DfE's 2024/25 school-level data shows how far Sheffield's 30 secondaries diverge on Geography entries and results — plus GCSE Geography tutoring shaped around each student's own board and enquiries.
Book a Free ConsultationA 94.2% entry rate and a 73.2% achievement rate at grade 5 or above track each other at King Ecgbert School, Sheffield's third-strongest EBacc humanities performer. They do not at Hinde House 2-16 Academy: a similar 84.2% entry rate converts into just 25.6% reaching grade 5, the weakest of Sheffield's 30 state-funded secondaries. Checked against DfE's 2024/25 data for all 30, Geography's own entries total 2,571 against History's 2,506 — a narrow citywide lead individual schools reverse either way.
Sheffield parents booking a GCSE Geography tutor rarely know yet whether their child's own school leans toward the subject or away from it. Our tutors ask first, then build the programme around whichever board, tier and fieldwork enquiries that school has actually set.
Book a Free ConsultationMessage us on WhatsAppEntry and achievement answer different questions, and Sheffield's own numbers make the gap between them obvious once the two are placed side by side. Every school in the city bar one enters at least some of its Year 11s for the EBacc humanities pillar — History, Geography, or both — a research pass that checked all 30 open, state-funded, non-special secondaries with a 2024/25 GCSE cohort directly on DfE's Compare School and College Performance service on 2 September 2026, matching each result to its own URN before any figure below was used.
Mercia School tops both measures: 100.0% of its 172-pupil cohort is entered, split 110 Geography to 74 History, and 81.4% of those entered reach grade 5 or above — the highest achievement of any of the 30 schools checked. King Ecgbert School is close behind on achievement, at 73.2%, from a 94.2% entry rate built on 111 Geography entries against 105 History — a school this page's History sibling did not name.
The floor is Hinde House 2-16 Academy. Its entry rate, 84.2%, sits comfortably above Sheffield's own state-funded average of 76.8%, built on 91 Geography entries against 70 History. But only 25.6% of those entered pupils reach grade 5 or above — the lowest of any of the 30 schools checked, and less than a third of Mercia's ceiling. Entering nine in ten pupils for the pillar plainly does not by itself guarantee outcomes anywhere near as strong.
Excluding UTC Sheffield City Centre, which enters no pupils for either subject, and the two schools whose GCSE cohort has since closed under a Fresh Start, entry rates across the other 28 schools run from 56.6% at Notre Dame High School to Mercia's 100.0% — a 43.4 percentage-point spread. Achievement at grade 5 or above spreads further still, from Hinde House's 25.6% to Mercia's 81.4% — 55.8 percentage points, a wider range than entry itself.
Two more schools clear 70% achievement. Notre Dame High School reaches 70.8%, despite that 56.6% entry rate — the lowest of any currently open Sheffield secondary — and High Storrs School reaches 80.9% from a 94.5% entry rate built on 145 Geography entries against 106 History. Together with Mercia and King Ecgbert, these four schools hold the highest achievement of the 30 checked, and none of the four got there simply by entering the most pupils: Notre Dame's own entry rate sits below every other school bar the two closures and UTC Sheffield City Centre.
Every one of the 30 schools checked splits its EBacc humanities pupils between the two subjects differently, and the split runs in both directions even among schools this page's History sibling did not name. Citywide, summing Geography and History entries independently checked for all 30 schools gives 2,571 Geography entries against 2,506 History — Geography narrowly ahead by 65 entries, even though individual schools swing sharply toward one subject or the other. Among the 14 schools not named on this page's History sibling, Geography's own lead is wider still: 1,284 entries against 1,203 History, an 81-entry gap.
Tapton School remains the strongest Geography lean of any of the 30: 163 Geography entries against 91 History, a ratio of 1.79 times. The next-strongest lean belongs to a school this page's History sibling did not cover at all: Oasis Academy Don Valley enters 67 pupils for Geography against 44 for History, a ratio of 1.52 times, from a comparatively small 121-pupil cohort. Bradfield Secondary School leans almost as hard, 103 Geography against 77 History (1.34 times), and Hinde House 2-16 Academy — despite its achievement problem — enters 91 Geography against 70 History (1.3 times).
