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Schools & Colleges - How to request a Climate Ambassador

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Schools & Colleges - How to request a Climate Ambassador

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Early Years - How to request a Climate Ambassador

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Early Years - How to request a Climate Ambassador

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Early Years Settings - Requesting a Climate Ambassador_Dec25 (1)

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Inspiring and thought-provoking postcards showing how people with STEM Careers are working to achieve net zero and support environmental sustainability. These postcards can be used alongside the ‘green careers in engineering’ posters, which include classroom activities and homework tasks.

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MetLink - Royal Meteorological Society A Curriculum for Climate Literacy

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Full Curriculum for Climate Literacy We know Why climate education is important, but What should we teach and How should we be teaching it? The need for better climate education in schools across the UK is undeniable - from calls from young people, teachers and employers and evidence from climate literacy surveys.

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Climate Action Plan Template and Examples

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Climate Action Plan Template and Examples

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Sustainability themed Booklist for Early Year settings

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Sustainability themed Booklist for Early Year settings

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Booklist for 3 different Early Years age groups: Under 2s, 3-4 years, and 5-year-olds and are grouped around the three key pillars of sustainability: Social, Economic and Environmental.

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The Great Imagining Staffordshire is a ‘free’ programme for primary and secondary schools in Cannock Chase, Stafford, and Lichfield, supporting students to take action towards a greener, fairer, wiser future.

In partnership with local councils, the programme connects schools with community groups, businesses, Climate Ambassadors, and experts, fostering student-led sustainability projects.

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Climate Ambassadors, Nature Park and LGZ Climate Action Plan template

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Climate Ambassadors, Nature Park and LGZ Climate Action Plan template

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The Royal Society Partnership Grants support projects where schools collaborate with a STEM partner (such as a STEM or Climate Ambassador) to deliver impactful science learning.

Application deadline: 01st December 2025.

The Tomorrow’s Climate Scientists initiative is part of this programme and focuses on student-led climate and sustainability investigations.

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Do you have a great idea for bringing research alive in schools?

The Partnership Grants scheme funds schools and colleges up to £3,000 to run investigative STEM projects in partnership with STEM professionals from academia or industry. In June 2021 an external evaluation of the last three years of the scheme was undertaken (covering approximately 100 awarded grants). The report highlighted the success of the scheme and its unique value in a busy UK STEM engagement landscape benefitting students, teachers and STEM professionals alike. The 10 key findings of the report are summarised here (PDF). The scheme is open to both primary and secondary schools, including sixth form colleges. Schools outside of the UK are not eligible to apply.

Tomorrow's climate scientists is an extension to the Partnership Grants scheme and funds schools specifically researching into climate change and biodiversity. The programme aims to give students not just a voice but an opportunity to take action themselves to address climate and biodiversity issues.

The 2024 round is now open to new applications

The 2024 funding round is now open to new applications. The form can be accessed via Flexi-Grant® and consists of 2 Stages. The 2024 application round has three possible submission deadlines at the end of April, June and November. A full timeline can be seen here.

To help lead teachers and STEM partners with the application, free online introduction sessions and drop-in applicant support sessions are being run. Sessions can be booked through the Royal Society's Event portal.

Why apply for this scheme?

The scheme:

Provides an opportunity for students to develop key skills, including research skills, problem solving skills and data-handling skills, which will be invaluable for their future careers.

Demonstrates the range of STEM careers available to students.

Fosters long-term working relationships between schools and STEM professionals.

Fulfills the requirement of Benchmark 8 of the Gatsby Practical Science Benchmarks - 'Students should have opportunities to do open-ended and extended investigative projects.' Additionally supports the requirements of the Gatsby Career Benchmarks - 'Encounters with employers and employees'.

How to apply:

Key dates:

The 2024 funding round is open to new applications and will remain open across the year with three judging periods. A full timeline can be found here.

For further information about the scheme please visit the pages below. If you have any questions, please contact the Schools Engagement team at education@royalsociety.org or 0207 451 2531.

