#690: Our need to be fully human

That is the title of a blog on the NAEE website which has been written by Mary Colwell, the instigator of the GCSE in Natural History.

"It is essential we tell children that their home is precious, that it matters, that the life around them has a value and a right to exist – and that it is essential for the survival of humanity. 

We must show them how to notice and to care. 

We have to connect children to the natural world and teach them the names of things and what life needs to thrive. 

Future generations will have to sort out the mess we have made and they must be given the tools to do that. 

They must be plugged into nature, drawing from it the life lessons that will keep the Earth functioning and, crucially, keep us sane. 

We will rely on future generations to make wise decisions for all of life on Earth."

#635: Getting ready

I mentioned the podcast with Mary Colwell in the previous post.

In this podcast she describes her thoughts on when it should be launched..

I’m absolutely convinced it should be launched when it’s ready to be launched. And much as after this long and rather torturous journey, it looks like now being a reality, I think it would be a great mistake to rush it through. I think what we need to do is get everything right. We need to get really good textbooks written.

We need to get really good support materials out to teachers. I would love to see a whole bank, a sort of library of the country’s greatest naturalists giving lessons on whatever turns up in the syllabus. So you’d have Tim Birkhead talking about seabirds. You know, you’d have the perfect people to teach young people about whatever is in the syllabus.

Now, that’s gonna take time, and that will take time to develop well. I think let’s now take our time, get it right, get schools feeling confident and teachers feeling confident that they’re supported enough to teach it, and then we launch it out onto the world.

If it’s rushed through, it has the danger of being a little bit shoddy, a bit insubstantial. It won’t fire the young people’s imaginations about what natural history is. The biggest problem we have is that most people have forgotten what natural history is. They think it’s about climate change and sustainability. We’ve forgotten that it’s about animals and plants, creatures. It’s about the living world around us and knowing that living world intimately, and that takes time to develop those materials because they’ve been lost. They need to be brought back together again and presented in exciting and enticing ways that make natural history such a relevant subject going forward in their lives.

She goes on to say:

I would love to see a greater connection between natural history, as in the studying the subject, and the connection out to all the other parts of life. All the art, the music, the poetry, the literature, the history, the geography, the mathematics. Everything that we do can be traced back to nature, can be traced back to the forms, the sounds, the sights, and the wonder of the natural world.

And the more that nature is put into this much broader context of the human experience of being a living, breathing mammal in this extraordinary planet, the more we can make our relationship with nature evident everywhere in our drama, in everything that we do, then I think that will just slowly build the awe and wonder, which is what sustains all of life.

Caroline Lucas also describes access to green spaces...

We know that access to green space in England and Wales is hugely unequally spread, and we know that people from lower income backgrounds, people from ethnic backgrounds and so forth, are far less likely to have access to green space.

So it feels to me that we need to do far more to make sure in the development and planning space that we build in access to green space right from the start.

#634: A podcast with Caroline Lucas and Mary Colwell

Shared by the Green Alliance.

After more than a decade of campaigning, a natural history GCSE for England is finally on the table. In this special episode, former MP Caroline Lucas and conservationist Mary Colwell sit down to unpack the government’s new consultation: what it gets right, what it’s missing and what bumblebees have to do with it.

A new Podcast with Mary Colwell.

A transcript is available.

Mary's views on the consultation document:

Yeah, there’s lots to welcome about it actually, and from earlier iterations it’s hugely improved. So it really has shifted, um, the focus back onto studying nature, which is really accessible to you, and I think that is the most important thing. The GCSE has to be grounded in localism. It has to be the nature you see on a day-to-day basis. Now, that might not be puffins and dolphins. It might just be, uh, the worms in your garden, the butterflies, the bees, the street trees, the flowers that grow up in the streets in the springtime. It might be the everyday stuff, but that doesn’t mean it’s lacking in wonder. And so to put the emphasis back on what people will see every day is really good.

I welcome the sense of wanting to be a naturalist has come through a lot more strongly. But where I’d say it was lacking is in two or three areas. One is in the keeping of field notebooks and jottings and recordings, actually physically committing down on paper or electronically your thoughts, your observations, your data.

That’s not explicitly put in there as part of a requirement for the GCSE, and that is so important. There is not a naturalist who has ever lived that hasn’t kept a notebook. And notebooks are not only places to write numbers down, they’re places where you express that connection that we were talking about earlier, which is so important.

