A Level Politics

Your achievement in this subject is dependent upon excellent attendance, punctuality and effort. You will learn in a friendly and discursive atmosphere, using a variety of assessment methods:

You will be assessed regularly on written work that is conducted either as homework or under timed conditions in class and given feedback on your progress.

You will review your own performance in 1:1 sessions with your lecturer.

You will sit short answer tests to audit your basic knowledge.

You will undertake mock examinations on each unit in advance of your final exams.

We encourage all students to read widely and conduct their own research into political life. It is essential that students are up to date and familiar with political events as recent examples are valued by examiners. This is what makes politics different from other subjects and requires commitment to keeping up to date in order to be successful. You do not have to have previous knowledge of politics, but you must be interested and you must be prepared to update your understanding and knowledge once on the course.

You will be formally examined on each unit that you study. There are three two-hour exams at the end of the 2nd year that conform to the components above. These are traditional and primarily assessed through essays. There is no coursework component.

GCSE Grade 6 or above in English or English Literature. A Grade 6 in a Humanities subject (History, Geography, Religious Studies). We have noticed that students who get a Grade 5 or above in Maths tend to do better on the course. Even more significant is a desire to inform yourself about political issues, as is a willingness to discuss, debate and examine current events in detail and also to be able to write quickly and concisely.

If you have any questions, please contact Dave Williams at davewilliams@truro-penwith.ac.uk

FAQ’s

What can I do to get ahead in Politics and/or see if the course is for me?

Watching listening or reading about what is going on in the news is the best way to get a head start in politics. We look at politics all the way from the global level to a local level. Therefore, we need to know what is going on around the world. Here are some selected websites to help you do that:

In addition, documentaries, podcasts, blogs can be really useful in relation to politics. As politics is dynamic and changing all the time, check out the most recent documentaries on the issues of the day. Netflix, Prime, All Four and BBC IPlayer all categorise and allow you to search for the most recent material.

Here are some selected books:

• The Origins of Totalitarianism- Hannah Arendt (1951)
• Prisoners of Geography- Tim Marshall (2015)
• Why Nations Fail- Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson (2012)
• The Origins of Political Order & Political Order and Political Decay- Francis Fukuyama (2011, 2014)
• Profit Over People- Noam Chomsky
• We Should All Be Feminists- Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie