S2 Episode 13 GCSE in Natural History

Mary Colwell

“Every child needs someone to introduce them to nature.” This is a quote from Rachel Carson author of the book Silent Spring and it encapsulates what campaigner Mary Colwell hopes a GCSE in Natural History would do for children - it could be the thing that introduces them to nature.

This Offshoot episode was prompted by Janet’s London Pride episode in which we learned about Janet’s mum who introduced her children to the flowers and plants around them and it had a lasting impact on their lives. But many children are not now getting that introduction. In 2011 Mary Colwell, a writer, campaigner and conservationist, came up with the idea for a GCSE in Natural History. It was devised for the teenagers who streamed past her house every day on their way to school, in inner city Bristol.

Mary: “How will they be enchanted by nature? Because they live in flats and inner city housing and they walk through streets to school. And what became obvious was, actually work that's been done at the University of Derby, is that if you become entranced by the nature on your doorstep, you will become committed and you will have a much more...sustained and intelligent approach to nature and to conservation and to the environment, than just assuming that you have to go somewhere to see the natural world.”

Listen to this episode to understand the complex and lengthy process that goes into getting a new GCSE into the curriculum and to understand what motivates Mary to keep fighting despite many setbacks. Here also are a couple of links you might want to take a look at if this is something you want to follow up. Nature Pathways is highlighting the need we have for more naturalists and we need them more than ever right now. It says: “What is badly needed is a defined nature pathway through education from junior school through to the end of tertiary and into the workplace and beyond. The Nature Pathways will be supported by a network of Nature Hubs throughout the UK, connecting schools, business and industry to their local resources.”

And I also wanted to share a link to Mary’s other passion which is for the Curlew. Britain has apparently lost half its population in the last 20 years! This reminds me of the stories she told of her father asking: ‘where had all the lapwings gone?’

I hope this convinces us all to support this GCSE, whenever and wherever we can, we are leaving future generations many difficult issues to solve and surely we have to give them the toolkit - which involves understanding nature as well as Maths and English and History etc.

You can read a transcript of the episode here:

Welcome to our plant stories and an offshoot episode about our knowledge of nature.

A group of, gaggle of teenage boys were being their usual very loud, their really loud self messing around and, you know, but just for a second, Juan sort of held back and he crouched down and he looked at a flower that was growing in the gutter and he just held it. He just went and looked at it. and it was only for a fleeting few seconds, but he obviously was entranced by what he saw. And just for that moment I saw the future. I thought that is what I want to see. That was a defining moment, I think, for me.

That is Mary Colwell, writer, campaigner and conservationist. If you've already listened to the previous episode, Janet's London Pride, you will know we were talking about our knowledge of nature and how it is or isn't being passed through the generations. Therefore, teaching children about nature becomes crucial. I met some teachers at the RHS Marvin show who were so excited about a new GCSE in natural history and told me I needed to speak to Mary Colwell if I wanted to find out more. So I did. And I began by asking her where the idea for this GCSE came from.

