Curriculum Reform, Climate Literacy & Safeguarding: Decolonising What We Teach (and Why) in Light of the DfE Review

The Department for Education’s Curriculum and Assessment Review has landed—and with it, the government’s official response. Together, they sketch an agenda that could reshape teaching and assessment from 2028. There’s a lot to welcome here, especially for those of us pushing for climate literacy and curriculum justice. But there are also gaps— and for me, some wide enough to feel like missed duties of care.

This post offers a clear overview of what matters across subjects, a decolonial, climate-literate reading of the proposals, and practical steps schools, ITE providers and education leaders can take now, framed explicitly through a safeguarding lens.

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1) What’s actually changing—and why it matters beyond geography

• Subject “refinements”, not rewrites. The Review proposes minor updates to Programmes of Study and GCSE content to improve progression, remove duplication, and clarify disciplinary knowledge—geography is name-checked for stronger enquiry, spatial reasoning and digital tools at KS3, clearer fieldwork expectations, and more explicit climate and sustainability. Government plans consultations (from 2026) and implementation from 2028.
• Assessment & accountability tweaks. The package includes reducing exam time at GCSE, renewed emphasis on oracy, and rethinking performance measures—alongside plans to retire EBacc as a headline measure, loosening its distorting effects on subject breadth. [tes.com]
• Preparing for a “changing world”. The Review’s narrative leans into digital, financial and media literacy, interdisciplinarity, and inclusion—positions that are sound but only become real when timetabled, resourced and assessed. [educationhub.blog.gov.uk]

So what? If you work outside geography, these shifts still matter. Climate, media literacy, equity and disciplinary thinking are not single‑subject luxuries; they are system‑level competencies we owe to all learners.

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2) Climate Change: the educational case and the safeguarding duty

Let’s be blunt: Climate change is a safeguarding issue – as I and others have argued and demostrated time and time again. The DfE’s own climate literacy survey of school leavers (2024) found poor understanding of core concepts (e.g., net zero, UK impacts) and common misperceptions about effective mitigation. If students misunderstand the risks they live with—and the actions that matter—how can they make safe choices, resist misinformation, or engage constructively with anxiety and loss?

The DfE’s Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy (vision to 2030) recognises that every setting should have a sustainability lead and a climate action plan; updated guidance now embeds this into Estate Management Standards and describes support routes (Nature Park, Climate Ambassadors, etc.). This is system language for “duty, leadership, plan”—which maps squarely onto safeguarding culture (policy, practice, prevention).

Add to this the mental‑health dimension: a growing body of UK and international research documents climate distress among young people—often independent of direct hazard experience—linking anxiety to both reduced functioning and motivated action, with protective roles for meaning‑focused coping, agency, nature connection, and community. Schools have a duty of care to address this ethically in curriculum and pastoral systems. [Daeninck et al., 2023], [imperial.ac.uk], [apa.org], [woodlandtrust.org.uk]

Translation for leaders: if a curriculum reform wave arrives without clear climate‑education time, teacher CPD, and assessment alignment, we risk failing our safeguarding responsibilities—leaving young people more anxious, less informed, and more vulnerable to disinformation.

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3) Decolonising the curriculum: from intention to structured praxis

The Review gestures toward diversity and inclusion and “seeing yourself in the curriculum”. That’s good, but decolonising is not just diverse examples; it’s shifting power in what counts as knowledge, who is cited, whose places and experiences anchor enquiry, and how students co‑create understanding. This has a long genealogy in geography education and HE, with robust critiques warning against tokenism and urging structural change. [Stanek, 2017], [Esson et al., 2017]

Practical toolkits and case studies exist to help schools move beyond statements to design, assessment and belonging—from methodologies for decolonising geography in ITE and KS3 to programme‑level self‑evaluation tools (e.g., Liverpool, Aberdeen) and curated EDI/decolonial resource banks (RGS). Use them to audit, redesign, and evidence change. [Nayeri & Rushton, 2022], [liverpool.ac.uk], [abdn.ac.uk], [rgs.org]

Why tie decolonising to climate literacy? Because climate change is not neutral: impacts, responsibilities and adaptations are uneven and historically produced. A decolonial lens surfaces environmental justice, challenges deficit framings of the Global South, elevates Indigenous and local knowledge, and helps students interrogate how power, extraction and policy shape vulnerability and resilience. This is both truthful education and psychosocially protective—it gives young people accurate context and credible pathways for action.