None of these newly examined schools lean anywhere near as hard toward History as Handsworth Grange Community Sports College (134 History against 56 Geography, 2.4 times) or Silverdale School (90 against 31, 2.9 times) — this page's History sibling's two most History-heavy schools. The closest a previously unexamined school comes to favouring History is Lift Firth Park, at 100 History against 82 Geography, a 1.22-times lean — still far short of Handsworth Grange's or Silverdale's ratios. Most of the 14 schools this page examines for the first time sit inside a narrow 0.9-to-1.5-times band in either direction; the extreme splits belong to schools already named elsewhere.
Lift Firth Park is worth a note of its own. Trading under that name since a sponsor change, it looked at first glance like a possible third Sheffield Fresh Start. Checked directly at Get Information About Schools, URN 139334 has been open continuously since 1 August 2013, with no closure recorded — one continuous institution under a new sponsor name, not a closure and reopening, so its 82 Geography and 100 History entries above describe one school, not a predecessor.
A tutor who has to ask which board your child sits before starting has already wasted half a session. Ours confirm it in advance, then work from that board's own case studies and fieldwork enquiries from minute one — whether that school leans toward Geography, like Tapton or Oasis Academy Don Valley, or toward History instead.
Book a Free ConsultationMessage us on WhatsAppGCSE Geography's biggest difference from a subject like art, food preparation or design and technology is that fieldwork is not submitted as separate coursework, marked by the school and moderated by the exam board. Checked directly against AQA's, Pearson Edexcel's and Cambridge OCR's own specification documents for this page, every board examines fieldwork entirely within a written paper, using questions on the student's own two enquiries and on unfamiliar fieldwork material supplied on the day.
Seven GCSE Geography specifications are currently live across four boards: AQA publishes a single specification (8035); Pearson Edexcel, OCR and WJEC Eduqas each publish two, labelled A and B — a naming convention describing two different specifications from the same board, not a difficulty difference, and every one of the seven assesses fieldwork by written exam rather than coursework.
AQA's GCSE Geography (8035, version 1.1, 12 September 2023) assesses fieldwork within Paper 3, Geographical Applications — a 1 hour 30 minute written exam worth 30% of the GCSE. Section B requires two geographical enquiries, each using primary data collected in contrasting environments, outside the classroom and school grounds, on at least two occasions; the exam questions ask students to identify their own enquiry titles as well as interpret unfamiliar fieldwork data. Pearson Edexcel's Geography A (1GA0, Issue 5) places its fieldwork in Component 3, a 1 hour 30 minute written exam worth 25% of the qualification, while Geography B (1GB0, Issue 4) examines fieldwork within Component 2's Section C instead, worth 37.5%. Cambridge OCR's Geography A (J383) — OCR renamed itself Cambridge OCR from September 2025, per its own specification cover page — folds fieldwork into Component 03, Geographical Skills, a 1 hour 30 minute paper worth 40% of the GCSE, the largest single-component weighting of any specification checked.
Schools must still certify that the fieldwork happened: AQA requires a written statement recording the date, location, number of students and the enquiry questions, signed by the Head of Centre, with any failure to provide it treated as malpractice. That statement earns no marks itself — it exists to confirm the fieldwork the exam questions will later assume took place. For the full paper-by-paper breakdown across all seven specifications, including Geography B on Cambridge OCR and both Eduqas routes, see our GCSE Geography boards and papers guide.
Confirming your child's exact board and fieldwork options first, our GCSE Geography tutors in Sheffield work from real past papers and your child's own enquiry notes, not generic revision guides.
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Every figure on this page — Geography's entries, History's entries, the EBacc humanities pillar, and the grade 5-or-above achievement rate — comes from DfE's 2024/25 key stage 4 performance measures, and the government has already confirmed those measures will not continue in their current form. The Department for Education's own response to the Curriculum and Assessment Review, published 5 November 2025, states: "In advance, we will remove EBacc headline and additional measures at key stage 4. This will take effect for the key stage 4 performance measures for the 2025 to 2026 academic year to be published in autumn 2026."
That means the 2024/25 figures compared on this page describe one of the last cohorts judged on the EBacc humanities pillar as it currently stands. The same government response sets out a proposed replacement — an improved Progress 8 and Attainment 8 model with breadth slots that include a "Humanities" category — but that proposal remains out for consultation with no confirmed date, so this page treats it as exactly that: proposed, not settled, and not a reason to assume the History-or-Geography comparison above continues unchanged into future results cycles.
