Introduction to the Initial Teacher Education Programme: Teaching and Learning for Sustainability in the Primary Years

As the world faces unprecedented environmental, social, and economic challenges, the role of educators in shaping a sustainable future has never been more vital. This Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programme is designed to empower future primary teachers with the knowledge, confidence, and skills to embed sustainability meaningfully across the curriculum. It is a call to action – not just to teach about sustainability, but to teach through and for sustainability.

Rooted in national and international frameworks – including the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 4.7), the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and your country’s curriculum guidance – this programme positions sustainability as a cross-cutting theme, woven through all areas of learning, teaching, and educational values.

This course supports you as an educator in guiding pre-service teachers to:

• Understand the principles of environmental stewardship, social justice, and responsible innovation;

• Recognise sustainability as a lens for interdisciplinary, inquiry-led learning;

• Explore local and global contexts, with space for children’s voices, critical thinking, and agency;

• Connect learners to place, community, and culture, including Indigenous knowledge systems and diverse worldviews.

You will lead future teachers in designing purposeful learning experiences that support wellbeing, inclusion, and ecological literacy – from outdoor learning and climate storytelling to systems thinking, circular economy principles, and classroom-based action projects.

Importantly, this programme encourages a reflective and values-driven approach to professional identity. It invites educators to nurture a generation of teachers who not only understand sustainability, but who model it in their pedagogy, relationships, and leadership.

Together, we are preparing primary educators to become changemakers, kaitiaki, and Earth stewards – equipped to inspire their learners to care, to question, and to act with hope.