Do you need GCSE to do A level History?

[stickygotstuck]

I had a recent thread about DD's GCSE options. Several posters kindly contributed and the general view was that you could easily do History A level without having done the GCSE.

However, I have spoken to some people since who seem to think that if yhou don't take the GCSE that's that door is closed at at A level.

Which is it?

I'm asking now because, having chosen her options, now DD is not happy with them and is thinking of dropping History.

Obviously I'm not talking about compulsory GCSEs but that's a given

I did history A level without doing GCSE History. It wasn't a problem at all and I got my best result in that subject. It was a while back though....

I did A level history in 1980s and hasn't done it at gcse.

If she loves history and is good at it and already considering it for A level it would seem a really obvious choice for GCSE surely? Even if not a prerequisite there will surely be some advantage to doing it not least to give her a chance to make sure she does really like it.

That would make a lot of sense yes but I made bad choices choosing my options at 13 which I then managed to reset by the time I was 16. I did really well at A level despite no gcse but I was very good at English and i think that was far more valuable than having previously studied a totally different historic period. It turned out to be my favourite A level.

I did this! Admittedly 20 years ago. I had a bit of a panic in the summer hols after GCS E and I got hold of a 2nd hand GCSE revise history book to swot up but honestly I needn’t have bothered because I found it easy to drop into the subject. I was very strong at English lit and I think those skills (constructing an argument, essay writing, critical thinking) are all you need.

My school did not advertise being able to take history with no GCSE but the syllabus was completely different and when I spoke to the head of the upper school about it they were very happy to let me do it.

Absolutely loved history A level and went on to do it at degree level. So yes - definitely possible!

Thank you for the new replies.

What Nashville and PotKettle are saying is what I'm thinking - what if DD's choices are not ideal now for her GCSEs and she wants to change track at A levels? Which, the way our conversations are going, is quite likely. At least she seems to have thought about it.

Still waiting for the school to a answer. Query has been passed to someone else, so at least I know they've seen the email...

To add to the comments about GCSE art, more than one young person I know has said that this takes more time than all of the other subjects put together. It's certainly proven true for my DD.

My sister did History A level (and later a history degree at Cambridge which she got a 1st in) without the GCSE about 10 years ago.

It was some time ago, but I found GCSE art a doddle. A level art was a MASSIVE jump in a different way. It was mainly coursework and I really struggled with the sheer amount of time it required.

Art and history together at alevel were time consuming. Add in geography and I'm not sure my choices were ideal in terms of work load!

One of the reasons why the vast vast majority who do A Level History have GCSE is because of the source evaluation skills. Essay skills are developed at GCSE in any humanity or English, but source evaluation is specific to History. It isn’t the case that a very able candidate couldn’t learn from scratch, but they would be disadvantaged early on.

I guess Geography would rarely be taken at A Level without GCSE Level geography either.

It wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect a higher level than the minimum required achievement in another humanity, in order to accept someone without GCSE. They will have a tougher job than someone with GCSE and need to be able. It also wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect the, to do some work over the summer to indicate a genuine interest - so they should be more of a self-starter. Starting from scratch shouldn’t be seen like choosing Economics or Sociology ir other subjects schools don’t usually offer at GCSE - it is different as the teaching will assume certain levels of source analysis skill and/or subject knowledge, especially in a school which might be building on content taught at GCSE.

Thank you all.

Well, DD got back from school today and told me that she's spoken to all the relevant teachers and swapped History for Art. The deed is done. AndI really think it's the wrong decision.

To top it all off, about an hour before that I got a reply from History HoD to say that the A level is possible without the GCSE, and some students have done it, but it's 'not the most sensible option'.

Great, right?

Here's hoping she'll hate it once she starts the course 🤦

@stickygotstuck
Obviously it’s not the most sensible option. Why make it more difficult by not taking it? Sometimes A level can cover gcse syllabus too.

If they need to reduce numbers taking History A level, they might prefer to keep
those with history gcse.

The thing about GCSEs is you do start to close some doors. They can’t all remain open forever.

If you think A Level History is something they’d really probably like to do….choosing GCSE History as one of the options is definitely a good idea.

Ive known people who didn’t do Art or History or Geography at GCSE who later fancied that subject for A Level. However they were told ‘no’ or strongly discouraged from attempting it. I’ve known others who insisted on starting it at A Level, who then quickly dropped it. It’s very occasional for someone to take it up and be very successful at it, but it can happen, because some students are extraordinarily bright or hardworking and will be able to do well at almost anything. People should consider if their children are in that category when wanting to push to do something where they’ve missed the foundations of the subject. They should think about that, rather than if they meet the minimum standards of an alternative qualification to scrape on.

And if there’s a real possibility of doing it for A Level, simply do the GCSE.