They’re places where your interaction, your relationship, personal relationship with what’s before you is recorded, and that psychological process sets in train a whole lifetime of connection. The other thing that’s missing, I think, is a sense of the shifting baseline. And I think until we understand that some of the greatest losses in UK nature has happened within living memory.

In the last 100 years, we have lost 50% of the mass of wildlife in the UK. Until we know that, we won’t make sense of what’s before us now. And that shifting baseline, that sense of "this is normal". You look out of the window and this is what’s normal because this is what you see, as opposed to if you’d looked out of the window 50 years ago, you’d have seen a very different world.

But we just gradually get used to less. We gradually get used to an impoverished world. And so if they could put in some way of tackling the shifting baseline in a way that younger people could talk to the older generation, it could be members of their family or their community. What was it like here 50 years ago?

Listen to it here...

#472: Country Life - resetting our children's connection to nature

A good piece in Country Life, which can be read on their website currently.

It quotes Andrew Millham, a writer and Forest School teacher, who says that educational efforts to do this:

"must include the undiluted Natural History GCSE that Mary Colwell and others fought for for more than a decade and which the Labour Government has now approved. Approving it is one thing, however — having worked alongside Mary for many years, I know that it runs the constant risk of being watered down, of getting lost somewhere between geography and biology, of being based on words and not observation and of being starved of the money needed to get students, particularly urban students, out into the natural world on a regular basis....we know that there is a thirst for this course from both teachers and students, a thirst that has to be matched with money and support by the Department for Education. The politicians want it, but we will wait to be convinced that their senior civil servants do."

The piece finishes with a quote from Mary Colwell:

‘The greatest gift we can give to the Earth is a new generation of Nature-literate young people who know, understand and care for this incredible planet. We are not a collection of objects, but a communion of subjects, interdependent and co-creators living together. Nature education is not optional; it is vital to the future of life on Earth."

#450: Mary Colwell on the progress towards GCSE Natural History

This is a visual representation of a thread that Mary Colwell recently posted on X (which I try to avoid linking to). She has started to realise what those of us involved in previous curriculum innovation know tends to happen when they come across the desks of those who shape it so that it will fulfil OFQUAL's thinking about what makes them examinable on a large scale. 

The OCR Pilot GCSE Geography was the most innovative examination I ever came across, and had the chance to change things in the longer term. The people developing it were able to keep a great deal of the original conception of the course, but it was cancelled after the original pilot period came to an end. I'm glad I had the chance to teach it at the end of the first half of my teaching career and that my students had the chance to experience it.

When the first thoughts on the new specification and the results of the consultation came out there was a lot of excitement about the potential of the new GCSE Natural History specification: focus on fieldwork, creative aspects including art, photography and literature and training in field practice, as well as a multi-disciplinary approach to wildlife and landscape. 

During the time since it was first announced (see the early posts on the blog for more on this period) the exciting elements have undoubtedly been diluted by the various stages such things go through.

This is what Mary had to say earlier today, providing a few insights into what is emerging from the various stages of development so far which she has perhaps been made aware of - and a long way from the wide-ranging content on the 450 posts on this blog so far, which cover all aspects of natural history.

I haven't seen the original piece, but you can see the first page here.

Two days fieldwork is no more than you get from GCSE Geography - this could easily be more but that is what is examinable. There's no problem (as such) with schools offering more, but if it's not examined or really embedded in the specification's structure it will not happen.

Noticing is really important.

The statement above is a key aspect of the development of the new specification.

Fingers crossed that the next time I go to a GCSE Natural History Forum meeting, we are shown something a little more developed, rigorous and ambitious.

#437: Well, now we are finally getting somewhere... maybe...

Well, it took a while, but there was some news from Parliament today....

Here was the question in Parliament.

It was asked by Ellie Chowns of the Green Party.

And here was the answer from Cathrine McKinnell.

Let's see what happens next...

According to The Guardian:

The government will consult on the GCSE’s subject content later this year. According to Colwell, the criteria drafted under the previous government would need to be revised to ensure the GCSE provided young people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland with fieldwork opportunities to learn about the wildlife in their local neighbourhoods.

