One of the important things to do first is to conduct an audit of what is available in your own local area. Don’t forget your own school possibilities as well.

Do you know how parents, governors, other adults might be connected to a resource which you can utilise? Many teachers often live away from the school catchment area so you may need to investigate to find the local information about people, places and services which could help you. The suggestions below cover most areas in the country.

Your local Council

A wide range of services available and where resources can easily be found depending on the age group you are teaching. Most local councils have been cut back severely in terms of head count, so the likelihood of anyone being able to speak to your students is not great. However, websites contain a wide range of information to help you plan local investigations, such as:

• people-focused services – reports investigating population trends (including age and sex distribution), housing needs and management, including housing trends and demand, and transport
• infrastructure-focused services – such as road quality (main roads are often dealt with by the Highways Agency rather than local roads)
• environmental services – such as waste collection and management, recycling, responses to emergencies such as pollution incidents or fly-tipping
• monitoring services, such as air quality
• the economy – reports on current trends in employment, unemployment, the council area’s largest employers
• planning – both general (planning policies and guidance) and specific (applications for property or land use for which permission is sought for future development)
• housing – including policies and provision for affordable housing
• ‘green’ policies – e.g. declarations of climate emergencies, or policies to increase biodiversity, or develop transition movement policies (for example ‘local pound’ or green transport policies in Bristol or Totnes). Policies to encourage local markets
• local economic development policies e.g. those designed to encourage tourism or high tech businesses, and grants to encourage new employment.

Government agencies

There are many services which are no longer run by central or local government, but which have been contracted out to government-funded agencies. This particularly applies to large-budget items such as flood management. These include:

• The Environment Agency (EA) – includes content about environmental incidents, fisheries, boating and waterways, environmental permits, flooding and coastal change, flood warnings, river levels and flood risk maps, and waste. Find out what the EA does here
• Other services which were once provided by local governments include housing. There are still over 4 million council houses in England and Wales, but such social housing is now managed by charities or third sector organisations such as Housing Associations. For these, it is best to search online for ‘Social housing in my area’. Shelter is an example of a housing issues charity 

Voluntary services

• The role played by charities and voluntary services in providing services to the local community – e.g. in health (Macmillan Cancer Support and other homecare charities), social care (companies and charities which provide homecare visits for the elderly or disabled)
• The range of activities in a village or urban community for local interest groups (local history, local activity groups, ramblers’ groups, mother-and-child groups etc)

Services and organisations in your own community

• A library or museum: these offer a wide number of services which could be useful in setting up fieldwork visits. Visit first to see what might be possible
• Neighbourhood watch schemes and local community policing. Find your nearest Neighbourhood Watch scheme

Newspaper offices

These keep an archive of material and reports which can often be accessed. There may well be parish newsletters which could provide starting points for investigation.