Earlier this year, the Youth Shadow Panel published its Interim Report, outlining its key findings from a call for evidence that gathered reflections from 556 students across KS1 (ages 5-7) to KS5 (ages 16-18).  

This prompted the Solutions for the Planet team to pause and reflect on their own thoughts about the school experience in a recent Monday morning team meeting. This was simply an interesting exercise that called on our experiences as educators, facilitators and teachers, as we absolutely believe that it should be the insights from young people that influence any changes made to the educational experience.  

Sarah, our Big Ideas Programme Manager, reflected on the positive changes recently made to the Scottish curriculum.  

“Importantly, in Scotland they define the curriculum as, “the totality of all that is planned for children and young people throughout their education” which is “planned for and experienced by learners across four contexts: the ethos and life of the school as a community; opportunities for personal achievement; interdisciplinary learning; and curriculum areas and subjects.” 

This, she believes, has opened space for sustainability education to be better embedded in the Scottish curriculum; something that our Big Ideas Programme seeks to champion!  

Lauren, our Youth Insights Programme Coordinator, who used to work as a secondary school Modern Languages and Geography teacher, felt that the school experience should be a better preparation for real life. 

“I’d pick out three main things. One is self-awareness and self-reflection, and really learning about ourselves. The second would be around building relationships, learning to communicate across differences and dealing with conflict. And then a huge gap for me is financial education. Young people are left to figure this out once they become adults, at which point it could mean the difference between a roof over your head or not!”  

A slightly more radical change that Lauren shared was to allow more flexibility deciding when to learn. “I know people who felt very uninspired during their compulsory education and didn’t succeed in the way they might have wanted to. But then they go on to pick up additional degrees or learning experiences and absolutely thrived because they are studying what they want and when they want to!”. Whilst this idea would need some serious logistical planning, it’s worth reflecting on the compulsory nature of the current system.  

Amy, our Big Ideas Programme Coordinator, spent time teaching at a Kindergarten in Finland.  

“The main thing I learned from my time living there was that people didn’t really carry judgement, and they carried a lot of self-confidence and seemed to understand each other well. I think the extended time being able to learn through play, allows people to develop a sense of self, test boundaries and learn how to be part of a community / society in a functional and positive way.” 

She noted that the teachers at her school in Finland were encouraged to be ‘hands-off’ as far as possible. For example, “with disagreements and even physical fights, allowing to work things out for themselves and allowing the slightly older students to guide the younger ones. They then in turn will become the older students guiding the younger ones. I could really see this translate into the adults around me in a wonderful way.” 

Ultimately, Amy felt that much of the curriculum should be redesigned from the beginning, rather than tweaked around the edges. “The Curriculum has been designed once and then only tweaked here and there over time. (I often liken what you need when organising a room to this – starting bare and decide what you want in there rather than deciding what to remove / move around is always better – you should see my notebooks every time I move 😂)”. 

Our founder and CEO, Jen, has been running Solutions for the Planet for over 10 years now. Unsurprisingly, her thoughts are very much reflected in the programmes that we now deliver with young people across the country!  

“If I had my way with the English national curriculum, I’d swap out content-heavy lessons for hands-on, cross-curricular project-based learning that mirrors the world outside of school—think the Big Ideas Programme (we run it for a reason 😊). Sustainability wouldn’t just be a one-off topic; it’d run through every subject like a golden thread, so students naturally pick up eco-friendly habits and systems thinking as they go. Students would be given an active role in how the school runs—think Youth Insights). We’d spend less time listening and memorising facts and more time mastering how to learn—building curiosity, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills that spark lifelong discovery. In the end, students wouldn’t just leave school with knowledge; they’d leave with the confidence and passion to keep exploring—and improving—the world around them.” 

We’ll continue to follow the success of the Youth Shadow Panel, and we will continue to champion the voices of young people through our own work as well as more broadly.