The idea came out of the blue, I think. I can't actually pinpoint when I first thought of it, but I do remember sitting next to... Tony Juniper, who's now chair of Natural England, but at the time he worked, I think it was for Friends of the Earth. And I just remember just sitting in a meeting with him and turning to him and said, Tony, I think we need a GCSE in natural history. It was like a light bulb moment. So it must have been building up, but I never expressed it. And then suddenly it was out there and he got very enthusiastic about that. Thought it was a great idea. And he wrote an article for the Guardian and... was quite a lot of sort of uplift and interest in it. I did a flyer and I wrote to lots of people I knew and there was a huge amount of enthusiasm but I didn't know where to put it. It kind of just dissipated. I tried again a couple of years later, this is back in 2011 I'd like to say, I then kept trying sporadically, I couldn't really get any interest then I put out a petition on government, a government petition asking the government to form a GCSE in natural history and that very quickly reached over 10,000 signatures which means that you get a response from the government. If you get 100,000 you get a debate but with 10,000 you get a response from them but only after a couple of weeks the petition was pulled. due to Theresa May called a snap election and you can't have government petitions running before an election. But I just got over the 10,000 mark in time and the response back from the government was we have no plans for a new GCSE. We think this subject is covered well in other subjects, therefore, it's not a subject we want to carry on discussing. So that was that. I knew they were wrong, but. I didn't know how else to take it further. And then all of a sudden in 2018, out of the blue, Caroline Lucas contacted me on Twitter and said, I really like this, can I help you? And after Caroline got involved, it took off because Caroline was able to get us in front of politicians. She was able to sort of work the machinery of politics. They put us in touch with Tim Oates who was from Cambridge Assessment. who was an academic educationist who has the ear of politicians but also right in the heart of education and the three of us formed a team that over the next two years pushed it through the system. So once Caroline got involved it took off and it was announced as part of the government's climate change and sustainability program in April 2022. Since then though, it's kind of ground to a halt again. So it feels like it was a slow burn, then suddenly you get the right people, the right combination and it suddenly takes off again. So what's blocked it? So once it was announced by Nadim Zahawi, do you remember those days, back in the Natural History Museum in 2022. He said it's going to be now in schools available for schools to teach from 2025, which was all fantastic news. But that did mean that they had to crack on with it. So because there's a lot to do to get schools and everything ready for a new GCSE. So what you do, first of all, is a sort of process that needs to be gone through. A subject criteria panel were established. Now this is a panel that decide the overarching content of the GCSE. It's not the detail that's set by the different exam boards, but it's the principles which the exam boards have to adhere to. So the criteria panel was set up and although I couldn't be on it, I wasn't allowed on it and it's secretive, I did manage to influence two things. One, I managed to get them to concentrate on making habitats, the centre of how it would be organised, so that habitats around the country would be understood in terms of the species that live in there. So you'd go anywhere and be able to say, oh, this must be a wetland or this must be an ancient woodland or this must be a disturbed urban area or whatever it is. And these key indicator species of different habitats would form the sort of core of the GCSE. And I also to persuade them to send the content out to a range of really good field naturalists before it went public. So that panel was set up and that all happened. And the next thing that has to happen is that it goes to public consultation. All new GCSEs have to go to public consultation, which means you, me and everybody can comment on the content. Normally, and there haven't been very many GCSEs recently, so it's not something that's been tested much. In fact, the only one recently has been the sign language, British sign language, which probably doesn't need much consultation because that's a very defined and understood thing. But natural history, you know, garners a lot of interest. And so to get ready for the public consultation, they sent it round to naturalists and got it ready. But for some reason, just before the consultation was due to be announced, it was stuck. it got stuck in a process whereby all ministers have to sign off new legislation, new input. And for some reason there was some disagreement amongst ministers, so although the Department for Education had agreed it, somewhere somebody or a collection of people didn't agree to it, and there was no furtherment of that before the next, this recent general election was called. So it didn't get to public consultation. And now we have a general election. It looks likely we'll have a change of government. And I have literally no idea how the new incoming Labour government, which we're all assuming, is going to feel about a GCSE in natural history. If they don't like it, it might be dead in the water.

The amount of work you must have put in over the months and years towards this, but it seems frustrating that it's not an open process at all.

Tell me about it. Unbelievably frustrating. And I would almost say cruel as well for me to put so much thought and effort and personal investment in it, not just because... But that's not really, there's so much thought went into it, so much how is this gonna work and how is it best working? What's the best way to do this so that most young people in any situation, they find themselves in Britain, whether in the middle of a city or living in the middle of the national park, can be inspired to love the natural world again. How's the best way to go about doing that? Because unless we do that, We won't have generations coming through that will make the right decisions about our future. We won't be able to make those really difficult decisions that we have to make to tackle both the climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis, global crises that we face. If you don't know a statistics show, if children don't know the name of a robin or a bumblebee or an oak tree, if they don't know that nature changes through the seasons, If they don't know how to observe wildlife and notice change, how are we going to know what's happening to this planet? We don't, we will not know that.

So tell me about some of your ideas about how you wanted us to do that, how you thought we could do that in a GCSE.

So my model was set by, not by middle-class kids that live in nice places and go to nice places for their holidays. I set the GCSE idea on... The kids that walk past my house every day, I live right in the centre of Bristol. I could not be more city centre than where I live. And streams of secondary school kids walk past my house every day. They go from inner city Bristol to a secondary school at the top of the road and they walk just through city streets there and back again. Those were the kids that were in my mind. How will they be enchanted by nature? Because they live in flats and inner city housing and they walk through streets to school. And what became obvious was, actually work that's been done at the University of Derby, is that if you become entranced by the nature on your doorstep, you will become committed and you will have a much more... sustained and intelligent approach to nature and to conservation and to the environment, than just assuming that you have to go somewhere to see the natural world. So it's local nature at your feet, open your door, there it is, that's what connects you to the big wide world outside. And so you don't have to go far, those kids walk past trees, they walk past little parks. They walk past a little tiny strip of woodland behind the hospital. They walk past the so-called weeds or I like to call them wildflowers that grow up by the sides of the roads, as long as the council doesn't spray it. Um, they do walk past nature every day. They see birds going to bird feeders. They see pigeons. They see crows. They see blue tits. They see robins. They see pigeons. They see a huge diversity actually of life. And if you start to look in detail, a world of wonder opens up to you. And that's the key. This isn't a GCSE and natural history of wild and exotic places. This is a GCSE in the ordinary everyday life around you. That to me is absolutely fundamental. And that means that every day you can go out and study it. You don't need to go on a field trip. You don't need to get on a bus and go somewhere. You just need to go outside.

