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Morgan Phillips:

Welcome. We're gathered here today to discuss the Department for Education's consultation on the Natural History GCSE. 

We've had just about 60 people registered for the event, and it looks like more than half of them have arrived. We've got people coming in all the time as well, so that's really brilliant. It's great to have so much interest in this. 

I should also give a shout-out to Mary Colwell, who's on this call as well. Mary was the person who kicked off the idea for the Natural History GCSE probably more than 10 years ago now, and has been instrumental in making it happen. So hi, Mary, thanks for coming along. We might hear a little bit from Mary towards the end of the event as well. 

By way of introduction, I'm Morgan Phillips. I'm an Associate Director at Global Action Plan, which is one of the hats I wear alongside various other roles with different organisations. I'll be co-chairing today with Zoe Arnold from SOS UK. 

We've got colleagues from Global Action Plan, Teach the Future, and SOS UK all on the call as well. We're working together – Global Action Plan and SOS UK – thanks to funding we've received as a partnership from the JJ Charitable Trust. 

We're working together to try to influence the Department for Education's policies and practices on climate change, sustainability, citizenship, and nature education over the next two years. 

We're focusing on lots of different fronts: national curriculum reform, the enrichment entitlement, teacher education, safeguarding, post-16 qualifications, and of course this Natural History GCSE. 

We know that we can't succeed in our goals on our own, which is why we're very much trying to work together with many other people who are concerned about climate change, sustainability education, and nature education. 

We're trying to support and mobilise people to engage with processes like this consultation because we know that we need the DfE to hear from the experts and hear as much as possible. The volume is important as well as what we say to them. 

So I think it's great to see so many people involved in this. We've had people who can't make it today also let us know the sorts of things they're doing in terms of responding. 

Today's agenda: I'm going to shortly hand over to Zoe and Liv, who are going to give a bit of an introduction to the consultation, a little bit of instruction on how to actually go about doing it, and then they're going to throw back to me. 

I'm going to introduce our speakers. They'll all have three to four minutes, and I'll be trying to stick to that three to four minutes, to share their thoughts on what DfE are proposing. 

After that, we'll have some breakout rooms to have some conversations, then come back together for a bit of a summing up. 

So that's how we're going to get started. You'll have a chance to speak in the breakout rooms later on, and we'll try and capture as much information as we can. 

Of course, you can email us with your thoughts as well, because what we're really trying to do is not tell people what to write in as their response. We want to try and learn from each other, share information, share resources, and share bits of research that we know about, so that we can all collectively put in a great response. 

So over to you, Zoe. 

Zoe Arnold: 

Now I'm going to pass directly straight away to Liv, who's going to set a bit of context for us. 

Liv Marshall: 

Hi everyone. I'm Liv. I'm 19 and I'm a campaign organiser for Teach the Future. This year I'll be going to study at the University of Bristol. 

I'm super excited to be here. Teach the Future is a youth campaign calling for integrated, solution-centred climate education. We've been going since 2019. 

Obviously, the Natural History GCSE is a super exciting step towards an education system that has climate and nature at the heart of it. 

As I think we're all aware, the Department for Education has finally taken action on the Natural History GCSE and is holding a consultation on the proposed content that the subject will have. 

Teach the Future is going to be responding to this consultation from a climate, nature, and youth perspective. 

Individuals and organisations can respond to the consultation by completing the survey, which Zoe will go into a bit more detail about in a moment, by giving feedback on the proposed subject content. 

The actual delivery of the GCSE itself will be the responsibility of the awarding organisations, and they'll develop the specifications and provide resources to support schools. 

We know that the volume of responses is important, and so we hope this call can help us all bring together our ideas and submit similar sorts of responses, or at least responses with some good alignment. 

The consultation closes on the 4th of September, so we've got plenty of time to submit. 

There will also be a separate consultation later on about the assessment of the GCSE. 

The Department for Education has said that the subject content will reflect the core components of natural history as a subject discipline, as well as enabling students not only to understand the natural world but to explore and develop an understanding of it. 

The subject content also aims to instil a sense of responsibility for its protection, and equip learners with the knowledge and skills needed to contribute to a sustainable future. 

