Do we really need a GCSE focused on saving the planet?

We have yet to see the first sample papers for the new GCSE in natural history to be announced by education secretary Nadhim Zahawi this week, but the fact that it has come about after lobbying by Caroline Lucas, Chris Packham and other green activists is a pretty good guide as to what might be in store: yet another fashionable, soft subject which is designed to indoctrinate rather than educate. It is a fair guess where it will lead: to children, especially from state comprehensives, being diverted from the more academically-rigorous subjects which would gain them access to the best universities.

Far from the claim that the new subject will ‘fill a hole in the curriculum’, there is nothing in the proposals by the OCR examination board which is not already covered in biology or geography.