Embed food, farming, and sustainability education into the national curriculum

We are calling on the government to integrate comprehensive food, farming, and sustainability education into the national curriculum, making these subjects core to students’ learning from early years through secondary school.

This gap deprives students of an understanding of how their actions impact the environment, health, and society. Practical education connecting students to these issues could improve academic engagement and provide life skills essential for resilience.

We believe that embedding sustainability within the curriculum will align our educational standards with global goals, fostering environmental responsibility and stewardship.

The Government recognises the importance of teaching children about topics such as food, farming, and sustainability, which is why they can already be covered as part of the national curriculum.

The national curriculum is a framework designed to give teachers the freedom and flexibility to determine how they deliver the content in a way that best meets the needs of their pupils. Although farming is not a specific stand-alone topic in the national curriculum, teachers can cover particular topics in greater depth if they wish, and this could include teaching about farming. The national curriculum currently applies to local authority maintained schools but the Government’s intention is that it will apply to academies as well once the recommendations of the Curriculum and Assessment Review (see below) have been implemented.

In geography, in key stage 2, under “human and physical geography”, the national curriculum requires schools to teach pupils to “describe and understand key aspects of human geography, including types of settlement and land use, economic activity including trade links, and the distribution of natural resources including energy, food, minerals and water”. This is built upon at secondary, where pupils are taught to “understand how human and physical processes interact to influence and change landscapes, environments and the climate”.

In science, under the topic of “evolution, inheritance and variation”, pupils study the importance of selective breeding of plants and animals in agriculture. Healthy eating is also covered in science through topics relating to nutrition and digestion which cover the content of a healthy diet and the impact of a diet on how the body functions. In addition, under biology and chemistry at key stage 4, pupils consider the evidence for human causes of climate change, including the impact of increased levels of carbon dioxide and how this can be mitigated.

As part of the design and technology (D&T) curriculum, cooking and nutrition education is compulsory in state-maintained schools. Schools are required to teach pupils where food comes from, understand source and seasonality, and know where and how a variety of ingredients are grown, reared, caught and processed. The curriculum aims to teach children how to cook and how to apply the principles of healthy eating and good nutrition.

Within the health education section of relationships, sex and health education, which is compulsory in all state-funded schools, it is expected that by the end of primary, pupils should know what constitutes a healthy diet, the characteristics of a poor diet, and the risks associated with unhealthy eating. By the end of secondary, pupils should know how to maintain healthy eating and the links between a poor diet and health risks.

The Government has established an independent Curriculum and Assessment Review, covering ages 5 to 18, chaired by Professor Becky Francis CBE. The Review aims to ensure a rich, broad, inclusive and innovative curriculum that prepares young people for life and work. A report was recently published setting out the Review’s interim findings and confirming the key areas for further work: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/curriculum-and-assessment-review-interim-report.

The interim report sets out that rapid social, environmental and technological change necessitates that the curriculum keep pace, including a greater focus on sustainability and climate science. New opportunities and challenges, including those relating to climate change, will require particular knowledge and skills to address. The Review is considering whether there is sufficient coverage of these within subjects and how content can remain relevant and support young people to thrive in a fast-changing world. This could involve further embedding various knowledge and skills across different parts of the curriculum.

The Review is looking at all subjects, including D&T, science, geography. No decisions about individual subjects have yet been made, and the Review’s work on subject-specific challenges is ongoing. Any subject-specific findings and recommendations will be included in the final report which will be published in the Autumn with the Government’s response.

Finally, the Department for Education’s Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy sets out initiatives to support teachers to teach about nature and climate change. These include the Sustainability Support for Education digital hub, the creation of a National Education Nature Park, and support for education leaders to meet the requirement to have a climate action plan and nominated sustainability lead in place by 2025.

Department for Education