It will also include fieldwork requirements of about 20 hours. 

So it's looking to be a good start, but obviously we need to make sure that the climate crisis is involved in there too. 

Zoe, would you like to go into a bit more detail about the survey itself? 

Zoe Arnold: 

Thanks, Liv. 

I'm just going to briefly give an overview of what is actually in the consultation survey, in case anyone hasn't had the chance to click through and have a look at that yet. 

The standard thing is inputting your personal information at first, whether that's you as an individual or an organisation. 

Then there's a general question that focuses on the subject aims and how coherent that is. 

Then there are four key questions on the actual content. 

Those questions are framed around the study of habitats and wildlife in the UK, the study of human influence on the natural world, the requirements for fieldwork, and then a specific question on the metric of hours being used for the fieldwork. 

There are also a couple of questions on appendices, which are about the use of maths and statistics and some examples of wildlife and habitat coverage that are used. 

So, there are more specific questions, and then there is a chance for more general and open feedback where you can put anything that you want. 

Then there's a section about equality and the accessibility of the subject for students, and the impact for different groups of students, particularly around different protected characteristics. 

Finally, there's a question around environmental principles and the impact, whether that's positive or negative, on the environment. 

So that's just a super quick overview. Some of our discussions and speakers will be talking around some of those things as well. 

Back to you, Morgan. 

Morgan Phillips: 

Brilliant. Thanks, Zoe. 

The 4th of September is my wedding anniversary, so that's my incentive not to leave it until the last minute. That's easy to remember for me. 

Great. So, we have five speakers coming up. I've asked them to give us three or four minutes of their thoughts on Natural History GCSE and their response to the consultation. 

I think one key point to remember always with consultations is you don't have to answer every question. Even if you just answer one question, then that counts as a consultation response and that will feed into the thinking. 

Like I said before, our aim with this event is not to try to tell people what to write in their response. It's actually just to create a space for us to have these conversations, learn from each other, listen to each other, and hopefully inspire one another to do the responses and get that volume up. 

I'm sure none of us are 100% in agreement with what the DfE has proposed, and we want to let them know what areas they can improve on. 

But there's also stuff in there that we think is probably good, and it's important to acknowledge that and give appreciation for that in responses as well, because it encourages them to maybe go a bit further in those directions. 

With all that in mind, we have five speakers. We have Seirian, Matt, Freddie, Jennifer, and Simon. I'll introduce them all as we go along. 

Three to four minutes each. Looking forward to hearing what you're saying, and thanks for volunteering to speak today. 

So, we'll start with Seirian Sumner, who is Professor of Behavioural Ecology at UCL and the author of Endless Forms: Why We Should Love Wasps, which is a book I'd not heard of before and, having read a review this morning, I want to read. It sounds amazing. 

So over to you, Seirian. 

Seirian Sumner: 

Thank you. I'm just going to try and share my screen. 

So, I've got a few points. Does that make sense? Can you see that? 

Yeah? Okay, great. 

Thanks everybody. I'm really excited about the Natural History GCSE. I guess everyone on this call is, and I'm super inspired by Mary's drive for the last 15 years on this. 

I'm a behavioural ecologist. I teach undergraduates at UCL and do research, but I'm also thinking about what is missing from the GCSE that would actually be really helpful to have as a baseline for these students coming in. 

Obviously, it's just GCSE, but we hope that it would ultimately filter into A level as well at some point. 

So, just a few shortcomings... 

It's fabulous that they have some fieldwork, some time in nature, but there's only 15 hours, which accounts to 15 minutes a week if I did my sums correctly across the two-year GCSE. 

They claim that DfE says this is twice what geography gets, but actually it's half what PE GCSE gets, which of course has got a strong practical side. 

You can't really understand nature and learn about natural history unless you have the time to spend. You can't just spend 10 minutes in a field, spot something, and learn about it. You need to really embed yourself into it. 

So, I think that there should be more fieldwork. 

I was really struck by the absence of anything about the history of natural history, given that we're in the UK, which has such a strong history of natural historians who've paved the way for all sorts of innovations in science and arts. 