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4) Where the Review and the Government response fall short (and what to do anyway)

(a) Climate: welcome words, but curriculum time and assessment are thin

Yes, climate and sustainability are explicitly referenced across subjects. But “embedding” without protected time and assessment leverage often becomes everywhere and nowhere. Pair this with the DfE’s own evidence of low climate literacy and you get a clear case for mandatory, assessed climate sequences (not just enrichment), teacher CPD, and exam-board accountability.

(b) Strategy disconnects

The Review and the Government response do not sufficiently align with the DfE’s Sustainability & Climate Change Strategy and the operational Climate Action Plan guidance now rolling through schools. That’s a missed systems opportunity: curriculum changes should reinforce (and be reinforced by) whole‑setting action and leadership structures.

(c) Decolonising reduced to representation

“Diversity” ≠ decolonising. Without structural prompts (e.g., redesigned subject criteria, exemplification that centres marginalised knowledges, moderated assessment tasks evidencing justice‑oriented enquiry), we risk performative gestures.

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5) Do‑now actions (for heads, curriculum leads, ITE/ECT mentors and classroom teachers)

Leaders & Governors

• Name climate education as safeguarding in your statutory policies (linking to anxiety support, RSHE, and risk education) and in your Climate Action Plan—with a senior lead, monitoring schedule, and CPD pathway. Request support from a Climate Ambassador who can help you independently review an audit. Coming soon will be a relective toolkit I have developed and tested with pilot schools.
• Use NGA’s whole‑school sustainability guidance to set board‑level KPIs that tie curriculum, campus, community and careers into one plan. [nga.org.uk]
• Geography leaders can take my RMetS accredited self-led interactive CPD on climate literacy.

Curriculum & Assessment

• Map climate concepts 7–11 across subjects with assessed anchor tasks (e.g., data‑rich enquiries on local heat risk, flood justice, food systems, or energy transitions), then back‑map prerequisites into KS3. Require media‑literacy outcomes (source verification, attribution of claims, distinguishing adaptation vs mitigation).
• Audit for decolonial gaps using a structured toolkit (content, design & delivery, assessment, belonging). Commit to two high‑leverage changes per year (e.g., reframe a core unit through environmental justice; diversify case studies with co‑produced local knowledge; redesign assessments for community‑linked problem‑solving).
• Where exam specs are rigid, add internal assessed tasks (controlled conditions or synoptic projects) to keep the disciplinary heart (enquiry, varied evidence, ethical reasoning) alive.

Pastoral & Safeguarding

• Train staff on climate distress—recognition, referral pathways, and meaning‑focused coping (agency, collective efficacy, outdoor/nature connection). Build curriculum–pastoral bridges (e.g., action projects tied to local nature recovery).
• Design “guardrails” for sensitive climate content: pre‑briefs, options to opt for alternative roles in simulations, signposted support, and reflective closure activities.
• Become familar and consider using tools such as the Climate Emotions Wheel.

Initial Teacher Education & Early Career

• Require trainees/ECTs to evidence one decolonial redesign and one climate‑literacy assessment in their portfolios—peer‑reviewed against agreed rubrics; encourage use of published methodologies for decolonising geography curricula and ITE case studies.
• Build a micro‑CPD spine on: (1) climate science & justice fundamentals, (2) assessing misinformation, (3) trauma‑informed pedagogy for climate topics. Align with the DfE Strategy offers (Climate Ambassadors, National Education Nature Park).

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6) What I’ll watch between now and 2028

• Subject‑level consultations: Do draft Programmes of Study explicitly timetable climate sequences and specify disciplinary outcomes (e.g., spatial reasoning with climate datasets, multi‑scalar causality)? Are fieldwork and community‑linked enquiry protected by funding or mandate?
• Assessment reform: Will exam boards adopt diverse, justice‑centred contexts and reward critical use of evidence—or default to low‑agency recall?
• System alignment: Do DfE review outputs integrate with the Sustainability & Climate Change Strategy milestones and the Climate Action Plan infrastructure schools now must own?

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Bottom line

The Review gives us a platform. But climate literacy without curriculum time and assessment is performative. Diversity without decolonial structures is cosmetic. And strategy without safeguarding intent risks young people’s wellbeing.

We don’t need to wait for 2028. The tools, research and policy hooks already exist. Use the Strategy’s infrastructure to lead, treat climate literacy as safeguarding, and let decolonial design choices reshape not just what we cover, but whose knowledge, whose places, and whose futures our curriculum serves.