New SEEd Sustainability Journey: Where is SEEd in making change?
At SEEd, we place great importance on creativity and experimenting with new ideas. This is also true of our newsletter, and we are therefore delighted to launch the new academic year with a new edition.
This year, we will explore SEEd’s thoughts, values, and mission in depth through specific themes. Our orienting question will be: Where is SEEd in making change? To answer this question, we’re harnessing the power of the SEEd Newsletter, aiming to connect the work of SEEd with broader societal issues and the impact we are having on the lives of students, teachers and their environments. We will gradually create a systems map of SEEd’s actions and impacts to open up discussions about SEEd’s mission. These discussions with family, friends and colleagues will help to spread the word about the potential of education for sustainable development.
Please do share your thoughts and actions with us by email or on social media and help spreading the word by starting discussions about these crucial educational issues.
Plan Ahead, Then Relax
Preparing for a Sustainable Start to the Next School Year
As another school year comes to a close, many of us are looking forward to something that is often in short supply during term time: space. Space to rest, reflect and reconnect with the things that matter. This space during the summer holidays also offers an opportunity to step back and think about the kind of school year we would like to create when September arrives.
One of the central points of SEEd’s approach is that meaningful change rarely begins at the moment action starts. It begins much earlier, through reflection, preparation and planning. The most successful sustainability initiatives are rarely spontaneous. They emerge from people taking the time to ask: What matters? What is possible? And where should we begin?
So before you head off on holiday, here are a few opportunities worth exploring to start the next school year with ideas of how best to align your actions with your goals in sustainability.
Start with SEEd Young Changemakers and Apply for the programme right now!
As you begin thinking about the next academic year, there is perhaps no better place to start than with SEEd’s Young Changemakers programme.
We are delighted that SEEd Young Changemakers has recently been recognised by the SMK Foundation as a runner-up in the Best Community, Climate and Nature Award category, highlighting the programme’s growing impact in empowering young people to lead meaningful sustainability action in their schools and communities.
Young Changemakers is an evidence-based sustainability education programme that helps students move beyond learning about sustainability towards imagining, designing and leading solutions themselves. Working alongside community organisations, businesses and local authorities, young people investigate issues they care about, develop systems thinking skills and create projects that generate tangible change. The programme also supports wellbeing by helping students transform feelings of climate concern into agency, hope and action.
For schools, one of the greatest strengths of Young Changemakers is that it provides a structured and tested framework for embedding sustainability into school culture. Rather than having to design a sustainability curriculum from scratch, you can gain access to a proven action-learning approach that has already demonstrated positive impacts on both students and teachers.
Interested in joining us for the 2026–27 academic year? Learn more about Young Changemakers!
If you like the programme, please spread the word so that more people can participate in this meaningful experience!
Also, if you would like to help more young people access sustainability education and leadership opportunities, now is also a particularly valuable moment to support SEEd.
Through the Young Changemakers match-funding campaign supported by the Aviva Foundation, every £10 donated is matched, is matched and if you pay tax and click GiftAid it becomes £ 22.50 – doubling the impact of your contribution. Your support helps schools access the programme, enables student-led sustainability projects and strengthens the partnerships that connect young people with their local communities.
Also, check out this opportunity provided by an organisation in SEEd’s network:
If highly committed, use the summer for your own professional learning and apply for participating in person or online in the Curriculum Design Studio 2026. The programme runs between the 3rd and 7th of August and brings together educators, curriculum leaders, instructional coaches and changemakers for five days of immersive curriculum development grounded in systems thinking and Education for Sustainability. Participants work on their own curriculum projects while receiving coaching, peer feedback and practical design tools that can be immediately applied in their educational settings.
One of the greatest challenges in sustainability education is moving from aspiration to implementation. The Studio is valuable precisely because it creates dedicated time and support for this transition. Participants leave not only with new ideas, but with a completed or significantly advanced curriculum project ready for use.
And Then… Relax
After a busy year of teaching, learning, planning and leading change, summer offers something precious: the chance to slow down. Sustainability education is often associated with action, but action needs renewal. Sometimes the most valuable thing we can do is step away from the urgency of everyday life and spend time with stories that remind us why we care in the first place.
If you are looking for a holiday read, The Overstory by Richard Powers is a wonderful place to start. Through the lives of several seemingly unrelated characters, the novel gradually reveals the extraordinary ways in which humans and trees are connected. It is not a book that lectures about sustainability. Instead, it changes the way you look at the world around you. You may never walk through a woodland in quite the same way again.
For something lighter and more hopeful, Becky Chambers’ A Psalm for the Wild-Built offers a very different vision of the future. Set in a world that has already moved beyond many of today’s environmental challenges, it follows a travelling monk and a curious robot as they explore a deceptively simple question: what do people need in order to live a good life? Warm, thoughtful and surprisingly comforting, it is the kind of book that leaves readers feeling more optimistic about what a sustainable future might look like.
Summer is also the perfect time for a film night – perhaps on the outside?!
Watch The Biggest Little Farm which tells the true story of a couple who set out to transform exhausted farmland into a thriving ecosystem. What begins as a farming project gradually becomes a lesson in resilience, biodiversity and the interconnectedness of living systems. It is both inspiring and deeply practical, showing that sustainability is often less about controlling nature and more about learning to work alongside it.
If your interests lie closer to youth participation and social change, Dear Future Children offers a powerful perspective. Following young activists from different parts of the world, the documentary explores what motivates young people to dedicate their time, energy and sometimes even their safety to causes they believe in. Their stories are a timely reminder that young people are not simply the leaders of tomorrow; they are already shaping the world today.
But also, don’t forget the classics like WALL-E for a warming retreat. Many of us first encountered it as a charming animated film about a lonely robot. Watching it again as adults, however, reveals something more. Beneath the humour is a surprisingly thoughtful reflection on consumer culture, waste, technology and our relationship with the planet. Few films manage to raise such important questions while remaining so entertaining for both adults and children.
Whether you spend your summer exploring new places, catching up on reading, watching films with family, or simply enjoying a well-earned rest, we hope you find moments that spark curiosity and imagination. Because sustainable change rarely begins with a policy document or a project plan. More often, it begins with a story, a conversation or a new way of seeing the world.
