action Plan Target 2030: A Movement for Change (launched June 2023). It supports practitioners by highlighting what LfS is, through the voices of learners and educators. Explore the landing page and resources here:

🔗 Learning for Sustainability Landing Page

🔗 Advice and Guidance

🔗 Professional Learning

🔗 Sharing Practice

We were delighted to see video from a number of our early years settings within these resources. Click here to watch Glenburn ELCC’s inspirational “Get messy and make mudpies” video. Well done all for sharing this brilliant work. Further examples of powerful LfS practice are being sought, so please contact LfS@educationscotland.gov.scot. if you have work that could inspire others.

  • Unfortunately, there is no Falkirk Social Enterprise Academy Dragon’s Den event this year but SarahRogerson@socialenteprise.academy can still be contacted regarding support for your social enterprise journey.
  • Secondary School Global Social Leaders membership – more information here about this interactive, project-based learning programme where students, aged 11-18, work in teams to design and deliver a social action project. Students will connect with others across the world to learn from each other’s social action journeys through live virtual sessions and student-led, self-paced activities that encourage autonomy and agency. The programme is designed to support problem-solving, communication, creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration, enabling students to adapt and thrive in life and the future world of work

And finally, we are asking all schools and centres to complete our first Falkirk Learning for Sustainability audit between October and December of this year. Yvonne McBlain will email head teachers and managers directly with the links to the staff and learner Microsoft Forms. The audit is designed to establish what LfS looks like in our schools and centres and how we can support you better. We have kept the questions as concise and purposeful as possible and will be very grateful for your responses.

Community Resilience as part of Learning for Sustainability

@EdScotCommRes and #Resilience-Ed are useful Twitter sources of current ideas and thinking for building emergency planning/community resilience into Curriculum for Excellence. Eilidh Soussi, Community Resilience Development officer, Education Scotland, hosted an event on 4th December where a range of delegates explored how to build effective progression of pupils’ resilience into our education system nationally and locally.

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There was a particular emphasis on using the local context to enable young people to develop resilience, confidence and to feel connected and useful in their own community – and even in their own home. Yvonne McBlain represented Falkirk Council Children’s Services and will continue to support good practice, with Jane Jackson, Outdoor Learning Development Officer, and Fiona McLuckie, Emergency Planning Officer, Development Services. Interested practitioners can help with this by signing up for LfS 29 Emergency Planning – How does it fit with CfE? on 18th February 2016.

Click here to see Eilidh’s resource guide with useful links. Click here to view teaching resources in the Ready for Emergencies website – you may be interested in using the preparing for winter resources to help you build a strong and relevant interdisciplinary unit for your establishment. These resources help practitioners to develop the everyday resilience of young people, but also to progress their capacity to cope with unusual and unexpected emergencies they may encounter throughout their lives. Click here http://glo.li/1NbcKMs to see a video example showing how a geography lesson enabled a young girl to save the lives of her own family and other people on the beach during a tsunami!

 

What is Learning for Sustainability?

Wordle Education Scotland defines Learning for sustainability (LfS)  as: “an approach to learning, life and work. It enables learners, educators, schools and their wider communities to build a socially-just, sustainable and equitable society. An effective whole school and community approach to LfS weaves together global citizenship, sustainable development education, outdoor learning and children’s rights to create coherent, rewarding and transformative learning experiences.”

All of the recommendations of the December 2012 Learning for Sustainability Report (click to view) were accepted by the Scottish Government in March 2013. (click to link to doc) The Government response says:

The approach recommended supports a whole-school approach, encompassing the curriculum, campus, culture and community of the school and is intended to complement and strengthen wider changes in education.

Language around learning for sustainability is consistent with the new GTCS professional standards and highlights the value of a holistic approach to sustainable development, global citizenship and outdoor learning. The Group has defined Learning for Sustainability as:

A whole school approach that enables the school and its wider community to build the values, attitudes, knowledge, skills and confidence needed to develop practices and take decisions which are compatible with a sustainable and equitable society.

The report contains 31 recommendations, including the 5 overarching recommendations below:

  1. All learners should have an entitlement to learning for sustainability
  2. In line with the new GTCS Professional Standards, every practitioner, school and education leader should demonstrate learning for sustainability in their practice
  3. Every school should have a whole school approach to learning for sustainability that is robust, demonstrable, evaluated and supported by leadership at all levels
  4. School buildings, grounds and policies should support learning for sustainability
  5. A strategic national approach tosupporting learning for sustainability should be established

The wordle image above communicates all of the elements of learning and teaching which could be involved in Learning for Sustainability.