To be among the first to hear about the grant rounds opening each year and to stay up to date with our other opportunities and resources, sign up to our UK teachers newsletter.

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Grants for UK schools and colleges to run investigative STEM projects in partnership with a STEM professional from academia or industry.

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Sustainability Support for Education Webinars

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Sustainability Support for Education Webinars

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Webinar dates giving a live walkthrough of the website. For further information and booking, please visit the SSfE Eventbrite page.

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By 2025, every school will need a Climate Action Plan to lead the way in tackling climate change. This plan will integrate sustainability into every aspect of school life, empowering students to create a sustainable future.

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Password to access: IWBy56^*

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Video Conferencing, Web Conferencing, Webinars, Screen Sharing

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Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise video communications, with an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, chat, and webinars across mobile, desktop, and room systems. Zoom Rooms is the original software-based conference room solution used around the world in board, conference, huddle, and training rooms, as well as executive offices and classrooms. Founded in 2011, Zoom helps businesses and organizations bring their teams together in a frictionless environment to get more done. Zoom is a publicly traded company headquartered in San Jose, CA.

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Learning to Thrive provides a space to explore how caregivers and educators might support young people to thrive in a challenging and changing climate.

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Learning to Thrive provides a space to explore how caregivers and educators might support young people to thrive in a challenging and changing climate.

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This free programme consists of five workshops spread over five weeks. These workshops are delivered in term time by Climate Ed’s trained volunteers. The workshops are suitable for Years 4 (in the summer term), 5 and 6, and are completely free. Please get in touch through the website or by emailing birmingham@climateed.net.

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We're a charity offering free education to children about climate change and carbon literacy

4000 students educated on climate science

100 students trained to be climate leaders

Carbon Consumption

Scientists say that to limit warming to 1.5 degrees we need to reduce our footprints to 2.5 tonnes each by 2030. We can do it - let's go zero carbon!

I would recommend that all children have the opportunity to take part in this carefully constructed and relevant programme.

Furzedown Primary School

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Climate Change Education | Climate Ed | London

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We're a charity offering free education to children about climate change and carbon literacy 4000 students educated on climate science 100 students trained to be climate leaders Carbon Consumption Scientists say that to limit warming to 1.5 degrees we need to reduce our footprints to 2.5 tonnes each by 2030.

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Sustainability Support for Education will help you find ideas and resources that are relevant to you and your setting.

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Sustainability Support for Education will help you find ideas and resources that are relevant to you and your setting.

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Sustainability Support for Education will help you find ideas and resources that are relevant to you and your setting.

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We co-create toolkits with educators and our project partners to re-imagine the ways in which children and young people from diverse backgrounds can work with the treescapes of the future. We aim to co-create a lexicon of experience that re-imagines the future of treescapes drawing on a complex interdisciplinary meshwork across ecological science, philosophy, history, […]

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Royal Meteorological Society Teaching Resources

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Royal Meteorological Society Teaching Resources

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MetLink - Royal Meteorological Society Teaching Resources

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Learn how to teach climate change to students aged 11-14 years old and engage them with the ESA Climate Detectives project.

Summary

Developed in partnership with ESERO Ireland and ESERO UK, this course introduces the topic of climate change and the work of the European Space Agency.

In this course you'll explore the difference between weather and climate, as well as how climate is affected by earth process and human factors. You will have the opportunity to examine causes and effects of Climate Change, develop your confidence teaching climate change and plan to lead students through ESA's Climate Detectives project.

To support your students with climate change projects, you will look at what makes a good research question, analyse and identify data which is fit for purpose, and organise and communicate findings in a variety of ways using relevant scientific terminology and representations.

Who is it for?

What topics are covered?

what is climate change?

climate change in the taught curriculum

climate science projects for students, such as ESA Climate Detectives

how climate change is measured using satellite data

mitigating climate change

How will you learn?

How long is this course?

This course takes around 9 hours to complete and you do not need to be online at any specific time. You can take the course at your own pace.