There are lots of wonderful UK naturalists that we could be teaching children about, which adds a more historical aspect as well. There's also an opportunity to broaden it to have a more global view by including more global naturalists. 

I think interdisciplinarity is also a big miss. 

I think there are some concerns about how teachers are going to teach this. Well, I think they could actually engage with teachers from other subjects so that they can bring in the wider remit of natural history. 

Otherwise, there is a concern that perhaps this would just be those who are already keen on natural history who will end up doing it. 

But I think the real strength of the GCSE could be that kids who are interested in arts, maths, or engineering could see the links with natural history that are really important. 

I think this interdisciplinary approach, getting inspiration from nature, and having that curiosity and connection with nature is definitely the kind of skills that future green jobs will be looking for, especially in the face of lots of jobs being lost to AI. 

So what about some possible solutions? 

They could match the GCSE PE fieldwork time, which I think would be great. 

Something that I know Mary feels quite strongly about as well is the idea of having a nature journal. So having that more-than-human assessment. 

There's nothing better than taking a notebook to the field and having that private exploration of natural history. 

I know myself, because I'm really rubbish at remembering names and details of insects and plants, that if I've drawn something out, even if I'm a rubbish drawer, I remember it better. So I think that really embeds it. 

I'd also say that some species ID testing – a practical exam like you would have in a more practical subject – would be really valuable. 

I think integrating 21st-century biodiversity approaches is important. From what I see going on in universities at the moment, there's so much more scope than I think they did mention. 

They mentioned apps at one point in the curriculum outline, but actually I think there's an awful lot more that could be integrated from the way biodiversity science is done using 21st-century technology. 

There are also huge numbers of citizen science projects that could be included. 

Again, I think cross-disciplinary teaching links are a no-brainer, and I think that could really help spread the load a little bit and broaden the vision of what and why anyone should want to do a GCSE in natural history. 

I'll also just plug my Conversation article that came out in June, which basically summarises these points as well. 

That's all I have. 

Morgan Phillips: 

Thank you, Seirian. That's brilliant. Really helpful to have that slide as well. We'll be able to share that hopefully. 

Next up is Matt Town, who's the Head of Education Professional Development at the British Ecological Society. 

Matt Town: 

Right. I haven't been organised enough to put a slide together. Apologies.  

I was just going off my thoughts. 

So far, we've spoken through this with our extended network of ecologists and discussed how well we think this represents the field at the moment and where some of the shortcomings and positives are. 

I'll just share some of our first thoughts. 

Obviously, the flexibility of the fieldwork is brilliant. I think it means that it's accessible anywhere, and it covers a broad range of topics, which is really great. 

But I do think there are some shortcomings straight away. 

There's a bit of exclusion of agricultural and urban habitats. There's a bit where they're proposing to discuss how a habitat is formed, the characteristic vegetation and animal life, except for agricultural and urban environments. 

I think that immediately communicates that those are somehow less valid ecosystems. 

Yet students are meant to go and do subsequent fieldwork later, when earlier they received less teaching on their local habitat if they happen to be in an urban or agricultural area. 

But I think it's fair to say these are recognised now as novel ecosystems. There are functioning food chains within them and that kind of thing. 

So, I think that's the first comment. 

The second one is that I feel like it very much presents this kind of dated "humans or nature" perspective. 

There's an entire section on human impact on ecosystems, which, having taught similar content on other qualifications, like Level 1 City & Guilds qualifications, comes across overwhelmingly negative. 

Even though there's some effort to put in positives, the positives are often things that we're doing to try and address the negatives, like planting trees or trying to protect areas. 

I think it may be beneficial to broaden that up and call it "human interactions with the natural world". 

Really include some of those more positive things, like how we've got so many towns named after wildlife, or how we've culturally and socially valued and built up these relationships with the natural world over time. 

I feel like that's completely absent from it. 

It still communicates this dated idea that humans and nature are completely separate from each other. 

Additionally, I think the quantity of statistics in there is slightly concerning. 

As an ecologist myself, I love these statistics. I understand they're a really important part of understanding the natural world, but I think this means the subject may only appeal to a certain kind of student who already likes the way ecology sits within the biology curriculum. 

