SustainAll is an Erasmus+ Project with partners in Austria, Germany, Portugal and Norway. The aim of our project is to support All-day schools in developing a curriculum as well as day-to-day practices, which foster sustainability education. The project endorses the whole-school approach, integrating ESD / transformative education in a holistic manner. Accordingly, teaching and learning for sustainability is extended to aspects such as community involvement and integrated governance. The whole-school approach further advocates for active, participatory learning (Hargreaves, 2008). In order to do so, this project will learn from existing good-practice examples. Based on these examples, which will be researched through case studies, the project aims at fostering a transformative culture of ESD and sustainability practeces by developing in-service training modules for All-Day schools wishing to adapt their program towards ESD and transformative learning and to change their school policy in accordance with the whole-institution approach. 

In the first project year 2022, at least two case studies were conducted in specifically selected primary and secondary schools in all participating countries. 

The overarching research questions of the case studies are: 

• How are ESD projects and initiatives integrated in schools?  

• What are the characteristics or factors that contribute for an ESD project to be a good practice example?  

• What is the relationship between ESD and (transformative) learning in the context of all-day and whole-school school approach?  

For each case study and each country, the results will be reported from a distinct as well as from a comparative perspective within the symposium.   

A common template and defined evaluation criteria guarantee that the data is collected and evaluated in a comparable way in each country.  Each case study includes a document analysis, guided interviews and participant observation. 

An extensive literature review and the analysis of pre-selected theoretical models of ESD-related school development allow to compare inductively gained insight into the case study data to relevant aspects deductively derived from relevant existing models. 

The models included were systematically analysed for overlaps and differences. 

Bianchi and colleagues (2022) identify a set of sustainability competences to be incorporated into educational programmes. According to the EU Commission, “GreenComp can serve a wide range of purposes, including curricula review, design of teacher education programs, (self-) assessment/reflection, policy development, certification, assessment, monitoring and evaluation” (p.3) which precisely serves our project goals. The Schools for Earth project (Greenpeace, 2021) offers an approach to structural school development (Greenpeace, 2021). With the goal of climate neutrality and the firm anchoring of an ambitious Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), six cyclical work phases are identified to make the whole school approach efficient. The 5R model of Henderson & Tilbury (2004) reveals five key considerations necessary for program managers and partners to operate and manage an effective program. These include the need for programs to be relevant, resourced, reflective, responsive and reformative. Verhelst et al. (2020) explicate a conceptual framework of an ESD-effective school in eight characteristics. 

The synopsis of models with competence orientation and models for systematic and effective school development processes thus provide a broad basis for comparison with our case studies. The case studies presented in the symposium each show a specific focus. 

 The results of the case studies and the cross-case analysis form the basis for the design hubs (March 2023): national in-service teachers´ and educational researchers´ design hubs figure out together which materials and course content will be needed to help All-Day schools to include ESD /transformative education in their school curricula and change their day-to-day practices following a whole-school approach to sustainability. 

These results will be presented and discussed in the last contribution of the symposium. 

Bianchi, G., Pisiotis, U., & Cabrera, M. (2022). Greencomp. The European sustainability competence framework: Jrc Science For Policy Report. Joint Research Centre. EUR: Vol. 30955. Publications Office of the European Union. https://doi.org/10.2760/13286 Greenpeace. (2021). WHOLE SCHOOL APPROACH: Ganzheitlicher Ansatz zur Schulentwicklung. Schools for Earth. Hargreaves, L. G. (2008). The whole-school approach to eduation for sustainable development: From pilot projects to systemic change. Policy & Practice-A Development Education Review, (6). Henderson, K., & Tilbury, D. (2004). Whole-School Approaches to Sustainability: An International Review of Sustainable School Programs. Report Prepared by the Australian Research Institute in Education for Sustainability (ARIES). https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412974615.n130 Verhelst, D., Vanhoof, J., Boeve-de Pauw, J., & van Petegem, P. (2020). Building a conceptual framework for an ESD-effective school organization. The Journal of Environmental Education, 51(6), 400–415. https://doi.org/10.1080/00958964.2020.1797615