GCSE Topic choice - Cold War or Elizabethan England? Your choice!

[NadiSel]

So the government is allowing GCSE History (Edexcel) students to express their preference to undertake either the Cold War 1941-91 (P4) or Early
Elizabethan England 1558-c1588 (B4) modules in this summer's exams. what are people choosing and why.

My Dd has said her friends are picking Elizabethan England as it's questions are similar to another topic, Nazi Germany!

1991 - AAAAARRRRGGGGGHHH - that's current events!!!

Sorry, not quite what you're after, but it's boggling that something so very recent is on the history curriculum. I'd urge my DC to do that one though - as it wouid be so easy to help them if needed.

But the first Elizabethan era was magnificent, but I'm never quite sure that the GCSE does it justice

DSs school made the decision and they are doing Elizabethan England and didn't study the Cold War module

@AuntieStella I thought the same. Cold war is interesting and still going on effectively (ukraine, Nato etc) but the teacher recommendations was for Elizabethan. Not sure why. I don't know if there is actually less information to memorise?

Like *Beepus+, DS’s school chose the Elizabethans, to go with the Weimar Republic, and the super powers.

We did the Cold War option for O level in 1982 - in class we covered up to the boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, so very contemporary!

@TheAbbotOfUnreason hehehe looking back at your 1982 self who could have imagined the events to come? Wars in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq x 2, Afghanistan, the breakup of the USSR, the growth of NATO, 9/11......

The 70s and 80s were turbulent times - civil war in NI, the Falklands, on-going Arab-Israeli wars, the three day week, all the “Protect and Survive” stuff.

The Fall of the Berlin Wall was incredible to see - I remember watching the TV news reports, and my next door neighbour was there for new year 1989/90 and said the atmosphere was amazing.

Neither of my DDs did Elizabethan England. If they had to choose, they would def both do Cold War as they found it really interesting. They also did Germany pre WW1 and events leading up to it. Migration was not as interesting for them. One DD did GCSEs last year, the other will do this year.

I remember doing the Israeli / Palestine events in my history lessons 1989!

Cold war - particularly with what is happening now.

School made the decision here and they haven't even looked at Elizabethan England much to dds disgust! She said that was her main reason for choosing to do history.....

Cold War is fascinating, especially with recent events…..

I’d choose that one

I did Elizabethan England for A level and Cold War as part of my degree. That's such a hard choice, both are fascinating.
Probably Cold War is more useful in understanding the modern world and will inform her knowledge of politics going forward, so I'd probably choose this.
But it's a shame she can't do both because there's a lot of focus on modern history and sometimes it's lovely to go back and look a time that was so completely different. And of course, Elizabeth's story is important to our own history.

OP. Are they actually letting the students choose? As in different students in the same school choose to do different papers? How are they going to teach the revision lessons?

This is a really strange way to arrange it. I think most schools are just making a decision for their whole cohort. We haven’t taught a paper 1 topic to year 11 this year and have been working on exam practice, revision and building breadth and depth of knowledge in the other 3 papers since November.

I’d advise, as a teacher of Edexcel history, that she thinks carefully about what kind of history student she is. The period study (cold war) is a better option for those who are good at retaining very detailed factual knowledge but who don’t necessarily write the most elegant essays. The questions are much more specific in their focus and really rely on kids knowing the spec content inside out. Because no question is marked out of more than 8 though, the top band of the mark scheme is level 3 rather than 4, which means that it’s a bit more forgiving in terms of analysis and written style.

For kids that write great essays and 12 mark questions then I’d advise the British depth paper (Elizabethan England), the questions are broader, which gives more room for manoeuvre in terms of subject knowledge, but requires more extended writing and analysis. They are question types that come upon other papers though.

My experience is that average marks are generally higher for my students in the British Depth Paper, but that more get 32/32 on the period study. The best tend to do better and the less able tend to do

*worse.

@MadameMinimes thats great advice thank you