The concepts of sustainable development embedded across the UWCSEA learning programme encompass all three domains named by the UN: environmental, social and economic.  Our goal is to equip and empower each individual to become aware, active and able contributors to a sustainable future for all. Our long term commitment to creating a curriculum with educating for  sustainable development has given us many resources to share. Download the UWCSEA White Paper to learn more about how we use
    •    a 5 P's framework adapted from the UN model
    •    embedded concepts across a K–12 curriculum to teach sustainable development
    •    place-based sustainability learning to maximise opportunities to consolidate concepts

Peacebuilding is a core mission competency at UWCSEA, underpinning the curriculum, our philosophy of learning, and our engagement with our community.  

The College’s approach to building capacity in peacebuilding for students aged 4 to 18 is outlined in this UWCSEA White Paper titled: EDUCATING FOR PEACE: UWCSEA’s mission for future peacebuilders. Consolidating the collective learning of the past 50 years, the White Paper sets out the College’s definitions of peace, and shares thinking around how UWCSEA, as a K-12 school, embeds peace and peacebuilding as concepts across the learning programme. 

At UWCSEA, peacebuilding is something that is explicitly taught and considered to be critical to the foundations of a healthy community and society. It is an act of service, but it is also considered to be a core understanding and disposition that helps people achieve peace personally and in complex, real-world situations. At UWCSEA, students examine all potential aspects of peace, but the focus is on giving students the understanding, skills, and knowledge to help them build the structures and relationships that can help support peace into the future.

Crucially, UWCSEA’s understanding of peace education requires focus on outcomes centred around creating conditions for positive peace. As a result, students examine concepts based on three potential layers, or rings, of peace: Personal, Interpersonal and Global. The focus is on giving students the understanding, skills, and knowledge to help them build the structures and relationships that can help support peace into the future.

At UWCSEA, the inner ring begins with our youngest students in K1 and guides curriculum development and service and activities throughout a student’s life at school. As the focus expands, learning extends to connecting with others and the community, and concepts that support these. Finally, Global peacebuilding is explored through understanding of  historical conflicts, through global politics and global citizenship courses, and again through the activities and service programmes.

Students who choose to focus on peacebuilding in High School can also participate in the Initiative for Peace (IFP), UWCSEA’s flagship peacebuilding education programme, which is featured as a case study in the White Paper and is now available to educators around the world through the IfP Toolkit*.