#406: Important update and story in 'The Guardian'

“We need nature education at the heart of school life so everyone has access to it, not just middle-class people who go to the countryside at the weekend and have big gardens. 

It’s the kids in very urban areas who I had in mind because the whole idea of the GCSE is to make natural history on your doorstep something you are fascinated by. 

We have such a crisis in the mental health of our young people and nature is known to be a very healing thing.”

Mary Colwell

The Guardian has a piece from its Environment reporter on the continued delay.

It's a great pity if this is seen as 'political' and something that the new Government can't get behind and move to the next phase with. It has the potential to offer something distinctively different from other curriculum offerings.

As Mary says at the end of the piece:

"Nature can’t afford to be a political football. We need future generations to understand or care for the natural world.”

#350: GCSE Natural History and the election - still waiting.

The status of the qualification is now in limbo as a result of the general election and a change of government.

I've already blogged about the possible impact of this earlier on this GCSE Natural History blog.

What did the political parties have to say on the matter of nature and natural history? There was little in the manifestos to link to the climate emergency or protecting biodiversity.

The new Environmental Secretary talked about the terrible state that some of our environment is in, and water companies have been fined for polluting the rivers - a starting point, assuming the fines come out of dividends for shareholders rather than being passed on to customers.

Will Labour continue with the GCSE Natural History project as part of their look at the curriculum?

There are a lot of unknowns here. Caroline Lucas, who was a big supporter, stepped down as an MP.

Image: Alan Parkinson, shared on Flickr under CC license.

#341: Podcast with Mary Colwell - June 2024

GCSE Podcast with Mary Colwell.

From the transcript

A subject criteria panel were established. Now this is a panel that decide the overarching content of the GCSE. It's not the detail that's set by the different exam boards, but it's the principles which the exam boards have to adhere to. So the criteria panel was set up and although I couldn't be on it, I wasn't allowed on it and it's secretive, I did manage to influence two things. One, I managed to get them to concentrate on making habitats, the centre of how it would be organised, so that habitats around the country would be understood in terms of the species that live in there. So you'd go anywhere and be able to say, oh, this must be a wetland or this must be an ancient woodland or this must be a disturbed urban area or whatever it is. And these key indicator species of different habitats would form the sort of core of the GCSE. And I also to persuade them to send the content out to a range of really good field naturalists before it went public. So that panel was set up and that all happened. And the next thing that has to happen is that it goes to public consultation. All new GCSEs have to go to public consultation, which means you, me and everybody can comment on the content. Normally, and there haven't been very many GCSEs recently, so it's not something that's been tested much. In fact, the only one recently has been the sign language, British sign language, which probably doesn't need much consultation because that's a very defined and understood thing. But natural history, you know, garners a lot of interest. And so to get ready for the public consultation, they sent it round to naturalists and got it ready. But for some reason, just before the consultation was due to be announced, it was stuck. it got stuck in a process whereby all ministers have to sign off new legislation, new input. And for some reason there was some disagreement amongst ministers, so although the Department for Education had agreed it, somewhere somebody or a collection of people didn't agree to it, and there was no furtherment of that before the next, this recent general election was called. So it didn't get to public consultation. And now we have a general election. It looks likely we'll have a change of government. And I have literally no idea how the new incoming Labour government, which we're all assuming, is going to feel about a GCSE in natural history. If they don't like it, it might be dead in the water.

And some interesting thoughts on the teaching of the GCSE and the support that people will need...

There's also though, a lot of concern that we lack the expertise and knowledge to teach it. Because there was this everybody could say, oh, it's fine, it's fine, we'll get the GCSE and natural history and geography and biology teachers will do it. Well, not necessarily, because it's not always biology and geography teachers that are naturalists. And in fact, I would say that we're really missing naturalists everywhere. You know, you can be a biologist and not a naturalist, definitely. And the same is true for geography. So we need a whole level of support. for teachers and for schools to take this. We need to give them the confidence that there is the expertise out there, that the support out there whenever they need it. In terms of online resources, courses, teacher training, money for equipment or even to go on trips if that's what's needed. You know, we need to know, schools need to know they're supported and I then think it will absolutely take off. So there's a huge amount of enthusiasm, but there's also concern that we're not getting the support in place that's needed to make it really fly.

