The following examples show how tasks and suggested activities in the QCA/DfES schemes of work for geography can be modified to meet the needs of gifted pupils. Text in italics is taken from the schemes of work.

Year 1: Making the area safer

Unit 2: How can we make our local area safer?

Ask the children to identify methods of making an area safe, and to think about how the school grounds and other streets they know are made safe.

Ask the children to make use of all the evidence they have collected (photographs and survey results) to write a letter to the transport department at the local council to ask about the possibility of a safety feature being constructed.

Possible extension work
Introducing progression by increasing the depth of knowledge and understanding, and by changing the context of the issue and the range of examples:

Widen the enquiry by asking the children to find out the views of different people (for example driving and non-driving parents, other teachers and the lollypop person) on the ways the children think the area could be made safer. There is an opportunity here to take photographs of those interviewed with a digital camera.

Ask the children to design a plan for improving safety in the local street -- this could involve an annotated map as well as a written description of the plan. They could include the views of the people interviewed with a colour printout of their photographs.

Invite representatives of the local council (members or officials) to visit the school. Ask the children to present their plan to the council representatives.

Ask the children to look at how a street in a different sort of area (for example a shopping street) could be made safer and to compare the different factors that have to be taken into account.

Year 2: Seaside holiday places around the world

Unit 4: Going to the seaside

Where else in the world can we have a seaside holiday?

Divide the children into groups and ask each group to use travel brochures to identify between six and eight seaside places around the world.

Ask the children to talk about places they would like to visit.

Ask the children to write a report about different seaside places.

Possible extension work
Introducing progression by increasing the depth of knowledge and understanding:

Specify the particular aspects of the seaside places to be included in the report, for example how to get to them, weather conditions.

Ask the children to identify the similarities and differences between the holiday areas they are writing about.

Schemes of work