Outcomes

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Learn how to teach climate change to students aged 11-14 years old and engage them with the ESA Climate Detectives project.

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Find suggested actions tailored to your setting

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Sustainability Support for Education will help you find ideas and resources that are relevant to you and your setting.

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Sign up to the free Nature Park programme to increase biodiversity and receive support with curriculum resources

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Boosting nature in education. Nature is in trouble, and we know that young people and educators want to act and make a difference for the planet.

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This template demonstrates an approach to each of the four key action areas of a climate action plan. This is an example plan and should be adapted to suit an education setting. Please see the accompanying guidance document for more information.

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A free resource detailing sources of funding available to education settings

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eBook: Sources of Capital Funding | Surveyors to Education | S2e

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This eBook is aimed at school and academy leaders who would like to know more about the different funding streams available for school estate improvement, and how to source them.

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Please fill this out once a term to track your progress

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Climate Action Plan (CAP) - Planning and Delivery Report

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Climate Action Plan (CAP) - Planning and Delivery Report

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A list of actions for you to consider...

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A list of actions for you to consider...

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Climate Action Plans - Actions List - APR 2025

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Overview

A key initiative of DfE's sustainability and climate change strategy for education is 'sustainability leadership and climate action plans'.

The strategy states: "By 2025, all education settings will have nominated a sustainability lead and put in place a climate action plan". This includes early years settings, schools, multi-academy trusts, colleges, and universities.

Sustainability leadership could be a group of people or an individual responsible for the development and implementation of a climate action plan.

A climate action plan is a detailed plan to enable your education setting, or trust, to progress or commence sustainability initiatives.

There are many organisations providing courses, products, and services to support an education setting's approach to climate change. There are also many examples of excellent practice when it comes to sustainability and climate change in the education sector, and your individual setting or trust may already have a plan in place. Where this is the case we are not suggesting that you create a new plan, but you may find that some of the non-statutory guidance below supplements what you are already doing.

We want to help every setting engage with the support it needs. From December 2023 we will begin to roll out a free programme of support including:

a digital hub of resources, best practice, and tools which will help you develop, or build on, your climate action plan

access to a network of regional coordinators who will provide local expert support and peer to peer learning opportunities

Why this is important

Our engagement has highlighted that settings and trusts have the greatest success in driving change where there is a holistic action plan that is supported by a leadership team with the authority, knowledge, and commitment to take it forward.

Ensuring you have clear leadership for sustainability in place, and a climate action plan, will help your setting to:

increase the confidence and expertise of your leadership team, staff, learners, and students in understanding climate change and how positive change can be achieved

create a culture that prioritises sustainability

share effective practice with other education settings and develop a peer-to-peer learning network

use data to identify and prioritise action

improve energy and water efficiency

calculate your carbon emissions and identify ways to reduce them

reduce operating costs

increase resilience and start adapting to the impacts of climate change

enhance biodiversity

help learners develop skills and knowledge which help them to contribute to sustainability and climate change in their lives and future jobs

Identifying your sustainability leadership structure

Though it is up to each individual setting or trust to decide the structure of their sustainability leadership team, best practice shows that change is delivered when driven by a diverse team of passionate individuals. It is important that both educational (for example, teaching staff) and operational (for example, estates management) expertise is brought to this team.

The presence of senior leaders from your organisation is critical for planning and implementation to be successful. They have the authority, capacity, and support to influence and lead strategic change within the setting.

You may choose to take an individual setting approach to building sustainability leadership, set it up across a multi-academy trust (if your setting is a member of one), or both.

A whole-setting approach

It is important that the whole education setting, or trust, is engaged so that planning becomes action.

Learners

Involving children, young people and learners is important in climate action planning.

