History

Entry Requirements

To make a success of History A Level it is the History Department’s expectation that pupils have at least a 6 in History at GCSE. It should be noted that due to the nature of the syllabus, which is quite different to its GCSE counterpart, having done History GCSE is not an absolute prerequisite for entry onto the A Level course. History, with its emphasis on weighing up the validity of different arguments, extended writing and forthright, reasoned debate, helps pupils to develop the intellectual skills that they will need at university and beyond. It is the aspiration of the History Department that, by the end of the A-Level course, pupils will be fully independent learners, able to read undergraduate-level texts with confidence and to form their own ideas and opinions, based on the available evidence. Encouraging evidence of how we are developing independent learners is the fact that over the last two years a growing number of A-Level Historians have submitted scholarly and well-researched essays to competitions run by Oxford and Cambridge colleges.