CLIMATE WEEK


Climate Week took place earlier this year when more than


3,000 events were held. CEO of the initiative, Kevin Steele, explains more


T


HE INAUGURAL Climate Week showcased the UK’s best efforts to combat climate change on a previously unseen scale. In late March, more than 3,000 events – run by schools, community groups, local councils and national institutions – highlighted how


every part of society can play a role in creating a low- carbon, more sustainable future. The campaign gained the backing of the prime


minister as well as celebrities such as Sir Paul McCartney, Lily Cole and Michael Palin. Climate Week also drew huge involvement from thousands of organisations as diverse as the Met Office, the NHS and the London Stock Exchange, who used the opportunity to inspire others to act through their own real examples. The week witnessed a rich collage of low-carbon


activity. Students in Leeds served up free food equivalent to the amount wasted by an average family of four, the Arcola Theatre in London taught children how to make hydrogen-powered cars, and stars such as Gemma Arterton showed how fashion can be part of the solution to climate change by modelling a low carbon designer Climate Week tee-shirt available at Tesco. Britain’s most outstanding achievements also


got their place in the spotlight. The Climate Week Awards gave national recognition to inspirational initiatives, including those in education. The prize for Best Educational Initiative went to the North East’s Climate Change Schools Project for its innovative cross-curricular, cross-community work with schools, businesses and public bodies. Climate Week kicked off with Britain’s biggest


ever environmental competition – the Climate Week Challenge, which gave students and professionals the chance to pit their creative wits against global warming.


Independent thinking Where will it all end?


ACADEMIC FREEDOM and independence in the education sectors have long been contentious issues. In some totalitarian states, every element of the curriculum and every word in every school textbook are dictated by the state – only one interpretation is ever permitted of that country’s history, of religion, world events and such things. Universities, too, can be equally circumscribed


and some subjects are not able to be taught at all and some people, because of gender for example, are not allowed to attend. In the UK we have always prided


ourselves on having a liberal and humanitarian approach to education, but is this really the case? In the 1960s and 1970s, it was


thought by some that our schools had become too unrestricted and that pupils might be being exposed to all sorts of weird and wonderful ideas by overly liberal teachers. The curriculum was believed to be too loosely defined and to lack rigour. This led to the first national curriculum


which prescribed in staggeringly minute detail exactly what should be taught at all ages and stages in a large number of subjects. However, although that first version


of the national curriculum laid a huge additional burden on teachers, it could be worked with and around. The real curb on freedom in education was the testing regime that came with it. Some of my fellow heads, who work


in state schools, believe that their academic freedom is now being eroded again. As the much discussed English


Baccalaureate is being used as a performance measure, it may impact on future funding for schools; this means that heads are feeling obliged to make sure that as many of their pupils as possible take the stipulated subjects, whether or not that fits in with the school’s educational philosophy. Twilight sessions are now being run to ensure


that those students who did not opt for the “right” subjects at GCSE, can add them on – albeit that they are already in year 10 or 11 and have very


little time to prepare properly for these additional examinations. Some state school heads are looking to us in the


independent sector to stand up for academic freedom and to continue to allow our pupils to choose the subjects which best suit them or which they wish to study, rather than making history or geography compulsory, for example (we certainly have not slavishly followed every government curriculum initiative in the past). Meanwhile, the role of


independent universities is being discussed more widely in the media. The main such university in England is Buckingham, which was founded in 1976, with the explicit purpose of being able to offer whatever courses it wished, according to its own educational philosophy, without


being beholden to the government. Now that all universities are to


charge tuition fees, Buckingham may be thought to be less remarkable – but on the other hand, it is still fiercely maintaining its educational independence. Certainly, its academic staff seem to believe that they have more academic freedom than their colleagues in other universities in this country. Meanwhile, the new university government grant and fee structure may


lead to the closure of many courses in the humanities and social sciences. Must we all become mathematicians, scientists, linguists,


doctors or lawyers? Great Britain has always had a reputation as a


land of freedom – we prize our freedom of speech and expression. In many ways we are a very liberal country, but at the moment our politicians seem to be imposing more and more constraints, albeit quite subtly, on what students can be taught. Where will it all end?


