Key Points
- All aspects of sustainability are interconnected, and sustainability is promoted by attention to all aspects.
- Sustainability provides a platform for children take action and show agency, and to become architects of their own environments over time.
- Working together is a core aspect of sustainability.
- Early years education is the starting point for developing environmental stewardship and social responsibility.
- Sustainable practices in early years provision are founded on the development of an ethos of love, deep respect and care for the self, each other and the wider world.
- Educators need to present sustainability in developmentally appropriate and hopeful ways, ensuring children feel empowered rather than overwhelmed.
- Sustainability thinking is clearly woven through the EYFS principles.
Sustainability is underpinned by a deep love for our shared world now and in the future. Itis built on core concepts of interconnectedness, collaborative action and holistic learning, which are rooted in the historical bedrock of early childhood education and care. Sustainability learning starts with the child and their everyday experiences, interests and contexts, allowing them to develop meaningful, personal connections to the world around them.
All aspects of sustainability are interconnected, and sustainability is promoted by attention to all aspects. The health and wellbeing of both children and the wider world are completely interdependent. Sustainability thinking is holistic — it crosses subject boundaries and includes emotions, hopes and fears, love, care, imagination and inspiration.
Sustainability provides a platform for children to take action and show agency, and to become architects of their own environments over time. Opportunities for sustainability should be embedded within everyday practice rather than approached as standalone topics, allowing children to develop understanding through real, lived experiences. Experiences that support children to learn about sustainability involve:
- hands-on exploration, reflection and interaction with the natural world
- developing awareness of the impact of humanity’s actions on the planet
- learning about concepts such as refuse, reuse, repurpose, recycle, reduce
- getting involved in improving the local environment
- making choices about the things that matter to them, where they can see positive impact and the effects of their actions.
Working together is a core aspect of sustainability. Children can be involved in:
- collaborating with a sense of hope and shared purpose to carry out meaningful action in their school, setting or neighbourhood
- sharing knowledge with families, local communities and the wider society about how we can live more sustainably
- working together to research, learn and produce action plans for positive change locally and globally
- noticing and challenging unsustainable practice and offering positive alternatives
- finding ways to minimise or eliminate negative impact in order to preserve the planet.
Sustainability is underpinned by a deep love for our shared world now and in the future. Itis built on core concepts of interconnectedness, collaborative action and holistic learning, which are rooted in the historical bedrock of early childhood education and care. Sustainability learning starts with the child and their everyday experiences, interests and contexts, allowing them to develop meaningful, personal connections to the world around them.
All aspects of sustainability are interconnected, and sustainability is promoted by attention to all aspects. The health and wellbeing of both children and the wider world are completely interdependent. Sustainability thinking is holistic — it crosses subject boundaries and includes emotions, hopes and fears, love, care, imagination and inspiration.
Sustainability provides a platform for children to take action and show agency, and to become architects of their own environments over time. Opportunities for sustainability should be embedded within everyday practice rather than approached as standalone topics, allowing children to develop understanding through real, lived experiences. Experiences that support children to learn about sustainability involve:
- hands-on exploration, reflection and interaction with the natural world
- developing awareness of the impact of humanity’s actions on the planet
- learning about concepts such as refuse, reuse, repurpose, recycle, reduce
- getting involved in improving the local environment
- making choices about the things that matter to them, where they can see positive impact and the effects of their actions.
Working together is a core aspect of sustainability. Children can be involved in:
- collaborating with a sense of hope and shared purpose to carry out meaningful action in their school, setting or neighbourhood
- sharing knowledge with families, local communities and the wider society about how we can live more sustainably
- working together to research, learn and produce action plans for positive change locally and globally
- noticing and challenging unsustainable practice and offering positive alternatives
- finding ways to minimise or eliminate negative impact in order to preserve the planet.
Early years education is the starting point for developing environmental stewardship and social responsibility. Increasing numbers of children are growing up in a world which does not offer them the safe and just space they need to flourish. The effects of climate change are already being experienced through drought, water shortages, flooding and extreme weather events. These phenomena affect the basic requirements for life and exacerbate poverty, unemployment, ill-health and pollution that already affect the daily lives of many children and their families. These significant local and global challenges will only become more urgent as the children of today move forward into adulthood.
Sustainable practices in early years provision are founded on the development of an ethos of love, deep respect and care for the self, each other and the wider world. This means that sustainability learning can start from birth and should be a consideration within practice for babies, toddlers and young children. If principles of sustainability are interwoven through all that we do from the earliest years, children will grow up thinking beyond the boundaries of their family to their group, class, nursery, school and community. As children begin to understand their place in the world and the impact they can have on it, they become responsible global citizens.
Educators need to present sustainability in developmentally appropriate and hopeful ways, ensuring children feel empowered rather than overwhelmed. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer a framework for thinking about the different dimensions of sustainability. The SDGs permeate all areas of learning and are imbued with a strong sense of history about how we have arrived at this point and how we can move forward.
Sustainability thinking is clearly woven through the EYFS principles.
A Unique Child
A child’s development is deeply connected to the world around them. Clean air, nourishing food and safe water are fundamental to life. Every child has their own developmental pathway, shaped by their experiences, environment and relationships. These divergent journeys remind us that there is no single way to learn or grow. When the unique needs of each child are seen and accommodated within the way the setting works, this creates spaces where every child can flourish. Children feel a genuine sense of belonging and are openly ready to engage, collaborate and develop the confidence to advocate for themselves and others.
Positive Relationships
Working towards sustainable solutions means working in partnership with others. In the early years, children are developing friendships with peers and positive relationships with the adults who care for them. New people and new situations might evoke feelings of uncertainty, but secure relationships encourage children to explore and try new things. Responding to newness and difference with an appropriate balance of confidence and caution means children learn to show interest in and respect towards people that they meet. Embracing difference early in life is now recognised as the foundation of peace education as well as successful collaboration over management of scarce resources. Children learn from the behaviour of others around them about how to share resources, promote fairness and accommodate multiple perspectives. They develop understanding of what it means to take responsibility, ensure fair shares and anticipate future needs.
Enabling Environments
Sustainability education recognises the need for children to be connected to both the natural and human-made environment. An enabling environment includes community infrastructure such as homes, places of worship and shops as well as parks, playgrounds and green community spaces. Through regular visits in their local environment, children will begin to notice significant changes and societal concerns, such as flooding or homelessness, that are happening due to climate change. Access to rich, regular outdoor experiences plays a vital role in supporting environmental awareness as well as overall development. Educators can support children’s agency by encouraging them to ask critical questions and to consider solutions. This is crucial, as just being in the environment and connecting with it does not encourage critical thinking, creativity or problem solving. In their play children can become advocates and ambassadors for their environment.
Learning and Development
Learning and development are holistic and interconnected and aspects of sustainability permeate all areas of the curriculum. Understanding local and global challenges uses concepts such as place, time, natural and synthetic processes, sufficiency, need and loss. To address the challenges that lie ahead, children need to be curious, flexible, critical and creative – but so do adults. We all need to develop positive dispositions towards learning new skills and adjusting to change. These qualities are embedded in the Characteristics of Effective Learning and 21st Century skills.