Guidance on the Scottish Government’s ‘Learning for Sustainability: Action Plan 2023 to 2030’

The Scottish Government has launched its Learning for Sustainability (LfS) Action Plan with a view to placing sustainability at the centre of the Scottish education system.

The action plan is designed to underpin the Government’s intention to meet its aim that every school and early learning setting will be sustainable by 2030, known as Target 2030.

The LfS Action Plan follows the publication of the Vision 2030+ (2016) report which developed five priorities for LfS:

  • all learners should have an entitlement to LfS;

  • in line with the GTCS Professional Standards, every practitioner, school and education leader should demonstrate LfS in their practice;

  • every school should have a 'whole-school' approach to LfS that is robust, demonstrable, evaluated and supported by leadership at all levels;

  • all school buildings, grounds and policies should support LfS;

  • a strategic national approach to support LfS should be established.

Bolstering this, as part of the development of the Action Plan, the Scottish Government committed to a comprehensive consultation process working with children, young people and educators. Their views were sought on the LfS.

Two main pieces of research were then compiled and used to inform the now published plan.

The first was conducted by the Children’s Parliament, using their Children’s Parliament Investigator Model. The second was the Learning for Sustainability: young people and practitioner perspectives report based on research conducted by a team at the University of Dundee.

An LfS leadership group was set up to contribute to the co-development of the refreshed action plan. The NASUWT played an integral role in the LfS leadership group, supporting the development and publication of the updated action plan.

Target 2030

The Target 2030 ambition will focus on what and how students learn, how settings manage their physical environment and resources, and how staff and learners relate to each other. It also looks at how schools work with their local communities, as well as connecting the wider world.

More details about Target 2030, including further details on the support and advice available to educators, will be provided later this year. We will update members when these details have been released.

LfS Action Plan 

The Learning for Sustainability (LfS) Action Plan includes 25 actions and has been created following nine months of collaboration with children, young people and their educators.

Specific actions in the report include:

  • developing new LfS-related qualifications;
  • a new commitment to take further steps to support outdoor learning;
  • the creation of a portal for learners and educators to access examples of best practice, as well as relevant resources and professional learning opportunities;
  • establishing an LfS Mentor Network for educators to encourage collaborative leadership, provide peer support and share approaches on embedding LfS in the curriculum;
  • setting up a children and young people LfS Leadership Group to support collaboration with learners throughout the implementation of the action plan.

Next steps

The NASUWT will monitor for further details or updates and continue to engage with the Scottish Government on the action plan and the implementation of it. The NASUWT will continue its role on the LfS leadership group.

One of the key areas we will focus on is ensuring the Scottish Government provides sufficient support, including financial backing, for schools to implement the action plan.

The Union will provide further updates to members as appropriate.