Rebecca Stacey, the head teach er of Castle Carrock School, kindly agreed to an interview

1. Tell us a little about yourself – where did you grow up, when and why did you decide you wanted to be a teacher? How long have you been a teacher, what has been the best thing?
I grew up in Doncaster, I had some brilliant teachers at secondary school that made me realise just what a difference education can make – it does sound corny! I really wanted to give others the opportunities I had, I trained as a teacher in London, worked in Doncaster for a few years before heading back to London. I’ve now been Head Teacher at Castle Carrock School for four fabulous years! A tiny school where I also teacher a brilliant Y5/y6 Class. The best bits in teaching are so numerous – after all you are watching children learn and grow every day. We’ve done some amazing things here at school – from Skype lessons with the International Space Station to growing our own food in the school garden – every day is different.

2. When and how did you first become aware of climate change? Did you do other specific teacher training before doing the eduCCate training?
Climate change is something I’ve just always been aware of – I remember the scare stories growing up where ‘we would all be underwater in 100yrs!’ – I also read a lot of science fiction – which always deals with the future in stark, descriptive ways! More recently I think the focus on pollution, on species extinction, has really caught my eye. I had no specific education training for climate change before – and heard about the UN course via social media.

3. Tell us about the eduCCate programme – how did you find out about it, what did the training entail, how has it/will it change what you do?

The training involves an online course – I’ve pasted details below:

Introduction to Climate Change Science (no certificate)
Children and Climate Change (certificate)
Cities and Climate Change (certificate)
Human Health and Climate Change (certificate)
Gender and Environment (certificate)
International Legal Regime (certificate)
*Note: Certificates are awarded from the UN CC:Learn website when the person takes and passes the quiz with a score of 70% or above. There is a quiz for each certificate course AND…there is a 3-Attempt limit per person

4. What advice would you give to other teachers who want to do the training? Do you think Teachers’ Unions should get behind the scheme?
I think it is a really informative and interesting course – there is so much I hadn’t thought about, such as the manner in which cities and zoning can be planned to support or the impact that climate change can have on economy and industry. It is quite in depth, and so can take some time. I wrote about the course here on my blog: https://www.digitalclassrooms.co.uk/online-cpd-to-tackle-climate-change/
I think unions should get behind this kind of CPD – but, at the same time, we need to be aware of pressures on schools. Subject knowledge is so important and teachers need help to be as up to date as possible.