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Sustainability and renewal - full report

Subject: Sustainable schools
Audience: Headteachers, Middle leaders and aspiring headteachers, School business managers, Early years leaders
Date of publication: December 2009   |   File format and size: PDF, 377 Kb

Sustainability is about the relationship between people, their purpose and their place. It is about engaging, learning and leading to create a positive, empowering future for our children and their children.

This study aims to show that sustainability can be successfully embedded in schools. It illustrates the clear benefits of doing this and also highlights the characteristics of sustainable schools and the leadership qualities that are required to develop sustainable schools. It investigates:

  • what school leadership for sustainability looks like in practice
  • the key qualities and processes that leaders use to create, develop and lead sustainable schools
  • how sustainability enables and enhances the Every Child Matters (ECM) agenda and wider educational outcomes

The role of leadership in creating sustainability

Evidence from the research suggests that the leadership in these schools has contributed
substantially towards these schools becoming sustainable. It also shows that when a school places sustainability at the core of its activity, it supports adults and young people's learning, their contribution to and improvement of their community and the sustainability of our planet.

The school leaders represented here have brought improvement, change, learning and leadership into a new relationship with each other and their community of practice for a different and bigger purpose.

A summary of this report is also available.