Not every school named above still exists under that name. A Department for Education "Fresh Start" closed two of them and reopened each on the same site under a different URN — a change confirmed for this page at Get Information About Schools directly, school by school, rather than assumed from anywhere else.
Fir Vale School (URN 138925) closed on 30 June 2025, according to its own GIAS record, and reopened the very next day, 1 July 2025, as Fir Vale Academy (URN 151851) under United Learning Trust, now with 931 pupils on roll. Fir Vale's own 2024/25 entries — 40 Geography against 34 History, a Geography lean of 1.18 times — describe the closed predecessor; Fir Vale Academy has no GCSE results of its own yet.
Chaucer School (URN 138414) closed on 31 August 2026, also under a Fresh Start, and reopened the next day, 1 September 2026, as Mercia Northridge School (URN 152560), run by the Mercia Learning Trust — the same trust behind Mercia School, this page's highest-achieving secondary. Chaucer's 2024/25 entries — 35 Geography against 59 History, a History lean of 1.69 times — and its 54.7% pillar entry rate, the second-lowest of any school in this dataset after UTC Sheffield City Centre, describe the school that closed on 31 August; Mercia Northridge School has no entry history of its own yet.
This page's History sibling names 15 of Sheffield's 30 schools directly, plus Fir Vale School as a closure. The 14 schools below appear in DfE's 2024/25 data but not with figures on that page — sorted by Geography's own share of each school's cohort, from Oasis Academy Don Valley's 55.4% down to Lift Firth Park's 36.6%.
| School | Geography entries | History entries | Geography share of cohort | EBacc humanities achievement (grade 5+) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oasis Academy Don Valley | 67 | 44 | 55.4% | 30.9% |
| King Ecgbert School | 111 | 105 | 53.9% | 73.2% |
| Westfield School | 119 | 104 | 49.8% | 35.7% |
| Bradfield Secondary School | 103 | 77 | 49.3% | 55.7% |
| Forge Valley School | 125 | 115 | 48.8% | 49.8% |
| Sheffield Springs Academy | 95 | 85 | 48.5% | 37.8% |
| Hinde House 2-16 Academy | 91 | 70 | 47.9% | 25.6% |
| Newfield Secondary School | 92 | 100 | 46.0% | 49.7% |
| Astrea Academy Sheffield | 60 | 66 | 44.4% | 34.8% |
| All Saints' Catholic High School | 89 | 103 | 43.4% | 51.8% |
| Outwood Academy City | 98 | 86 | 42.1% | 45.3% |
| E-Act Parkwood Academy | 64 | 62 | 41.0% | 40.5% |
| King Edward VII School | 88 | 86 | 39.1% | 65.1% |
| Lift Firth Park | 82 | 100 | 36.6% | 27.2% |
All figures above are drawn from the Department for Education's Compare School and College Performance service (subjects-entered and EBacc additional measures data) and its Get Information About Schools register, together with AQA's, Pearson Edexcel's and OCR's own published GCSE Geography specifications and the Department for Education's response to the Curriculum and Assessment Review, all checked directly for this page on 2 September 2026.
A school that closed and reopened under a new name still has real pupils sitting real exams in it today. Our GCSE Geography tutors work with whichever of Sheffield's schools your child actually attends now — Fresh Start successor or not — rather than assuming last year's paperwork still applies.
Book a Free ConsultationMessage us on WhatsAppBecause the two rows measure different things. DfE records Geography as its own subject entry, separate from History, in one row of school-level data; the EBacc humanities pillar is a combined measure that counts a pupil once if they sit Geography, History, or both. King Ecgbert School illustrates the gap directly: its 206-pupil cohort produces a 94.2% pillar entry rate built from two separate rows -- 111 Geography entries and 105 History entries -- rather than from either subject counted alone.
Mercia School has both the highest EBacc humanities entry rate (100.0%, from 172 pupils split 110 Geography to 74 History) and the highest achievement of any of Sheffield's 30 checked secondary schools: 81.4% of its entered pupils reach grade 5 or above. King Ecgbert School is third-highest on achievement, at 73.2%, from a 94.2% entry rate -- a school this page's History sibling did not name, built from 111 Geography entries against 105 History.
Hinde House 2-16 Academy enters 84.2% of its pupils for the EBacc humanities pillar, above Sheffield's own 76.8% state-funded average, from 91 Geography entries and 70 History. But only 25.6% of those entered pupils reach grade 5 or above, the lowest of any of the 30 schools checked, and less than a third of Mercia School's 81.4% ceiling. A high entry rate and strong achievement are two separate measures, and this page's own data shows they do not automatically move together.
