Across the West Midlands and Warwickshire, a quiet revolution is underway. A growing body of further education staff are forming an influential community of practitioners who are rapidly redefining the part colleges play in Green Skills and sustainability. These Green Changemakers are active within many parts of their organisations bringing about transformational change from within.
The Green Changemaker programme was enabled by the Wider Green Skills project which sits within the West Midlands and Warwickshire Local Skills Improvement Fund programme. The Wider Green Skills project responds to the call for greater support with Green Skills that was highlighted in the regional Local Skills Improvement Plan.
The Wider Green Skills project was launched in January 2024 with a high-profile regional Green Skills summit and followed by exercises in curriculum mapping, research, and data analysis to inform a Green Skills Roadmap for colleges. But the central focus of the project was to pilot a multi-strand development programme for education staff in colleges and learning settings across the region enabling them to embrace Green Skills in their curriculum and pedagogical practice.
Fifty educators attending the Train the Green Skills Trainers one-day course learned how to integrate the latest knowledge about Green Skills confidently into their subject areas. Teachers were inspired to return to the classroom with new knowledge about sustainability that they can introduce to their students as part of their core learning.
The Green Changemaker Programme was a longer course delivered one day per week for five weeks. This deeper programme of educator development applied the AimHi Earth 15 Green Skills in real contexts and enabled learning in terms of curriculum and pedagogy and also how to effect change on sustainability and Green Skills across learning organisations. Forty educators and other staff from 17 colleges participated in Green Changemaker courses in the first four months of the project and after only a very short period of time, their impact was significant and growing.
Many actions have been implemented by the Green Changemakers including:
The climax of the first phase of the Wider Green Skills project was a Green Skills Tutor Conference held in March 2024 which drew together ninety educators from across the West Midlands and Warwickshire region to celebrate progress and mark the next phase of Green Changemaking. The action-ready squad of Green Changemakers led and participated in various workshops, discussions and panels, all looking at what THEY can take back to their colleges to inspire other staff and students. All agreed that Green Changemaking has only just begun. Funding has been secured to run further Green Changemaker courses and as part of the second phase of the project, a virtual tutor hub is being created to give educators across the region the network, resources and support to update and take their green skills knowledge and teaching to the next level.
The legacy of the Wider Green Skills project and its Green Changemaker movement is the exponential growth in the groundswell of support and confidence in Green Skills. In an ever-changing world and the backdrop of climate crisis, one thing is certain, the future of skills in the West Midlands and Warwickshire is Green…
Dr Lou Mycroft, course leader, says of the Green Changemakers approach: “It was launched to help tutors find their way in a world where most people want to do something but are petrified by #ecoanxiety. Green Changemaking is a game-changer, shifting those good intentions to sustainable change and aligning practice to strategy within their colleges.”