What made you feel that it was at the GCSE stage we needed that? Because often I think, you know, we talk a lot about, and in the previous episode, we have talked about reaching children at the age of five and getting it onto the curriculum, if you ever could, you know, for smaller children. But what is it specifically about teenagers that you also thought was important?

You're pushing against an open door with little kids. So primary school children. They just love nature. I mean, E.O. Wilson talked about it, the great late biologist E.O. Wilson, called it biophilia. We're born with an innate love of life, bio-life, philia-love, a love of life. You won't stop little kids wanting to look at things and being intrigued by them. And it also became clear that the government wanted to do more with primary schools. It's easier. in primary schools. They wanted to have more nature friendly playgrounds and give more time in the curriculum to nature study, bring back the nature table, you know, for those of us old enough to remember a nature table, that kind of thing. And you just need to introduce it and just inspire people, kids a bit more and you get them hooked. The big drop off comes when they leave primary school and go to secondary school. So there is, statistically shown again by the University of Derby, there is a drop off in interest in natural history from about the age of 12, 13, and people don't really start to pick it up again till they're about in their 30s, presumably when they begin to have their own kids. So those teenage young adult years, to me, prime years for getting jobs and for careers. natural world kind of drops off the agenda for a lot of people. That's what I wanted to target. Not everybody will carry on being interested but a lot more will carry on being interested than we allow them to be at the moment. So by saying, by offering a GCSE where you can if you want to get really stuck into your local natural history and produce rigorous data-led, science-led proper study of the nature around you, that to me is absolutely essential for our future and that will then create a pipeline of nature-literate people to go into the workforce.

Where did we lose that nature-literacy do you think? Because I know with Janet and you know her mum in the previous episode. was brought up by Victorian parents. So even though she's living in a small industrial town, she has that knowledge, she has that knowledge of nature. Where did it go? At what point do you think we lost it?

I think it was a whole combination of factors and it's very, very complex, but from the Second World War onwards, in terms of farming, we asked the natural, we asked farmers and farming. land, 70% of the UK, to become much more intensive, to produce a lot more food very quickly. We were spooked by being nearly starved out in the Second World War and so we wanted to be a lot more self-sufficient. So from the Second World War onwards agriculture became much more intensive and increasingly industrialized. When we joined the European Union, the common agricultural policy intensified that. So we began to have, we lost Old MacDonald's farm and we introduced factory farming, basically. So the land became a factory floor of controlled by chemicals and machinery, large units, little space for wildlife, no accountability for the needs of farmland birds or insects or mammals or anything else. It was about food production. That's the primary message. That's what's happening now. At the same time, we had technological industrial growth and we changed from being rural people, where a lot of people worked on the land pre-second world war, to now most of us living in towns and cities and suburban settings. So all sorts of a perfect storm of an attack on wildlife, if you like, or an increase in... the harmful way in which we farm the land. This is not blaming farmers, this is blaming a system. So farming became hostile to wildlife, we moved away from the countryside anyway, we came a lot more urban, indoors and online. We have become removed from the natural world as the 20th century progressed, and that is showing no signs of stopping the 21st century.

So in a way, our whole world has changed, but you said there have been very few GCSEs changes in the exam curriculum. So it's not covered in other subjects, it's not covered in other sciences that children will study?

No, in biology, biology is different to natural history. And lots of people have said, oh, it's just biology. It's not biology. Biology is about systems. It's about the big picture. It's about nutrient cycles. It's about photosynthesis. It's about the mechanisms and the structures and the cycles that support life. Natural history is that life. It's not just vegetation. It's the ragwort and the daisy and the buttercup. It's the ladybird, it's the blue tit. It's not just about the big picture, it's about the specifics. It's about knowing the name, the organization, the life cycle of specific things. Biology is obviously related to that, but it's how all those things are supported, if you like. It's the mechanisms that support life on earth. It's not life on earth itself. Geography is about the great big landscapes. It's not about specifics. Neither of those two fine and wonderful subjects are about specifics. That's been the missing piece of the jigsaw.

And are teachers behind it, have you got a lot of support from teachers? Have you felt that in schools and educationalists?

Yes, there's a lot of enthusiasm for it. There's also though, a lot of concern that we lack the expertise and knowledge to teach it. Because there was this everybody could say, oh, it's fine, it's fine, we'll get the GCSE and natural history and geography and biology teachers will do it. Well, not necessarily, because it's not always biology and geography teachers that are naturalists. And in fact, I would say that we're really missing naturalists everywhere. You know, you can be a biologist and not a naturalist, definitely. And the same is true for geography. So we need a whole level of support. for teachers and for schools to take this. We need to give them the confidence that there is the expertise out there, that the support out there whenever they need it. In terms of online resources, courses, teacher training, money for equipment or even to go on trips if that's what's needed. You know, we need to know, schools need to know they're supported and I then think it will absolutely take off. So there's a huge amount of enthusiasm, but there's also concern that we're not getting the support in place that's needed to make it really fly.