• Marion Gibbs is headmistress of the independent James Allen’s Girls’ School in London.


MAH austism today Ad MA.indd 1


In association with 5to7


five to seven educator www.fivetoseven.co.uk 8th national conference Autism Today Cavendish Conference Centre, London 11th & 12th July 2011 TOPICS WILL INCLUDE:


Assessment of autism: which approach should we use? Dr Helen Pearce


Complex presentations of autism Dr William Mandy


Parent’s experience post-diagnosis Jim Chapman


ASD in genetic syndromes: assessment and implications Dr Jo Moss


Feeding diffi culties in autism Dr Gillian Harris


Living with autism Dean Beadle


Reducing stress and easing transitions at school Mike Stanton


Forensic issues in autism Dr Helen Pearce


Role of speech and language therapy in intervention and management of ASD


Gina Davies


Helping adolescents with relationships and sexuality Angela Ward-Brown


Early behavioural interventions: role of PEACH Kirsty Hayhoe & Suzy Yardley


TEACCH Barbara Blyth


Motor skills in autism: pulling apart different motor processes Dr Emma Gowen


Effectiveness of pharmacotherapies in management of autism Dr Paramala Santosh


Over 140,000 students and office staff signed up


to take part and more than half opted to participate in a live version of the challenge, completing the task during one intense day. The exact challenge, kept under wraps until the launch, tasked teams to dream up new ideas to save money while helping to save the planet. For half a day, therefore, schools and workplaces reflected the huge innovative and collaborative effort needed to create the kind of cultural change we need to combat climate change. National winners were selected in six age categories,


for key stages 1 to 4, 6th-formers, and workplaces. They were judged by a panel, including adventurer Ben Fogle, footballer Gary Neville, and pop singer KT Tunstall. Secondary schools across the UK submitted hundreds


of brilliant ideas – a glowing example of their appetite and ingenuity to apply creative and practical thinking to solve a real-life challenge. The competition also aimed to complement the curriculum by strengthening their grasp of environmental issues in a way that was fun, collaborative, and positive. Its enormous success shows that often the strongest argument for getting people to act on climate change comes from an empowered sense of being involved in the solution.


The quality of entries was extremely high,


particularly among key stage 3 and 4 students, whose submissions displayed a rich combination of classroom knowledge and youthful imagination. Students from Alsager School in Stoke-on-Trent,


who took first prize for the key stage 4 category, came up with the brilliant idea of the “Jet Stream Kite”. The idea aimed to harness one of the UK’s best renewable resources – wind power – by sending specialised kites into the jet stream. In turn, high-powered, vigorous movement would generate energy. The team showed a grasp of the opportunities


as well as challenges of climate change by spelling out how their idea would help to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and, by tapping into natural resource, save vast amounts of money for the local community. Younger pupils in key stage 3 were no less inventive.


Year 7 students at Pool Business and Enterprise College in Redruth, Cornwall, produced an idea for a pioneering children’s toy that would doubtless win many teachers’ support by converting kids’ irresistible urge to fidget and fiddle into an innovative way of combating climate change.


Organised by The “Fidgit”, as the pupils named their invention,


would turn kids’ kinetic energy into electricity that can then be used to recharge personal gadgets, such as iPods or mobile phones, via a built-in USB stick. Moreover, the device would be as green as the energy it creates by being made entirely from recycled materials. Their teacher Chris Challis commented: “The


Climate Week Challenge gave students the chance to see climate change from a new perspective. Rather than simply understanding the issue in terms of a far-off catastrophe, they were asked to identify an immediate opportunity that could help make or save people money. “The strength of their ideas shows how just how


much they engaged with the brief. It was particularly impressive to see how they drew on their own experience – such as needing to constantly recharge personal gadgets – for inspiration.”


SecEd • Kevin Steele is CEO of Climate Week.


Further information The main partner in Climate Week is Tesco with four supporting partners – Aviva, EDF Energy, Kelloggs and RBS. For more information, visit www.climateweek.com


Combating climate change


www.mahealthcareevents.co.uk +44 (0)20 7501 6762


40 YEARS OF MEDICAL EDUCATION 27/01/2011 17:16 SecEd • May 19 2011 7


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