Tapton School leans hardest toward Geography of all 30 schools checked, entering 163 pupils for Geography against 91 for History, a ratio of 1.79 times. Among schools this page's History sibling did not name, Oasis Academy Don Valley leans hardest: 67 Geography entries against 44 History, 1.52 times, from a 121-pupil cohort. Bradfield Secondary School (103 against 77) and Hinde House 2-16 Academy (91 against 70) both lean toward Geography by more than 1.3 times.
No. Checked directly against AQA's, Pearson Edexcel's and OCR's own specification documents, every board examines fieldwork entirely within a written exam paper -- AQA's Paper 3 (Geographical Applications, 30% of the GCSE), Pearson Edexcel's Component 3 or Component 2 depending on the specification, and OCR's Component 03 (Geographical Skills, 40% of the GCSE for Geography A). Students answer questions on their own two enquiries and on unfamiliar fieldwork material; nothing is submitted for separate coursework marking.
Not in its current form. The Department for Education's response to the Curriculum and Assessment Review, published 5 November 2025, states that it will 'remove EBacc headline and additional measures at key stage 4' from the key stage 4 performance measures for the 2025 to 2026 academic year, to be published in autumn 2026. A proposed replacement measure is out for consultation with no confirmed date, so the 2024/25 figures on this page describe one of the last cohorts assessed this way.
A Department for Education Fresh Start replaced each of them with a differently-numbered institution on the same site, confirmed for this page directly at Get Information About Schools rather than assumed from elsewhere. URN 138925 (Fir Vale School) stopped on 30 June 2025; URN 151851 (Fir Vale Academy, United Learning Trust) started the following day. URN 138414 (Chaucer School) stopped on 31 August 2026; URN 152560 (Mercia Northridge School, run by the same trust as Mercia School) started on 1 September 2026. Every 2024/25 figure quoted above for either site belongs to the old URN, not the new one.
Yes. A student's own school shapes the programme rather than limiting it: at a Geography-leaning cohort such as Tapton's or Oasis Academy Don Valley's, sessions follow the case studies and enquiries that school has already covered; at a History-leaning one such as Handsworth Grange, a tutor builds Geography's own topics up from wherever that timetable has left them. The exam board, tier and fieldwork enquiries are confirmed before the first session in every case.
Thirty schools, thirty different splits between Geography and History, and no two identical. Book a free consultation and a Sheffield-based GCSE Geography tutor will plan sessions around your child's own board, tier and enquiry topics rather than a one-size revision list built for none of them in particular.
Book a Free ConsultationMessage us on WhatsAppA programme for a student at Tapton, Oasis Academy Don Valley or Bradfield Secondary School starts from a cohort that already leans toward Geography, so the case studies and fieldwork enquiries a tutor picks can match what the school has actually taught. A student at Handsworth Grange or Silverdale — schools that lean the other way, toward History — needs the physical and human processes built up with less assumed classroom time behind them, and a student taking both subjects needs the two kept distinct rather than blurred together. Our GCSE Geography boards and papers guide sets out the paper-by-paper detail across all seven live specifications, our GCSE Geography tuition page covers how a programme itself is put together, and our Geography tutoring page describes the service alongside History in the same EBacc pillar.
A shared online whiteboard lets a tutor mark fieldwork enquiry answers, case-study recall and extended-response questions in real time, against the mark scheme the student's own board actually uses — not a generic approximation of it. Every programme starts from that student's school, board and chosen enquiry topics, then tracks progress against their own target grade as the course goes on. Our GCSE History tutors in Sheffield page covers the subject sharing this pillar with Geography, our GCSE tuition hub sets out the wider GCSE picture, and our full locations list covers tutoring in other UK cities.
A Sheffield tutor who already knows the difference between Component 03 on Cambridge OCR and Paper 3 on AQA does not spend the first session finding out. Ours start from your child's actual board, tier and fieldwork options and build forward from there. Leading Tuition is rated 4.8 out of 5 on Trustpilot from 58 reviews, read on 22 August 2026.
Book a Free ConsultationMessage us on WhatsAppTell us your child's school and exam board on a free consultation call, and we'll build sessions around their real specification from the start.
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