GCSE and A Level History

[nickymanchester]

Although my DD is now at university I've been following the GCSE and A Level Support threads with interest.

I was surprised at how many different topics there are to study that people were talking about in those threads so I popped over to the AQA website and had a look. People today certainly get a lot more interesting range of choices than I remember back when I did my O levels.

Anyway, to get to my question, I noticed that the choice of topics at GCSE and A Level sometimes have quite a lot of overlap and sometimes are very different so I was wondering do schools teach the same/similar topics at A Level that they did at GCSE so that pupils can build on their existing knowledge or do they go for completely new topics?

For example, a lot of people on the GCSE thread were talking about the Elizabethan topic so I guess that one was quite popular. So, going into A Level do those schools then generally teach the Tudors A Level topic which covers much of the same time period and themes or are they more likely to choose something totally different to teach at A Level to give more variety?

My DD did all STEM subjects at A Level so I really have no idea what happens these days and my own A Level history was back in the 1980s.

Also, just as an aside, I was amazed at the range of topics on offer at A Level but wondered how many schools take up the more unusual ones compared to the more mainstream ones.

For example, I would imagine something like "Industrialisation and the people: Britain, c1783–1885" would be quite a mainstream choice for schools but I wonder how many would be teaching "The Transformation of China, 1936–1997" although that second one does actually sound really interesting to me and it was the only topic dealing with Asian history. (Although they do have to teach both British and non-British history so I accept that I'm not exactly comparing like with like)

So, do schools carry on with similar topics from GCSE to A Level or change them around and do they just stick to more obvious topics or do they pick more obscure ones?

At DS1's school the boys can choose from three a level history strands, which the school seem to have crafted from the wide range offered by the board. Loosely - medieval (Norman and Angevin kings, Charlemagne, crusades etc), early modern - tudors , Charles 2 etc and modern - is civil war, unification of Germany , civil rights and slavery etc.
For gcse it was all 20 C international relations, so overlap doesn't really apply.
I would very surprised if schools covered the same ground twice - hoe full

DS did Medicine Through the Ages, Wiemar Germany, the Cold War and one other thing that escapes me at the moment for History GCSE last year. He is now coming to the end of Y12 and they are doing The Rainbow Revolution - Apartheid and Post Apartheid South Africa; The American Dream - 1914 - Reagan; The Wars of the Roses and an EPQ for A Level so no overlap at all.

A bit (quite a bit..........) off topic.... I did my History 'A' level in the 80s too and now feel ancient that things which happened during my lifetime (Reagan, Tianamen Square) are part of a history syllabus!

I remember saying to a friend's dad when I was at school that we were doing Cuba and the Bay of Pigs. He wailed "That's not history, that's my life!". That's how I feel about a lot of what DS is doing - though thankfully not in terms of the Wars of the Roses .

DD's exam board changes for ALevel history, so completely different. She had just done Germany Rise of Dictatorship, USA early 20thC, and USA Civil Rights, and then History of Medicine. For ALevel she is going to do, War of the Roses, Russian Revolution and one other, yet to be decided, they are letting the girls vote which is nice.

Thank you everyone so much for your replies that's been so interesting to find out what's happening.

I know what you mean about feeling a part of history. I was in the lower 6th at the time of the Falklands War and the Falklands War is now part of both GCSE and A Level syllabuses.

SilentSister
they are letting the girls vote which is nice.

That sounds a really good idea rather than just telling them what to do.

DD switched schools so has ended up studying Germany for both GCSE and A-level, though different periods. She’s also done the Tudors, and the witch trials across Europe and the USA.

Well, DD2 is doing GCSEs and has done Germany 1890 - 1945/causes of WW1, Normans and feudalism, Medicine through time and America 1920 - 1973. DD1 doing A level has done Crusades, Stuarts and the Witch Craze, with course work on the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand - but she did not touch on any of that for her GCSEs. No guarantee that DD2 will be doing the same topics for History next year either.