Should Animal Welfare Become Part of the National Curriculum

Image by free stock photos from www.picjumbo.com from Pixabay.

Please see the bottom of this post for links to the websites I used while researching this.

The animal welfare issue has become more and more visible over the last couple of decades. Climate change and animal endangerment have helped highlight the issue of animal welfare, especially through the media (social and traditional media). It’s clear that changes are needed to address these issues. Education is one of the key ways to encourage change.

It got me thinking about how to apply animal welfare education across the board. Is the way forward to make teaching animal welfare in schools part of the National Curriculum for all schools?

A PDF provided by the RSPCA shows that animal welfare could be part of some existing subjects.

“• Animal welfare can be a cross-curricular topic or integrated into a specific subject such as science, citizenship or PSHE and English.
• The current citizenship curriculum offers specific opportunities for teaching animal welfare topics at primary and secondary level.”

Though the RSPCA oppose the traditional route of keeping a pet in the classroom, they provide a few alternatives, such as a wildlife area on the school grounds and literature on animal welfare.

As stated above, there is some provision for it at the primary and secondary school levels. However, given the complexity of the issue when you take in other factors, it seems to me that teaching animal welfare in high schools as well. Animal welfare is far more than just ensuring the correct food and bedding for them.

93% of the teachers surveyed by the RSPCA were also in favour of animal welfare becoming part of the National Curriculum. However, some concerns were raised about how it would fit into the curriculum. These concerns led to the RSPCA creating 90-plus lesson plans for free.

The Cat’s Protection League share the RSPCA’s opinion on this matter. They also see that teaching children about animal welfare contributing to their emotional development. They state in their PDF about animals in education.

“Children are the pet owners of tomorrow and it’s essential they leave school with a basic understanding of how to respect and care for animals. This can be achieved by including animal welfare as a mainstream topic in the National Curriculum. Such teaching would have additional benefits to a child’s emotional development, enabling greater discussion and understanding about caring for others, empathy and responsibility.”

I believe this is a viable way forward, but I can understand the concerns about it fitting into the existing framework. Teachers, as has been well documented in the media, have a lot to deal with as it is. Adding to their workload is not going to make it any easier. However, if this is included in a way that does not become a burden, it could only be beneficial.

https://education.rspca.org.uk/documents/1494931/0/Animal+Friendly+Schools+Guidance+%285%29.pdf/c7c5fe97-e5a6-fa47-6205-8d22d45cf7c2?t=1558518337650

https://mrcvs.co.uk/en/news-story.php?id=11889

https://www.cats.org.uk/media/7041/tim-national-curriculum.pdf

The opinions expressed in this post are mine and do not reflect those of Kelp Social.