I can tell your passion for this subject, it's been a long struggle. Do you sometimes lose heart?

Yes, I'd be lying to say if I didn't. But in a way I have to remind myself this is not about me, it's not about what I think or feel, this is far bigger than that. It's not about batting off the naysayers, it's not about anything to do with me and my state of mind or mood or anything, this is about the future. This is about the future of us. It sounds very grand but I see it in those terms. I see it as being able to reverse the terrible declines of wildlife, the terrible effects of climate change that we're seeing now. We can't do it without a thriving natural world. We can't feed ourselves. We can't have fresh water, fresh air, soils that support crops. We can't have the source of all this creativity and inspiration without a thriving natural world. But if we don't know about that natural world, how will we have those things, protect them into the future? Because there is an attack on nature at the moment. There is an increasing amount of disruption and fear associated with climate change. You know, there is no option but to keep going and trying to find ways to connect people back to the natural world and what it is that we can do. to save ourselves and save it. So this isn't about me. So when I do get demoralized and frustrated and angry and upset and just think, why am I doing this? Cause I've never earned a penny from any of this. No one has ever. People who worked on the GCSE so far have all been paid, but I've never earned a penny from it. That's pretty demoralizing in itself, but I can't let that stop me keep going. That you just can't allow your personal feelings. get in the way of it.

You also said to me there was some a quote that you took on board about being able to look into the eyes of your grandchildren.

Yeah that was from David Attenborough and that was from a talk I went to when he was speaking actually in St Paul's Cathedral quite a few years ago now and someone in the audience said to him how do you ever get demoralised exactly that question and he said well as long as I look into the eyes of my grandchildren and I can I did what I could, then I'll die happy. He said, I'll die knowing I've done what I've been asked to do. And I think that's really important because it's too easy to say, what can I do? I'm only an individual. Look at China. Look at everything. You know, that is a lazy excuse. That is not an excuse. That is that is just a way of ditching out, quite honestly. because every single person has something to contribute. And it doesn't have to be global life-changing stuff. It can just be a little bit in your garden or in your window box. It can just be your own little contribution to a better world. And all of us can do that. Every single human being on this planet can do that. And actually that's all you're asked to do. You're not asked, I'm not asked, David Attenborough isn't asked. anybody isn't asked to save the world, we're only asked to do what we can do. And you can do something, so no excuses, literally no excuses.

Can I just ask about your own childhood? Where did you grow up? Were you in the countryside, in the city? Did you have parents who talked about nature, plants?

No, I grew up, well I grew up for the first 11 years in the city Stoke-on-Trent. though right in, you know, very city. Then we moved out to what would be sort of, I suppose, the rural outskirts where there was more nature around. But I wouldn't say my parents were naturalists. They didn't sit around talking about nature, that's for sure. But my dad was a wonderful polymath. He was as interested in steam trains as he was in gardening, as he was in... trying to understand the sort of world around him. And he and I often went for walks in the Peak District, or we went out just local walks, and he'd sort of comment on things and talk about things. And I just became entranced by his stories. I just wanted to hear his stories. I wanted to, and I wanted to answer the questions he was asking. And he was saying, when I was a kid, and he grew up around there, I saw so many lapwings and so many nests with kids, schoolboys. We used to go out and try and find how many lapwing nests could we find? He said, there's none now, none at all. Where have they gone? And I didn't know the answer to that. And we used to go walking. I remember vividly breaking open a rock when we were on a walk in the Peak District. we smashed it and opened it up and inside was the most perfect fossil of a shellfish. And to this day I remember that feeling of absolute awe and wonder that this was a creature that lived in an ocean where I was standing in the Peak District about as far away from the sea as you can get and suddenly this world became this magical wondrous place that told better stories than I could ever read in a book. And I think I just wanted other kids to feel that. So I didn't grow up in a world of nature. I wasn't one of these, you know, people that say they were always entranced by the night. I wasn't, but I did think it was fascinating and it grew. And I was lucky enough to meet people that were fascinated. And that's why it's important. Because if you don't grow up in a family that are naturalists, you need to meet them. You need to have that opportunity. And Rachel Carson said, everybody, every child, needs someone to introduce them to nature. That's what this GCSE and natural history is all about.

My thanks to Mary Colwell and thank goodness that she has kept going since the initial idea in 2011. Plant Stories is an independent podcast presented and produced by me, Sally Flatman.