Teaching Entry Level History - five key things to remember

Teachers you are doing an amazing job of inspiring your students by teaching this course and I’d like to help by outline five key things for you to remember when delivering Entry Level History.

Our Entry Level History qualification is the perfect course for so many types of students in different circumstances, giving them an official qualification and recognition of their achievements when they might otherwise struggle to gain a GCSE.

Your key points to remember

1. You can use the exemplar task booklets as live material with your students.

The vast majority of centres use the exemplar task booklets for the thematic and depth studies ‘as is’ – without adapting or amending them. This makes the administration and assessment of Entry Level very straightforward, and you can use them year after year.

They can be found on Interchange, the secure area of our website, under the ‘coursework and tests’ tab, then ‘Entry Level tasks’.

2. Your candidates can sit their tasks at any time, and it does not have to be under examination conditions.

We recognise that there are many different circumstances that people are teaching Entry Level in, and many students have very complex needs. Therefore, our tasks can be sat at any time of the year, and students can have all their books and materials in front of them when completing the tasks. You do not have to make them sit in exam halls in silence!

3. The study of a site or individual can be something students have already studied in the thematic and depth studies.

There is no prohibition on overlap of content between the thematic and depth studies, and the site or individual study. Therefore, if students have been particularly inspired by their depth study on the Elizabethans, they could choose to take an in-depth look at the queen herself, or perhaps an important building such as the Globe Theatre or Hardwick Hall.

4. You can reduce the amount of content you cover by focusing only on certain parts of the specification.

Yes, you read that correctly. Unlike at GCSE, where you have to cover everything, you are free to choose which parts of your chosen thematic and depth study you focus on. So for instance you might only want to look at People’s Health since 1750, or just focus on the first three components of Germany.

A couple of caveats though: if you do this, some of the specimen questions might be outside what you’ve covered, in which case you would have to add in your own questions. Also, you cannot study content outside the specification parameters, so for instance you could not do the Elizabethans before 1580.

5. There’s a lot of help and support available to support your teaching of Entry Level

I’ve recorded a webinar, which is available for you to listen to for free, which goes through all aspects of the Entry Level qualification, including course content, administration, assessment, and some handy advice and guidance on resources and planning.

Additionally, the main webpage for Entry Level History contains useful resources which you will need. These include the specification, examiners’ reports, candidate exemplars, and all the forms you will need to submit student work.

As ever, our History Subject Advisors are always on hand to answer your questions. They can be reached by emailing history@ocr.org.uk.

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About the author

Asher Goodenough - Subject Specialist - History

Asher has worked at OCR since September 2015, and is a History Subject Specialist and is Chair of the LGBT+ Network at Cambridge Assessment. His degree is in Modern History with a focus on British and American history since the 19th century. Previously, Asher was a teacher of History, Co-ordinator of Critical Thinking, and Head of History, working in schools in England and Germany. In his spare time he is an avid cricket, travel and cooking enthusiast.