I feel like there are so many conversations and so much science presented now, and so many conferences I sit through, where social scientists are essential. It's such a dated way of approaching ecology now to exclude humans. 

So much effort now goes into considering how humans interact with the environment and value it. The number of conversations I've sat through where people are developing research projects and the outcome is, "We need to find some social scientists now," is huge. 

As well as all the quantitative statistics in there, I feel students should be given the option of exploring the subject in a more qualitative way — perhaps taking a more humanities-based approach. 

I think that would appeal to a wider range of students, particularly those who are more creative or more interested in human behaviour. 

At the moment, I'd hate for the message to be that someone goes out into the natural world, has a positive experience, then comes back and decides they don't like calculating a biodiversity index, so concludes that the natural world isn't for them. It seems quite exclusionary. 

Those are my main comments about the content. There are obviously lots of smaller comments, but I think those are the main ones people I've spoken with feel are worth pushing. 

The only other thing I'd add is about the equality impact assessment. 

It states that people with disabilities may have challenges accessing fieldwork, but I think that's a little short-sighted. 

We know from research over the last few years that there are wider issues around participation in fieldwork — barriers experienced by women in ecology, for example, and by people with religious commitments that affect when or how fieldwork can take place. 

None of those are insurmountable barriers, but I think it's only right to acknowledge them and discuss how they can be overcome. 

Morgan Phillips: 

Thank you, Matt. I don't want to cut you off in the middle of that really important point. 

We'll move on next to Freddie Emms, who's part of Teach the Future, part of the RSPB Youth Council, and numerous other things. 

Freddie, over to you. 

Freddie Emms: 

Thank you. It's really great to be here today, and I'm looking forward to some of the discussions that will happen later as well. 

I'm speaking mainly from the perspective of Teach the Future and young people, particularly through the lens of climate and nature education. 

In terms of some general points, we're really interested in seeing climate change, sustainability and nature education integrated across all subjects. 

We'll continue to advocate for that because we know the GCSE itself won't provide that holistic opportunity for every student. 

We also have concerns about uptake and teacher training. 

There hasn't been much mention of how some of those barriers will be overcome, and that's definitely a key issue for us. 

In terms of the content itself, I absolutely agree with a lot of what's already been said. 

One of the key things is interdisciplinary links and systems-level thinking. 

We need to ensure that discussion, and genuinely holistic discussion, forms a key part of the content. 

That includes acknowledging the emotional value that nature holds, encouraging young people to cherish that connection, and making links to subjects like the arts, psychology and health. 

Nature has cultural and societal significance, and that needs to come through. 

We also need systems thinking that considers not only individual species within ecosystems but the wider systemic threats facing the natural world — issues around stewardship, access, water and air pollution, nature-friendly farming, regenerative food production, and planning decisions that balance affordable housing, nature restoration and climate targets. 

Young people often think naturally in systems. They recognise how interconnected these issues are, and I think that could help increase uptake of the GCSE. 

I completely agree with Seirian's comments about fieldwork. 

Fieldwork shouldn't be isolated one-off events. It should form part of an ongoing relationship with nature. 

Mary's suggestion of a field journal is a really important part of that. 

I also think we need to avoid presenting nature in a way that becomes misanthropic, positioning humans simply as the cause of everything that's wrong without recognising more nuanced relationships. 

The GCSE shouldn't shy away from interdisciplinary approaches. 

I'd also like to see wider perspectives included, including Indigenous perspectives that foster reciprocity rather than ideas of ownership or exploitation. 

Humans are part of nature, but we're a distinctive part of it, and that relationship should be explored carefully. 

Drawing on my own experience of A-level Biology, I also agree with the comments about statistics. 

Many of my classmates dreaded the ecology unit because it felt dry and fact-focused. 

The only fieldwork we did was the classic quadrant survey. 

Given that this subject is already optional, we need to make sure the content doesn't become another reason for students not to choose it. 

Morgan Phillips: 

Brilliant. Thank you, Freddie. 

Some clear themes are definitely emerging. 

We've got two speakers left, and we're aiming to move into breakout rooms at half past. 

Next is Jennifer Brandsberg-Engelmann from Regenerative Economics. 

