Sustainable development programme

Sustainable development programme is a tool for systematic development of school’s work for SD. The SD criteria are designed to support construction of SD programme. The school can annually select one or more themes from the table presented in the criteria (below) and plan the targets and actions based on the identified needs of improvement. On the certification website there is a databank of examples on how to implement different SD themes in teaching and school culture.

The central idea of the programme is that the actions for SD are focused both teaching and development of learning environments and schools culture. The results of the programme should be evaluated and the programme updated annually. It is important that the students, teachers and other school staff participate in the selection of themes and planning of the programme targets and actions as well as evaluation of the results.

The following figure explains how the themes of the criteria can be used for constructing a sustainable development programme and continuous improvement of school’s sustainability work.

The figure below shows an example of the energy theme in SD programme and students’ involvement in the planning, implementation and evaluation of the programme.