Michael Rosen: Climate change education should be woven throughout curriculum

Poets going into schools can help teach children about climate change without making them feel “guilty or responsible”, author Michael Rosen has said.

Rosen has said he would like to see positive examples of climate action woven throughout the UK curriculum.

More than 20 poets have been matched with climate scientists to deliver climate education in schools through poetry as part of an initiative called “Hot Poets Ignite”.

Rosen, who has written one of the poems, told the PA News Agency the initiative hopes to talk to pupils about climate change, “about the urgency for us to be taking action and looking at wonderful initiatives that are taking place”.

The poems will avoid “the pitfalls of someway or another making children feel guilty or responsible, because clearly they’re not”, he said.

“There’s an element of optimism, hope, and trying to avoid the sense sense of doom or guilt which sometimes hangs about in the air, not deliberately, in some of this talk about climate change.”

Rosen, author of We’re Going On A Bear Hunt, said he thinks the curriculum teaches children about climate change well in science and geography, but that he would like to see it woven throughout other subjects.

“Poetry is basically another tool in your box to explain this, and the scientists we’ve met are very keen on it,” Rosen told PA.

The initiative is targeted at key stage 2 and younger key stage 3 pupils, he added.

Climate change “is clearly one of the key issues of the day, possibly the key issue of the day, because the human race is in danger,” Rosen said.

Schools can apply for a visit by the Hot Poets. Other participating poets include former Children’s Laureate Joseph Coelho, Vanessa Kisuule, Bohdan Piasecki, Kate Fox, Testament, Christian Foley and Valerie Bloom.

Each poet has produced an original children’s poem, covering topics like wind energy, cycling – and whale poo.

All the poems are brought together in a new book called Wonder. Thunder. Blunder. The initiative has also developed resources with Oxford University’s Climate Research Network and UCL’s Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education, which include video lessons led by Rosen.

Hot Poets co-director Chris Redmond said children are experiencing “considerable climate anxiety and are starting their adult life with a sense of existential threat and a perception that it’s too late and there’s nothing to be done.

“We need to change that. It’s simply not true, but the current requirements of the national curriculum are focused on problems rather than solutions. Teachers want better information and different ways to teach it.”

The Government launched a review of curriculum and assessment last year, and has today confirmed it will make citizenship compulsory in primary schools, which will include climate education.

The new curriculum will be implemented in full for first teaching from September 2028.

Speaking about the wider curriculum, Rosen also told PA the amount of standardised testing in the current curriculum is “too much”.

Labour has already announced plans to bring in a new statutory reading test for year 8 pupils as part of its curriculum reform.

The Guardian reported at the weekend education secretary Bridget Phillipson urged those opposing the introduction of the reading test to “really think carefully about whether they can justify the shocking outcomes that we see for too many working-class kids in our country.”

“They talk with one side of their mouth saying that the system hasn’t worked,” Rosen said. “With the other side, they’re saying: ‘Let’s do more of the same’.”

“Nearly all secondary schools do a bit of formative testing when most children arrive in year 7,” he added. “So there’s going to be testing, year 6, year 7, year 8… What’s the point of this? Why so much testing?”

He instead called for lower-stakes formative testing that would lower the stress and leave teachers under less “pressure to teach to the test”.

As part of its response to the curriculum review, the Government has said it will work to reduce GCSE exam time by 2.5 to three hours for the average student.

The poets will perform at the Southbank Imagine Festival in February, and Rosen will deliver a special performance for National Poetry Day in 2026.

Cambridge University Press & Assessment global director of climate education Christine Ozden said: “When students encounter climate education in creative, positive ways at school, for example through poetry, they build awareness and understanding, strengthen communication and critical thinking skills, and develop a sense of agency and hope.”