#327: Teaching Times article from Mary Colwell gives an update

A new article in 'Teaching Times' by Mary Colwell gives a bit of an update into the state of the GCSE Natural History, and its possible introduction in 2026.

She mentions the assessment as being based on coursework and fieldwork - I think that is very unlikely.

The Subject Criteria have now been written and were signed off by Damien Hinds, who is the current Minister of State for Schools. However, it became mired in the political process before the general election was called, and it has not yet gone to public consultation. We wait to see if the next government will revive it and make it a reality for first teaching in 2026 (at the earliest). 

There is a long way to go still; the public consultation will need to be taken on board, Ofqual will need to produce its requirements and the exam boards will need to write their exam content, which must be approved again by Ofqual. Textbooks will need to be written and teacher training and resource provisions put in place. 

There is a lot to do even for a 2026 introduction.

Natural history requires specialist knowledge and support must be found for schools that want to train teachers or take on new staff. Resources must also be available to help schools with trips and equipment.

#323: A casualty of the early election?

Earlier today, this diagram was shared on Twitter, which looks from the formatting to be a panel from a recent copy of the i newspaper.

It shows the Government policies that were announced, but never came to fruition because of the early call for a General Election. 

Some of these were not the result of the 4th of July call, but the civil servants who would have been working on preparing all the documentation for the consultation that is needed in order for the next stage of the qualification's development ahead of a possible 2025 start will no longer be working due to purdah. This means that the relevant steps to progress have not been taken. 

Is it the end for the qualification? 

Will the new Government continue to develop the project? 

It's unlikely to be earlier than 2026 before it will be taught for the first time?

We'll find out more after the Election I guess....

Update - a Tweet from Mary Colwell...

Thanks Jules - so despairing about the last delay to the GCSE in Natural History - it now hangs in the balance and relies on Labour pushing it through. But will they? https://t.co/kbEvfXTYhl

— Mary Colwell (@curlewcalls) June 3, 2024

#291: Natural History Podcasts #8 - Philippa Forester talks to Mary Colwell

Click the link here to go to the Apple Podcasts page.

Philippa Forester talks to Mary Colwell, who led the GCSE Natural History campaign.

How many of you would have taken a GCSE/O level in Natural History given the chance, when you were at school?
We chat to Mary Colwell on this week’s podcast who has successfully campaigned for a new GCSE, being introduced in schools 🌎🙏
Apple podcasts https://t.co/7nfD0GxX5M

— Philippa Forrester (@philippaforrest) March 27, 2024

#222: A new quote from Mary Colwell

This features in a recent article in The Tablet - the International Catholic News Weekly - which appeared via my Google Alert which I have set up. The quote comes via an event she was speaking at called EA Sustain, an East Anglia festival in Colchester. I almost attended, but couldn't make it in the end. The event was about reframing education.

The article features the new GCSE Natural History and has a useful quote from Mary on the new specification:

“The natural world today is a focus of angst about climate change, people see a planet in meltdown and feel helpless. But that isn’t the whole story. Planet earth is also a place of wonder, joy, enlightenment and wisdom. By focusing on the individual species around us we find ourselves part of the unfolding drama of life on earth, we enter the story and feel empowered to protect it. We must look to life on earth, as well as earth’s climate, to get a whole picture and to find again the joy of understanding and caring for nature. Doing what it takes to mitigate the climate crisis will be much easier.”

The article seems to confirm that the qualification will now be available from 2026. A further delay...

#195: The Wash

One area which would make a good focus for an investigation of natural history and landscape management would be the large estuary called The Wash. 

It is one of Norfolk's Natural Nature Reserves.

The reserve is a mix of open deep water, permanent shallow water, mudflats and saltmarsh, representing one of Britain’s most important winter feeding areas for waders and wildfowl.

The Wash NNR comprises Kirton Marsh, Terrington St Clement Marsh, Point Green and the North Wootton Marsh. It’s a valuable breeding zone for birds like the redshank and supports one of the largest common seal populations in England.

Main habitat: saltmarsh and mudflats
Area: 8,880 hectares

Source: Gov.UK

I lived on the shores of the Wash for twelve years, and could cycle to a beach where I could watch the sun set over the water, or the passing storms as above. I also had friends who lived up on the hill in Hunstanton before the present sprawl of housing estates cloaked the whole area and cut off the view. I remember evenings sat in their garden looking down towards the coast and Searles' beach huts and across to the twinkling lights of Skegness and other settlements on the other side of The Wash: a view now lost forever.