Doing so can:

inspire their enthusiasm to help drive positive change

increase their practical knowledge of sustainability and climate change

give young people a sense of agency where anxiety stems from climate concerns

create a sense of pride in their education setting

enable them to share their knowledge and enthusiasm in their local communities

enable them to engage their parents, carers, and wider community in sustainability and climate change

Senior leadership team (SLT), governors, trustees and executive leaders

As senior decision makers, SLT and governors should support and drive your sustainable activity. They should:

provide the authority and support to drive and embed culture change

ensure climate change and sustainability feature on the agenda at key meetings

be responsible for succession planning, so that commitment to sustainability endures in the setting

Estates management

It is important your estates manager or management team inform your plan as they will have the knowledge required to enact more sustainable practices.

The performance management and sustainability section of the good estate management for schools guidance explains the role of estates management in encouraging sustainability and managing energy and water use.

For settings in further and higher education, a sector specific methodology for calculating carbon emissions, based on the greenhouse gas protocol, has been published by EAUC - the Alliance for Sustainability Leadership in Education. This follows collaboration with participants of the Platinum Jubilee Challenge, the Royal Anniversary Trust, the Association of Colleges, Colleges Scotland and Universities UK.

The standardised carbon emissions framework for further and higher education aims to:

give confidence to institutions who want to start monitoring

ensure transparency and comparability between institutions who report their emissions

Climate action plans

Creating a climate action plan will allow you to take a structured and strategic route toward ensuring your setting or trust is acting toward, and educating about, sustainability. You may choose to have a climate action plan that sits within an individual setting, or across a trust, or both.

A climate action plan should typically cover the following 4 areas, to align with DfE's sustainability and climate change strategy:

decarbonisation, for example calculating and taking actions to reduce carbon emissions, such as becoming more energy efficient

adaptation and resilience, such as taking actions to reduce the risk of flooding and overheating

biodiversity, for example engaging with the National Education Nature Park and enrolling in the Climate Action Award

climate education and green careers, such as ensuring the education you provide gives knowledge-rich and comprehensive teaching about climate change, and that your teaching staff and lecturers feel supported to offer this

What is needed if you have already started

Your setting or trust may already have an environmental plan or sustainability strategy in place and may already be calculating its emissions. Equally you may also be working with one of the many excellent organisations who help education settings address sustainability.

Our approach is not designed to duplicate planning and action that has already taken place. We recognise that different settings are at different stages of this journey. That is why the further support set out below is designed to ensure that settings are supported with further and complimentary information, regardless of where they are currently at in their journey.

Further detail about support to come

From December 2023, we will begin to roll out a programme of further support for the education sector. We will provide access to:

a sustainability leadership digital hub which will signpost to training, guidance and support offered by quality assured organisations working in this space depending on what your setting needs and already has in place. Settings who require this specific training will be able to access carbon literacy training via this hub

a network of local experts and peer to peer support that can assist you in establishing your sustainability leadership structure and develop and implement your action plan

In the sustainability and climate change strategy published in April 2022, we committed to "rolling out carbon literacy training to all settings". Having carried out user research and policy development since that date, we understand that each setting will have different support requirements and a single training offer would not be appropriate. We will provide support through the approach set out above, reflecting the different needs of each setting. The digital hub will signpost to carbon literacy training for all those that need it.

How to get started (if you have not already)

The following contains links, organised by sector, to demonstrate how some education settings have started this journey and to highlight some of the tools already available to settings. This is just a small selection of examples. There are many more settings also doing excellent work on this.

All settings

Early years settings

Schools

Multi-academy trusts

Further education settings

Higher education settings

We are collecting case studies for use in communications and guidance as we further develop our support.

If you would like to share your experience with others, please send a live website link to your sustainability strategy or send a written submission to DfE's Sustainability and Climate Change Unit: dfe.sustainability@education.gov.uk

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Sustainability leadership and climate action plans in education

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The Department for Education's (DfE) sustainability leadership and climate action plans initiative.