Jennifer Brandsberg-Engelmann: 

Hi everybody. 

It's lovely to see so many of you again after running into each other over the years. 

I work on a global project trying to change the way economics is taught in secondary schools worldwide. 

The central problem is that economics education doesn't acknowledge that economies are embedded within social and ecological systems. 

Nor does it recognise the many ways humans organise to meet needs beyond market-, price- and profit-based systems. Most of my work centres on that, but it also means I spend a lot of time looking at other curricula. 

One thing I've noticed is that many well-intentioned sustainability curricula — including this one, Cambridge OCR Level 3 Sustainability, the new Irish curriculum on Climate Action and Sustainable Development, and the European Schools' sustainability course — all disconnect nature from economics. 

Economics often disconnects from nature, while environmental education disconnects from economics. 

I'd like to suggest bringing the economy back into this conversation because it's really the elephant in the room. 

I have a couple of concrete suggestions. 

Like Matt, I noticed that the course inadvertently perpetuates a human–nature dualism through both its language and its structure. 

Humans appear to sit outside nature, while the economic forces driving habitat loss are largely absent. 

The course teaches interdependence, succession, deep time and carbon cycling, but it doesn't fully integrate humans into that story in a way that's necessary if students are to understand both human impacts and positive opportunities. 

My first suggestion is simple: make sure humans are inside the system, not outside it. 

That means emphasising embeddedness and entanglement. 

I also really liked Matt's suggestion about reframing "human impact" as "human interactions", and Freddie's point about Indigenous worldviews. 

Those are practical ways to achieve this. 

I was also struck that the history presented doesn't really reach the modern era. 

Human beings are now among the greatest drivers of planetary change. 

Capitalism, colonisation, fossil fuels - these should appear in that historical story. The Anthropocene should be explicitly named. 

Finally, when discussing the drivers of habitat destruction, I think the curriculum should make much clearer that these are largely driven by economies organised around continual growth and profit maximisation. 

If we don't state that explicitly, it becomes much harder for students to understand the connection between economic systems and environmental outcomes. 

To give a little encouragement, the Irish Leaving Certificate curriculum for Climate Action and Sustainable Development explicitly names the growth economy, capitalism, extractivism, corporate power imbalances and colonialism. 

It doesn't go into huge depth, but it names them. If they're not named, they don't receive attention. 

I've also prepared a document with detailed suggested amendments to the draft Natural History GCSE, similar to work we did on the Changing Climate curriculum. 

I'll share that with you afterwards. Thank you. 

Morgan Phillips: 

Brilliant. Thank you, Jennifer. Thanks so much. 

I love the word entanglement, and I think your points about the economy and capitalism are spot on. 

Right, we'll move quickly over to Simon, our final speaker. 

Simon has emerged as a real thought leader in the sustainability education field over the last few years, so it's great to have you with us. We'll try to keep you to three minutes! 

Simon Lightman: 

I'll certainly try my best to keep it to three minutes! Thank you so much for inviting me into the conversation. I suppose I'm here in my role as the perennial philosopher in the room. 

I do welcome the proposal. I think there's a great deal here that's genuinely valuable. 

The emphasis on habitats, species, fieldwork and engaging with the natural world gives young people something that education often squeezes out: the opportunity to slow down, to look closely at nature, to notice difference, and, hopefully, to return to places over time. 

That sounds like a simple thing, but I think it's actually very meaningful in the world we live in today. 

As I was thinking about this, it struck me that natural history isn't simply about acquiring more information. It's a way of teaching people how to pay attention. 

Attention isn't a neutral act. 

What we learn to notice – and what we learn to ignore – shapes the world we inhabit. 

When we observe, that creates responsibility. When we return to the same place over time, it reveals both what appears stable and what is, in fact, constantly changing. 

That matters because education doesn't simply shape what young people know. It shapes how they understand themselves, their agency and their relationship with the world. 

Do they see themselves simply as individuals accumulating grades and qualifications in preparation for future competition? 

Or do they come to see themselves as participants within living systems – entangled with others, dependent on other people, dependent on other species – and recognise that soil, water, climate and future generations all place responsibilities upon us? 