Somewhere in The Wash lies a great treasure waiting to be found.

According to this blog:

In October 1216 King John was travelling from Spalding, Lincolnshire, to Bishop’s Lynn, Norfolk, but was taken ill and decided to return. While he took the longer route around the Wash by way of Wisbech, he sent his baggage train, comprising horse-drawn wagons, along the causeway and ford across the mouth of the Wellstream, a route usable only at low tide, to arrive ahead of him.

The tide came in very high and the baggage train was too slow to beat the tide and was washed away. The baggage included the crown jewels. Their loss was a major disaster, which John didn’t have to deal with, as he died, probably of food poisoning, a few days later. He was recorded as staying the following night, 12–13 October 1216, at Swineshead Abbey, moving on to Newark-on-Trent, and dying of his illness on 19 October.

However, there are plans to change the area irrevocably, and impact on its natural history and wildlife. These include the Snettisham Spectacular - which happens when the tides are right.

Nothing but nothing is safe from those whose lives are defined by making money through destruction. The Wash is precious beyond words. We don’t need a marina, cruise ships and a barrage on one of the best wader habitats in Europe. It’s priceless. https://t.co/o96ADEv7xQ

— Mary Colwell (@curlewcalls) May 21, 2023

There have been several attempts to put a barrage over the Wash in the past to generate tidal energy. This always causes controversy and the plans were recently revived. This may be an issue worth following depending on how serious the plans get over the next five years or so. A public meeting was held in Hunstanton this week.

There is a thread here describing some of the contributions by those who spoke:

Thanks to everyone who came down to support Mike and defend the Wash! 💚 https://t.co/4VGfKtMfIo

— Norfolk Wildlife Trust (@NorfolkWT) November 6, 2023

It's over 70 years since they were discussed for the first (or more) time. This link is to a Hansard discussion in 1967.

There are several useful links:

Britannica Encylopaedia entry.

A website for those who want to Sail the Wash.

One of the places on the edge of the Wash is Wild Ken Hill. This was the location of BBC filming for some years and remains a location which will perhaps be part of the resources I put together on Norfolk as an extended case study, with reference to the Norfolk Wildlife Trust, the Wash, Cley next the Sea and other key locations for investigating Natural History.

Images: Alan Parkinson - shared under CC license - the Wash from Snettisham beach

#191: Countryfile magazine article

Another post from June 2022's Countryfile magazine by Sara Maitland which mentioned the importance of the new GCSE, although she lives in Scotland...
https://www.countryfile.com/.../sara-maitland-a-new-gcse.../


Declining plant awareness is the theme of the article.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ece3.9019
A BBC article shared by Mary Colwell too
https://www.theguardian.com/.../humans-value-nature...

A feature on p.10-11 of 'Make the Future Yours' magazine - read it online

https://www.makethefutureyours.uk/latest-issue

#116: Write to Nick Gibb...

...to ask him why he's been sitting on the proposals and stalling on the release of the subject criteria... while the natural world continues to decline. I guess we should expect this of this government: - U-turns and delays and cancellations (let's wait for that...) 

The GCSE in Natural History has stalled in the Minister for School's office (@NickGibbUK ) for 18 months. Please email him and ask why the delay? Please tell him you think it is vital we teach the next generation about nature. Draft text here: https://t.co/5KwCGm4CtX pic.twitter.com/iJQlSYWtNY

— Mary Colwell (@curlewcalls) October 6, 2023

 

Click the link for some text that you can use to draft your own message to Nick Gibb to ask him to pull his finger out...

It's also available on the Facebook group page in the FILES section.

#111: An update from Mary Colwell: watch out for Nature Hubs

A long awaited update, which comes from Mary Colwell.

She describes the delay in the development and signing off of the subject criteria by the Schools Minister Nick Gibb.

"The criteria have now been written by the secret panel (the whole process is secret) and are now submitted and sitting with Nick Gibb, the Schools Minister. Mr Gibb has had them for many months but they have not yet been signed off, there are obviously queries to be answered and there is no time scale given when this will happen. What is certain is that this delay will mean first teaching will now be in 2026, not 2025, as there is so much to do to get schools ready.