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Tackling climate change - teaching resource

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Tackling climate change - teaching resource

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Many young people are highly engaged with the topic of ‘the environment’, particularly – as they get older – that of climate change. However, they tend to hear more about the causes and impacts of climate change and less about the solutions to climate change. Young people can also suffer from ‘eco-anxiety’ and this imbalance in problem/solution climate information may be partly to blame. This classroom-based engagement attempts to inform young people about: the UK’s commitment to ‘net zero’ carbon emissions by 2050 the progress made towards this target, and how future carbon emission reductions might be made the jobs and careers that might be associated with this transformation of the UK economy The session is run as a mix of presentations, quizzes and interactive discussions and runs for either 40 minutes or 55 minutes. The over-riding points made throughout the session are while climate change is a serious challenge, there are many opportunities to address it and many ways for young people to contribute as individuals both now and through their future jobs many solutions to climate change already exist and are based on modern engineering and technology This resource is designed to be delivered in classrooms by Climate Ambassadors and STEM Ambassadors with a teacher in attendance. To find out more about how to become a Climate Ambassador, visit https://climateambassadors.org.uk/get-involved/, or to become a STEM Ambassador, visit https://www.stem.org.uk/stem-ambassadors

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Badge for your social media, website or signature

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Badge for your social media, website or signature

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Overheating, flooding and water scarcity

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Overheating, flooding and water scarcity

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Summary of findings in relation to 3 climate risks: overheating, flooding and water scarcity

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When classrooms get too hot, it can make it harder for students to learn. The UK climate change risk assessment high temperatures briefing states that high temperatures can be one of the key factors affecting the concentration of children in schools.

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🍃National Education Nature Park Webinars

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🍃National Education Nature Park Webinars

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The National Education Nature Park programme empowers children and young people to make a positive difference to both their own and nature's future. Go on a journey to get to know your outdoor space and use creative decision-making to improve your grounds for both people and nature. Linked here are webinars to know more about the programme.

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News from the Nature Park | Education Nature Park

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Stay up to date with news and events from the Nature Park. Sign up to our newsletter to get the latest straight to your inbox.

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School Estate Management Standards by DfE

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School Estate Management Standards by DfE

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The Department for Education has released updated School Estate Management Standards, raising expectations for how schools manage their buildings, grounds, and resources. Schools are now expected to embed climate action into their strategic planning.

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The standards set out practices and processes required to effectively manage the school estate.

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Sustainability Support for Education Recordings

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Sustainability Support for Education Recordings

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1. An introduction to Climate Action and Climate Action Plans

2. An introduction to Sustainability Support for Climate Action and your sustainability journey

3. Early Years Specific Session

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🎧Podcast Spotlight: Coffee & Geography – Climate Action Special

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🎧Podcast Spotlight: Coffee & Geography – Climate Action Special

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The Coffee & Geography podcast has launched a special series featuring Climate Ambassadors from across the country! Tune in to hear their stories - why they became Ambassadors, how they support schools and communities, and the unique skills they bring to climate action.

Perfect for anyone working on their Climate Action Plan, this podcast is engaging, uplifting, and full of practical insights.

Youtube - (9) #ClimateAmbassadors - YouTube (includes some video interviews)

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== About the ‘Coffee & Geography’ podcast == The aim of ‘Coffee & Geography’ is to get to know, explore and celebrate the diverse & intersectional range of people and their love for the world. We’ll

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We would like to grow the collection of case studies that we use on our website or social media posts. If you are in an educational setting who has worked with the programme, or a volunteer who is supporting settings in your community we would love to hear from you.

Case Studies can be viewed here Case Studies | Climate Ambassadors

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The DfE have published a snapshot summary highlighting updates and other useful information.

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DfE’s Climate in Education Snapshot - July 2025

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Welcome to another Department for Education (DfE) Climate in Education Snapshot!

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Use the stripes to inspire discussion, deepen understanding, and empower action. Whether it’s through art, geography, English, photography, PSHE or beyond, this is a chance to get creative and bring climate learning to life across the curriculum. This is a collection of inspiring ideas to help you design your own unique take on the climate stripes - from classroom displays to whole-school projects.

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We are asking you to get your pupils and schools to come together to #ShowYourStripes and start classroom conversations about climate and how we can all help. The climate stripes can be used to link a wide range of subjects including art, geography, English, photography, PSHE and many more.