What excites me most is the possibility that students who study this GCSE won't simply leave school able to identify more species. Hopefully they'll experience sustained, meaningful encounters over two years that help them see themselves differently. 

One concern I do have, echoing what Jennifer and others have said, is that there still seems to be a dualistic approach. The curriculum sometimes implies that humans are detached observers standing outside nature rather than participants within it. 

From my conversations with others today, I think many people here would agree that ecological agency isn't about mastery or control. It's about recognising dependency, uncertainty and limits. 

The proposal also raises interesting questions about time and how schools organise it. 

Schools tend to work in very short cycles. Students complete a task, receive a grade and move on. Ecological systems don't work like that. 

I'd love to see space for more longitudinal projects where students inherit something that previous cohorts have begun – perhaps a habitat restoration project or a biodiversity survey – and then contribute to it before passing it on to future students. 

That would help them understand their own place within longer-term ecological systems. 

If the GCSE could integrate that kind of project-based learning, I think it would become something genuinely meaningful. 

I'm conscious of time. I wrote considerably more than this, but perhaps I'll save it for the breakout discussions. 

Thank you. 

Morgan Phillips: 

There is definitely much more to discuss! 

Thank you so much, Simon. 

Thank you to all of our speakers. There are so many valuable points there that we'll write up and share. It'll certainly be worth watching the recording back. 

I'll now hand over to Zoe to introduce the breakout rooms. 

Zoe Arnold: 

We're going to have four breakout rooms. 

There'll be someone facilitating discussion in each room, but I'm sure lots of you have different perspectives you'd like to share as well. 

Claire is going to open the breakout rooms. 

We'll be in those for about ten minutes and someone in each room will take notes before we come back together and hear one reflection from each group. 

Claire Arnott: 

Great. Thank you, Zoe. 

Just to confirm: 

    Morgan will be in Room 1. 

    Zoe will be in Room 2. 

    Freddie will be in Room 3. 

    Matt will be in Room 4. 

We'll see you all back here in ten minutes. 

(Breakout sessions) 

Morgan Phillips: 

Brilliant. Thank you, everyone. 

I think Zoe may have frozen, so I'll jump in. 

Zoe, did you want to introduce this section? 

Zoe Arnold: 

Yes. 

We'll go around each room and hear one key takeaway before we wrap up. 

From our breakout discussion, we spoke quite a lot about accessibility. 

There may need to be dedicated funding for schools to support fieldwork. 

We also discussed how statistically focused the subject currently feels and that it perhaps isn't creative enough. 

That could make students from different backgrounds feel the subject isn't really for them, particularly if they don't already enjoy biology or maths. 

Morgan, would you like to share the key points from your room? 

Morgan Phillips: 

We had a really good discussion. 

One of the main questions was: how do we make this genuinely attractive to young people? 

What will be in the curriculum that makes students actually want to choose it? 

Will they understand the pathways into future qualifications and employment? 

Alongside that, we discussed Simon's idea of entanglement. 

Could this GCSE genuinely have a transformative effect? 

Will students begin to see themselves as part of nature rather than separate from it? 

Of course, that probably requires more than just one GCSE, but it was certainly one of the strongest themes from our discussion. 

Zoe Arnold: 

Thanks, Morgan. 

Freddie, would you like to share a key takeaway from your room? 

Freddie Emms: 

Yes. 

There was quite a lot of overlap with what Morgan has just described. 

One of the strongest themes was that this GCSE represents a real opportunity to make young people want to engage with these issues. 

We want it to be something students choose because it's different, because it's interesting, and because it reconnects them with nature. 

We also talked about the mental health crisis and the role that nature can play in encouraging students to want to come to school. 

There are good examples showing that nature can improve school attendance. 

We felt the subject needs to feel exciting. 

It shouldn't simply become "the ecology section of Biology GCSE." It should be something genuinely new, welcoming and inclusive that helps students feel a sense of belonging. 

We also discussed the benefits for SEND pupils, particularly in reducing anxiety and improving focus and attention. 

Overall, we saw this as an opportunity to engage different groups of students in a different way. 

Zoe Arnold: 

Thanks, Freddie. 