It is a complicated business launching a new GCSE, and we know from surveys and communication with schools that there is some concern that teachers feel underconfident about teaching it. Many feel they don’t have the skills, they are worried about resources and are unsure about access to experts and even to wildlife itself."

She rightly says that the National Education Nature Park is part of the plan to make schools into nature reserves.
We are certainly planning to use the school site as a nature reserve.

She goes on to introduce another level of support for teachers who want to teach the new specification.

"Curlew Action sees the need for local, bespoke teacher and pupil training through what we are calling Nature Hubs.

A Nature Hub is a place to go to learn about being a naturalist.

It will offer training in identification skills, fieldwork, field safety, local ecology, and local natural history.

Nature Hubs will, ideally, be all over the country, connecting need with expertise. It is a big and bold idea, and we it needs blended finance to work, but we are working hard to secure it. We are putting time and effort into this as we know nature needs us to act fast."

#109: Natural History Podcasts #4: Curlew Calls

.@curlewcalls is one of the guests in the latest episode of the @Ashdown_Forest podcast, with wildlife guide Tom Forward and podcast producer Eka Morgan.

They discusses Curlews (of course), wild cats, and the Natural History GCSE.

Listen here: https://t.co/2BUjhLctAo pic.twitter.com/Ob2wD43Uto

— Curlew Action (@CurlewAction) October 1, 2023

With few official updates on progress, hearing from Mary Colwell in this podcast is important. She talks about the campaign - 11 years long so far - to develop the GCSE in Natural History. There was the involvement of Tony Juniper from the beginning, and later Caroline Lucas of the Green Party.

Listen here on Apple podcasts. You need to listen from 18' 50" in particular to hear Mary speaking.

Ashdown Forest was the original Hundred Acre Wood from Winnie the Pooh.

She talks about the importance of observing, recording and monitoring local wildlife and understanding its relationship with national and global wildlife. It involves getting involved with nature. Mary hopes it will be a 'catalyst' for producing more naturalists in the future...

She references Gilbert White and the presenter references Gerald Durrell.

She also mentions the importance of localism and rootedness and drawing on the local voices. This means that every school will need to have a focus on teaching about their own local area, and the idea of localism.

An activity on developing this within students will obviously be needed.

She also explains that the development subject criteria has been delayed which means that it is likely that the new specification will arrive for first teaching from 2026.

#86: An apology and some news

Some news on 'progress' from Mary Colwell, also tied in with news of an apology from a Tory MP who had mentioned on her constituency leaflets that she had been rather more involved with securing a GCSE Natural History than she actually was...

A sort of apology anyway...

The message also mentions that there is going to be a roundtable later in the year to discuss a "nature pathway".

A somewhat grudging, late and indirect apology - but moving on...THANK YOU everyone for your support, that meant a huge amount.

Time to announce something much more positive!
A 'nature pathway'. See 🧵below...https://t.co/fOVn8betoP

— Mary Colwell (@curlewcalls) August 25, 2023

Source of image: Stroud News and Journal. 

#39: Caroline Lucas

Another post which came from the Google Alert I have set up for 'GCSE Natural History'.

One of the big supporters of the new GCSE Natural History was the Green Party MP Caroline Lucas. 

She was the Green Party's first MP. 

She served in Brighton and was also the former co-leader of the Green Party. She announced this week that she was stepping down as an MP.

This week we had a number of other MPs announce they were stepping down. Several of them were appalling individuals and will not be mentioned here.

In the Metro yesterday, Caroline Lucas released a statement.

It contains the following statements, starting with a thanks to the people of Brighton:

I’m truly grateful for the trust they placed in me to be their MP - but I’m standing down to ensure I can focus fully on the climate and nature crises gripping the world.

The Climate and Ecology Bill, which I first tabled back in 2020, and currently going through Parliament, has broad cross-party support.

When campaigns have needed a voice inside Parliament, I have sought to offer it.

After collaborating over many years with nature campaigner Mary Colwell, a Natural History GCSE, will be on the syllabus by 2025/26.

(More evidence that there may well be a delay in the specification being taught for the first time)

I’ve sometimes struggled to focus on the existential challenges that drive me – the climate and nature emergencies.

So I’ve decided to step down at the next election to allow me to turn my full attention to those twin issues.