Empowering schools to innovate for sustainability education

<< Background >>We applied for this project in order to enable innovationhub.school and Stichting Technotrend to collaborate and bring their combined expertise towards developing a model which accelerates progress in schools with regards to sustainability education. Innovationhub.school had significant experience of bringing about change in the education sector whilst Stichling Technotrend had experience supporting schools in the field of sustainability. Through their partnership with Teachers for Climate, they had a model for transformative sustainability education that we used as a starting framework for our work with the schools.Whilst schools mostly appreciate the need to prioritise sustainability we felt they lacked the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes needed to bring about a sustainable school. Schools embraced the why but lacked clarity in how to go about bringing transformative change with regards to sustainability education. Schools had often focussed on accessible, low impact initiatives recycling campaigns and individual teacher projects, whilst our programme enabled schools with the know-how to start putting sustainability education at the heart of their plans regarding their curriculum, pedagogy and school environment. << Objectives >>The core objective for applying for this project was to pilot a new approach in bringing about transformational change in schools regarding sustainability education. We aimed for five schools to have each developed an innovation project using the Transformative Sustainability Education model, with stakeholders having increased agency and skills to continue to integrate sustainability education in their schools.In addition, we aimed to bring together the expertise from our two organisations and wider network in order to develop a comprehensive programme for schools called Sustainability Accelerator Programme (SAP) with workshops, coaching and showcasing sessions which enabled schools to have the knowledge, skills, values and attitudes to start placing sustainability at the core of their school’s approach to learning, curriculum and culture. Knowing this is a long-term process, we wanted each school to implement at least one meaningful innovation project going beyond existing marginal initiatives. We also aimed to enthuse and empower the main stakeholders in schools: teachers, students, school leaders and parents to prioritise sustainability and accelerate the process of change. << Implementation >>Our activities focused on three key phases: Connect and Train which included the recruitment of five schools across Europe through a mix of marketing campaigns, development of networks and information webinars, allowing us to select five highly motivated school teams.Innovate which included five workshops with all five schools and regular coaching sessions at the school level. We used innovationhub.school’s 5 Stages of Innovation as structure - Project Genesis, Resonance, Big Ideas, Hacks and Scale - and the Transformative Sustainability Education model as content for developing the knowledge, skills and attitudes which included developing sustainability in the curriculum, pedagogy, school culture and school environment.Share which included an interactive showcase attended by some 75 school leaders, sector experts, teachers and students across the world who took inspiration for how to start an innovation project at their school. In addition we created a series of five case studies aimed at inspiring other schools to be shared via our increasingly popular content platforms: our LinkedIn group, website, blog and newsletter. PLEASE NOTE: WE WERE NOT ABLE TO MODIFY THE IMPLEMENTATION SECTION HENCE WE ADDED IT AS APPENDIX<< Results >>Our main achievement was to successfully develop and test the first iteration of the Sustainability Accelerator Programme: We were successful in securing a significant number of applicant schools and select five schools from different countries and backgrounds. We designed five workshops in a collaborative platform which can be replicated in future versions of the programme. All five pilot schools participated on the Innovation Journey, designing and testing sustainability projects of their own using the workshops and coaching sessions to collaborate and increase depth in their tests. These included examples of curricular, pedagogical and school environment projects as recommended by the Transformative Sustainability Education model. Schools plan to continue developing their approach to sustainability education with concrete goals for scaling in place. Schools created a series of documented case studies which were and can be further used to inspire schools across the world to take action. Finally, the Sustainability Accelerator Programme has gained significant traction of its own with a growing community of educators and plans to launch a new iteration of the programme next academic year.