Geography students put Colyton Grammar on the map

Teenagers collect ‘highly commneded’ awards at the Royal Geographical Society’s annual presentations

Fern Acheson collects her award. Picture HOWARD SAYER - Credit: Archant

Two students from Colyton Grammar School collected awards when they attended the ‘Young Geographer of the Year’ presentations in London last week.

Fern Acheson, 16, and Grace Stevens, 14, were highly commended for their take on ‘the changing geography of Britain’. Grace’s award was in the Key Stage 3 category, Fern’s in the Key Stage4/GCSE section.

Young Geographer of the Year is a national competition run by the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), to encourage pupils to engage with geographical issues. Each year the competition receives entries from thousands of pupils from hundreds of schools, and this year’s competition was an opportunity for geography students to explore the question “How is Britain changing?”.

Steve Brace, the Society’s Head of Education and Outdoor Learning, said: “This year, students explored geographical change from many different perspectives. We were incredibly impressed with the entries we received. Many focused on how Britain’s physical features are changing in response to a wide range of geographical processes, while others focused on social, cultural or political change.”

* The competition recognises the best entries across four categories: Key Stage 2 (students aged 9-11); Key Stage 3 (11-14); Key Stage 4 or GCSE (14-16); and Key Stage 5 or A Level (16-18). Pupils in the first three categories were asked to submit an annotated diagram or poster, while A Level pupils were asked to submit a 1,500 word essay, which could include illustrations, maps or graphs.