Matt, would you like to share something from your room? 

Matt Town: 

We covered a huge range of topics, so apologies to everyone because I can't include everything. 

There were concerns about equity, despite the flexibility of the fieldwork. 

Questions were raised about who would actually deliver the course and whether teachers would have the expertise needed. 

We also discussed how, although fieldwork is flexible, school resources will inevitably have a major influence on the quality of students' experiences. 

At the same time, we recognised that this challenge exists across many areas of the curriculum. 

There was also some discussion about not being too critical of the fieldwork requirement, because there's always the possibility that it could be reduced rather than increased. 

Finally, we talked about the categorisation of habitats. 

The curriculum presents habitats as rather fixed categories, whereas in reality habitats are much more dynamic and variable. 

Zoe Arnold: 

Thanks. 

As Morgan mentioned at the beginning, we'll share a recording of today's session afterwards. 

We'll also bring together the notes from today's discussions and circulate them to everyone who registered. 

If anyone has additional notes or resources they'd like to share with the wider group, please send them to Teach the Future and we'll collate those as well. 

We know that the volume of consultation responses is really important, and we'd like to support one another in submitting as many thoughtful responses as possible before the deadline on 4 September. 

I can also see that Mary Colwell is still with us. 

Mary, would you like to say a few words? 

Mary Colwell: 

Yes, thank you. 

I'll keep this brief. 

It's been really interesting listening to everyone's contributions. 

I think it's important to understand the history of this GCSE and how difficult it was to get it over the line. 

One of the biggest challenges Caroline, Tim and I faced was ensuring that it wasn't seen as political. 

People were genuinely worried that a Natural History GCSE would become a vehicle for political debate around conservation and climate change. 

The more we could keep it focused on natural history itself, the more comfortable the Government became with approving it. 

Personally, I think that was the right approach. 

Otherwise, it's very easy for people to dismiss it as "Chris Packham's GCSE" or "a shooting GCSE" or something designed for one political viewpoint. 

It needs to remain neutral. It needs to be about the joy of natural history. 

One thing I heard repeatedly today was a desire to include many other important issues. 

I'd simply encourage everyone not to underestimate the power of nature itself. 

Studying nature is powerful in its own right. 

Simon spoke beautifully about attentiveness and long-term observation. 

If we allow the subject itself to draw students in – if we allow that innate fascination, what E.O. Wilson called biophilia, to do its work – we don't need to overload the course with every issue connected to nature. 

Natural history is already joyful, uplifting and deeply engaging.It's also the foundation for understanding the environmental crises we face. 

Biodiversity loss and climate change are intertwined existential challenges. But we can't teach everything within one GCSE. 

It's rather like trying to teach Shakespeare before children have learned the foundations of English. Or expecting someone to become a French chef before they've learned what eggs and flour are. 

Natural history provides those building blocks. If young people become deeply invested in understanding the natural world around them, they will naturally want to protect it and understand the threats it faces. I'm convinced that's true. 

The other point, again echoing Simon, is the importance of long-term thinking. One thing I think is missing from the draft criteria is any recognition of shifting baselines. Young people need opportunities to speak with older generations and understand how much has changed within a single lifetime. 

That helps them understand both what has been lost and what can still be restored. So, I think this GCSE is wonderful. But it's a GCSE in Natural History. 

It can't become a GCSE in everything related to natural history. Nor can we allow it to become political, because then we risk losing it altogether. The cultural dimension is also hugely important. 

I argued very strongly for its inclusion, but at the time I was told that it was effectively a deal-breaker. Either it stayed out, or the qualification itself wouldn't progress. 

Perhaps times have changed since then, but that was certainly the reality during the years we spent campaigning. Those are simply my reflections on what I've heard today. 

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak. 

Zoe Arnold: 

Thank you so much, Mary, for sharing both your perspective and everything you've contributed over the years. 

And thank you to everyone else who shared their thoughts today, both in the main session and in the breakout rooms. 

We're now at time, so we won't keep anyone any longer. 

We'll stay in touch by email and continue supporting one another as we prepare our consultation responses. 

Thank you all, and enjoy the rest of your afternoon.