We developed Green Focus, a new and exciting way for children taking Key Stage 3 Geography to explore and learn about the environment through photography. This three year project is running across the UK, involving schools, young people and Colliers International staff across the country.

Colliers Green Focus (www.colliersgreenfocus.com) enables schools to run field trips exploring environmental issues in their local area with a professional photographer and geographer from the Photographers Gallery. The expert tutors significantly enhance the pupils' learning experience and provide them with opportunities to develop new skills and the students' photographs are used in lessons.

Each year, a special Colliers Green Focus exhibition of the children’s work is displayed at the Photographer’s Gallery. Judges review the exhibition and all participating Colliers Green Focus schools are invited to the Colliers Annual Award Ceremony – a special event at the Royal Geographical Society, at which judges chose three winning entries. Photographs also go forward for a specially designed resource book and website for photography students and teachers: www.colliersgreenfocus.com

"Colliers Green Focus has been hugely valuable and very much enjoyed by the children. The photography field trip enabled the pupils to the look at their local area with a completely different slant and analyse the environment in a completely different manner to normal field trips. The professional geographer and photographers demonstrated the links between the art form and the subject in really powerful and effective ways and in a manner that captured and held the pupils attention - no mean feet when they're outside and its raining!

"The children's photographs will feed directly into classroom lessons and existing scheme of work. The pictures will also be used linked to our work on Haiku poems, on the school notice board and edited for school movies and presentations etc. Enabling the students to take ownership of the photography and have the opportunity to show their pictures to others in the group and school was a very powerful experience for them. They learned an awful lot and we would love to repeat it."
Sally Summers, Holy Trinity School, Teacher