Key Stage 5

Key Stage 5 – AS/A Level

History at AS/A Level is a highly esteemed qualification which offers genuine opportunities to develop important personal skills as well as enabling students to keep their options open in terms of Higher Education and career choice.  Studying History at AS/A Level involves students becoming involved much more in the actual work of historians than GCSE.  There will be opportunities for original research and for participating in wider debates about the fundamental features of human society.

You will study the Edexcel qualification and as the course is linear, the four key units (three examinations and one piece of coursework) are studied across Years 12 and 13 but there are fundamental differences in the style of question and the expected depth of knowledge required for the full A Level qualification.

Unit 1 – Britain, 1625 – 1701: conflict, revolution and settlement

Unit 2 – Russia in revolution, 1894 – 1924

Unit 3 – Germany 1871 – 1990: united, divided and reunited

Unit 4 – Coursework essay relating to the appropriateness of Appeasement in the 1930s.

Unit 1

The focus of study is on developments and changes over a broad timescale and so the content is presented as themes spanning a significant duration: 1625–88. This option also contains a study in depth of historical interpretations on a broad question that is contextualised by, and runs on from, the themes: how revolutionary, in the years to 1701, was the Glorious Revolution of 1688–89?

Unit 2

Students will gain an in-depth understanding of revolutionary activity in Russia in the years 1894 to 1917, the response of successive governments to opposition to their rule, and the reasons for the successful consolidation of the revolution of October 1917 under Lenin and the Bolsheviks.

Unit 3

This option comprises two parts: the Aspects in breadth focus on long-term changes and contextualise the aspects in depth, which focus in detail on key episodes.  Together, the breadth and depth topics explore the ways in which Germany evolved as a new state in Europe undergoing dramatic changes of fortune, set within broader long-term social and economic developments (after 1945, these focus on West Germany). A dynamic empire ended in a brutal war and defeat; out of the ashes of imperial Germany, first a democratic republic and then an extraordinary dictatorship came into being, followed once again by democracy and finally a new unity in 1990.

What it prepares you for:

Studying History enables students to keep their options open when going into university and choosing careers.  Previous students have gone into teaching, accounting, journalism, politics and many other realms.  History students tend to be able to write well and clearly, to make judgements confidently and be able to see through the ploys and tactics of others.