BLOG: Kaitlin chats all things A Levels

Hear from A Level student Kaitlin Willoughby on studying History and Politics with us.

Studying A Level History and Politics at Gateshead College has greatly prepared me for my choice of degree; International Relations, which centres on the fact that past and present historical and political events have impacted the relationship between countries.

The most interesting part of studying History was the opportunity to learn about the formation of America indepth, this greatly helped with my study of US politics in my politics lessons as I had the history behind many of the most influential laws, especially surrounding the significance of the US constitution. In fact the crossover between History and Politics is a massive advantage to studying at Gateshead College because a lot of the content in History is relevant to the content for Politics and vice versa, this allows for better synoptic links in essays and a broader understanding of the wider context surrounding present political situations.

Lessons go further than just the course content, and we were able to discuss current affairs which ultimately helped us to link back to our course material. We also had the advantage of smaller class sizes meaning that we were able to get more one-to-one attention and personalised help with things like coursework, homework and university applications.

The knowledge and passion that our teacher had for the subject was advantageous for us as we received a lot of extra resources, including access to Pre-chewed Politics website which was useful in revising for exams. In addition, we had the opportunity to go to London where some of my classmates and I represented the opinions of the British youth on the topic of Standards for Public Officials in Public Life. We were given a tour of Westminster and met key political figures like Black Rod and the former head of MI5, Lord Evans.

There was a general culture of support whereby teachers were always on hand to answer relevant questions and would routinely inform us of relevant opportunities or events which might look great on our university applications.

The main advantages of studying at Gateshead for me were the small class sizes which allowed us to have more teacher support and to have teachers who understood our areas of interest, strengths and weaknesses as well as having teachers who were active in their field; this allowed us to have the extra resources and knowledge of opportunities to help us succeed.

Find out more about A Levels here.