Climate Change Education: Why It Matters Now — Heena Dave and Jenn Plews OBE
Climate change is increasingly shaping the lives, futures, and experiences of children and young people. At the same time, schools and trusts are navigating significant change across curriculum, school inspection, finance, wellbeing, staffing, and wider system pressures. Within this context, securing high-quality climate change education for children and young people can become more difficult to prioritise, despite growing demand and concern from children and young people themselves. This session explores why climate change education remains an important educational priority. Drawing on research, leadership experience, and emerging national policy contexts, the session will examine how schools can respond in ways that are evidence-informed, coherent, and grounded in the realities facing communities today. The session will also consider the role of schools in helping children and young people make sense of a changing world, while exploring the opportunities and challenges this presents for school leaders.
About the speakers
Heena Dave is an ESRC-funded doctoral researcher at the University of Stirling and Co-Founder and Trustee of the charity Climate Adapted Pathways for Education. Her background spans classroom practice, designing school leadership professional development, and programme and partnership roles across the charity sector, and the Environment Agency. Her research includes academic journal publications and co-authored books and reports on science and climate change education.
Jenn Plews OBE is a proud mum, practising artist-printmaker and committed environmentalist, and leads Northern Star Academies Trust, a 15-school partnership serving 7,000 children across North and West Yorkshire. With over 30 years in secondary education, her career spans six local authorities, including headship, a decade leading a SCITT and a Teaching School Alliance. She champions collaboration, continuous improvement, and children’s voices, with sustainability and climate change education central to the Trust’s work.