Lol OP, I'm trying to persuade my DD to do Art! Depending on your DD's other choices, Art is a great option. It's good to do something creative. My DD doesn't want to do it because it's too much work! It is really for those who love it so if your DD does love Art, and would like to do it at A level then she really needs it under her belt at GCSE. Is your DD doing Geography?

Mine are still choosing. DD currently wants French, History, Triple science and one other tbc. (There's lots of funky choices such as film, journalism, business, music production and I'm encouraging her to take one of those. They took have taster sessions coming up).

Agree totally with @WombatChocolate - GCSE of course has to close some doors. You can't bit and bob about with subjects. None of my DC took art, only one took music, none took DT - they closed those doors. This was fine with them btw.

OP if your DD loves art and does it a lot outside school, and might want to take it for A level, then it' a good shout. If she is taking it just for fun and because she wants to keep doors open then that's not a great decision.

If she even maybe might want to take history A level, then it is very very much a good plan to take the GCSE. What else has she chosen? might she want to do those at A level too or can she swap one of those?

To answer the PP who said you can do most A levels without having done the GCSE - here is a list where I would very much doubt that you could take A level without GCSE (assuming a student was in mainstream school and other factors were not at play, such as being home edded or being a native speaker): maths, English lit, biology, physics, chemistry, French, German, Spanish, geography, art, PE, DT, textiles, food tech, computer science, drama, business.

IME anyway. No doubt someone will come along and know otherwise - but for business (for example) my DCs' school requires a 6 in errr GCSE business (I know bc a mate of DS got a 5 and was only just allowed to do it).

Yes there are subjects not usually offered at GCSE such as sociology, psychology and Gov/pol, though I would imagine a good grade in a humanity is needed for these; also if your grades were good in music and you had also done theory, then music GCSE would not be necessary. And as we have established, history. But as many have already said, it will be much harder. Why make things difficult?

DD has just applied for her A-levels, she’s picked History, English Language and Politics and she needs a 5 at GCSE in Either English subject, History and Maths to get a place.

The other college she looked at didn’t need history GCSE specifically but they had to do either history, geography or RE, she didn’t apply there in the end because the don’t offer politics as a subject.

I agree with those of you who say the sensible thing would be to do History.
So much for all the advice to let DD do whatever she wants!

Unfortunately, this means we'd now have to tell her what to do, which we don't think is the best way to go about it (and If anything goes wrong, she'll blame us).

Her choices are RPE, German, Music and Art.

@stickygotstuck
With a view to doing what after A levels? What’s the plan?

@clary Its very normal for schools not to offer Business at gcse. Ditto Economics, Textiles, Photography and Politics. These are often picked up at A level after pupil is decent enough at maths, history and art at gcse.

That's just it, Tizeror, there is no plan. She has no idea what she'd like to do. So she's doing stuff she's good at and enjoys.

The school where I used to work normally did require history GCSE to do history A-level. However they could be persuaded to make an exception if somebody was able to demonstrate that they were particularly keen and prepared to do some extra background reading. I knew them do this a few times but they’d usually warn that it might be necessary to work harder at certain parts of the course.

This seemed like a good policy and good advice IME.

Fair enough @TizerorFizz re business. I did say IME. I also said gov/pol doesn’t need the GCSE as a rule. Never mentioned photography but I would imagine art would be expected. Surprised that a school would offer A level textiles without the GCSE tbh.

Still I think the point pretty much everyone here agrees on is that A level x is easier if you have GCSE x. Is she more likely to take A level German or music than history op?

Tbh OP I think you are spending too much energy considering the gcse choices in a kind of theoretical way, as in how valuable is a particular subject etc, how A level is different to gcse etc etc. My advice is to focus more on the practical realities. Get your DD to think about what she will actually be doing when she studies the subjects she’s keen on - talk to the teachers and think whether DD is likely to cope well with the courses and get a good result. If she’s still keen on her choices, you can calmly suggest what you think is the best combination of subjects but if she still wants to study certain options you should probably let her unless you have very specific evidence as to why she shouldn’t.
Then send in the options decision and forget about it ! Every year all the children and their parents make these decisions, it’s good to research it but there’s no advantage in going round and round in circles.

@clary
Never seen a school offer textiles gcse either. Maybe just very large schools offer this? You had to pick it up if you wanted to do it. Overall though, history gcse is preferable as prep for gcse A level. M

@JussathoB when my DDs were at school they were asked to consider subject combinations and what was good prep for a particular course of study at A level and then HE. So forward planning was part of the choice process. Keeping GCSEs general was considered important as doors were not closed.

Yes, I agree that DD and Op need to consider what might be the next step in education afterwards. DD seems to have three fairly ‘specialised’ subjects in her options which may not even all be taught at A level in her school. But the problem is that DD seems to think that’s what she wants to study??
Maybe someone at school could advise that it’s not the most workable set of options and suggest she reconsiders

I even wonder if that set of options including German, Music and Art could be timetabled but Ofc schools vary in how they timetable choices and presumably students have been told if there would be clashes on certain combinations