The 'compelling' classroom challenge winning glowing reviews as it rolls out to 100 Scottish schools

A new subject has been appearing on the school timetables of a rapidly rising number of Scottish pupils, and it is unlike the others.

If any parents or teachers are still to hear about the arrival in their local schools of “Powering Futures”, a sustainability challenge involving some of the nation’s most prominent businesses, they soon will.

The social enterprise initiative is now in 29 out of Scotland’s 32 council areas, as well as 29 per cent of the nation’s state secondary schools.

Its growth has been meteoric, with the number of high schools rising from five, to 43 to 106 in the last three years, largely as result of glowing, word-of-mouth reviews from school staff.

Portobello High School in Edinburgh has just introduced it for its entire S5 this year, with about 250 students now studying Powering Futures for two periods a week. Annan Academy in Dumfries and Galloway is doing the same.

The idea is that the students collaborate to find a solution to a sustainability challenge that has been set by industry. It is designed to develop their talents in innovation, problem solving, networking and sustainability.

Representatives from business partners are involved in the delivery of the curriculum programme, which aims to help shape the skilled workforce Scotland requires to help with the transition to net zero.

Admirers of the programme include Professor Ken Muir, a former Scottish Government adviser who served as chief executive of the General Teaching Council for Scotland.

He said: “The Powering Futures challenge programme is, without doubt, one of the most innovative and compelling programmes for Scotland’s senior students to engage in.”

Prof Muir added: “It is a programme that helps young people discover and develop their unique talents and interests.

“It helps to build partnerships between schools and the world of work and helps learners to navigate the ever-changing economic landscape in which they live. It breaks down the barriers between vocational and academic studies.”

Powering Futures has evolved from discussions during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, between Jennifer Tempany, a former head of business development at Forth Valley College, and David Reid, who spent 30 years with Jacobs Engineering.

“The initial funding came through SDS (Skills Development Scotland) and the SFC (Scottish Funding Council) wanting to look at interesting opportunities for the development of people during Covid. We pitched this idea and they gave us some initial funding,” Ms Tempany told The Scotsman.

The project was initially aimed at the COP26 climate conference, which was held in Glasgow in 2021.

“We had 38 teams of apprentices from national businesses all across the country, working on five challenges that had a sustainability theme to them,” Ms Tempany said.

“What we wanted to do was showcase young talent at COP, and say, ‘look there is opportunity in the transition to net zero, and actually the people who will get us there will be young people, and you’re overlooking that, because there is talent among young people and apprentices. Look what they’ve done in these real business challenges’.

“We started that out, and it gathered real momentum.”

The team was soon working with businesses, creating bespoke programmes to help with their own sustainability and productivity challenges in their workplace, reinvesting profits into the education programme.

“The education work started out because our local high school teacher said, ‘I see what you’re doing with businesses in and around here, whether it was Ineos or Alexander Dennis, could you do that within our curriculum?” Ms Tempany said. “We went and explored that opportunity with a group of teachers. We took the challenge programme, we stretched it out over an entire academic year - so it is 30 weeks long. We credit-levelled it against SCQF, so it is at Level 6, it commands tariff points, it commands UCAS points, as you would expect.”

SCQF 6 is the same level as Higher, or modern and foundation apprenticeships.

An example of the challenges set to pupils by businesses was Scottish Gas, sponsor of Murrayfield Stadium, which set the question - “What does a sustainable football, or rugby or local sports ground look like?”

Ms Tempany said: “Challenges are set at the beginning of the course, in fifth or sixth year. And then school pupils, in teams, work through the course and the process, to be able to come up with an implementable solution.

“But actually what we’ve developed for teachers, is a suite of really high quality resources and materials for them to be able to do that. The resources are such that you don’t need to be a subject expert - what you really need from a teacher is to be passionate about the development of young people.

“There is a lot of sustainability education in primary school. There is very little, if not nothing, exists particularly in secondary school, even though it is something that is mandated.”

There have already been examples of young people being offered apprenticeships as a direct result of their involvement in Powering Futures.

The cohorts taking part are also among those most directly impacted by the disruption to education during the pandemic, which had led to increasing anxiety and lower confidence levels for many.

“Last year we had teachers in tears at the end of the presentations in March, because it was kids they never thought would be able to do something like that,” Ms Tempany said. The co-founder of Powering Futures revealed she is due to hold talks with education chiefs in Ireland about potentially exporting the model.

“By 2030, we want to have one million people that have had the opportunity to pass through, or be part of Powering Futures. That is our aspiration,” she said.

“And the plan is to get out of Scotland. We’re not going to get to one million people staying here.”