Recommendation 31

HM Government Acknowledged

(31a) The Department for Education (DfE) is exploring the option of introducing a new GCSE in Natural History after receiving a proposal from exam board OCR. Initial discussions with OCR have taken place. DfE, and Ofqual, will determine whether the proposal meets all the necessary conditions to sit alongside our rigorous suite of reformed GCSE qualifications. We have made no commitment to introduce the GCSE at this stage. In the immediate future the qualifications team at DfE and colleagues at Ofqual are focusing their efforts on ensuring that all students are able to be assessed fairly this summer and on planning for a return to exams in 2022. (31b) DfE recognises the significant benefits that learning outside the classroom can have for children’s mental health and wellbeing, as well as their educational and social development. pandemic. centres residentially as well as for day visits. Enrichment activities that give pupils the opportunity to develop their intellectual, emotional, personal, and social skills can support well-being and success both in and outside of the classroom, nurturing a feeling of belonging and sense of purpose. The Government’s support for education recovery targets both academic and extra-curricular activities. Since June 2020, we have announced more than £3bn to support education recovery—this will have a material impact in addressing the impact of the pandemic. Activities available through our education recovery initiatives, such as summer schools, are aimed at supporting emotional, physical and social well-being, giving pupils the opportunity to develop resilience, understand healthy eating and good exercise habits and participate in socialisation. (31c) The Children and Nature Programme aims to support children from disadvantaged backgrounds to have better access to natural environments. It consists of three delivery projects and a separate independent evaluation project, to demonstrate and improve understanding of the effectiveness of interventions in nature, particularly for schools with the highest proportions of disadvantaged pupils in England. DfE, Natural England, and Defra have worked together to develop the programme and now oversee its delivery. Natural England is responsible for overseeing the three delivery projects and Defra is overseeing the independent evaluation. One of the delivery projects is the Community Forest and Woodland Outreach Project. activities being delivered to school children, particularly those in disadvantaged areas, to benefit their mental health and wellbeing, engagement with school and other programme outcomes. The programme was funded until March 2021 by DfE. Defra and DfE have now committed jointly to funding a reduced version of the programme until March 2022. (31d) Induction of Permanent Secretaries focuses on enabling people to successfully make the transition to the most senior leadership positions in their department—usually Directors General on promotion but sometimes non-civil servants. assessment exercises that candidates undergo as part of the selection process. More generally, DfE has recently established a Sustainability and Climate Change Unit to co-ordinate and drive activity across the department. The strategic aims of this new unit – including connecting citizens with the natural environment—will be set out in a Sustainability and Climate Change Strategy in due course. (31e) In our 2019 Green Finance Strategy the government committed to transforming the frameworks for financial decision making. This includes supporting the finance sector to develop the tools and skills to price climate and biodiversity risk into financial models. As part of the strategy, we set a clear expectation for the finance sector to implement the recommendations of the global Taskforce on Climate related Finance Disclosures, to ensure that risks are properly understood. We also committed to catalyse international action on nature-related financial disclosures. Since the publication of the Strategy, we have increased our ambition and accelerated the pace including the Chancellor’s announcement in November 2020 setting a timetable for climate disclosures to become mandatory by 2024 and through the launch of a global market-led Taskforce on Nature Related Disclosures in June 2021 which is expected to deliver a draft framework by December 2021. The Chancellor also announced plans to legislate to create a Green Taxonomy, to provide clear guidelines to investors on the sectors, technologies and activities that can be considered compatible with the transition to a nature-positive economy in line with our long-term environmental policies. As part of the Green Finance Strategy we also set up in partnership with the City of London a Green Finance Institute to support and leverage the skills in our world leading financial sector.