A-Level History Tutors in Bristol 2026

A-level History in Bristol is taught by at least sixteen sixth forms and colleges, and DfE's 2024/25 data shows no two set the same course. St Brendan's Sixth Form College teaches Edexcel across 106 entries, the city's largest History department; Bristol Grammar School and North Bristol Post 16 Centre both teach AQA, to different named options. Which board, which topics and which coursework question a student studies depends on which sixth form or college they attend.

Which Bristol Sixth Forms and Colleges Actually Enter A-Level History — and the One That Pools Two of Them

DfE publishes a value-added figure for every A-level subject at institution level, matched against each student's prior attainment; the entry counts that figure carries are referred to throughout this page as ‘VA-matched entries’ to distinguish them from a school's own subjects-entered total, which was not separately checked for this page. Checking every Bristol, City of institution (local authority code 801) with a 2024/25 record, nineteen are still open today — two of the twenty-one raw dataset rows are closed predecessor establishments, addressed below. Of those nineteen, eighteen return a History A-level row: seventeen with a published figure and one, Ashton Park School, suppressed because its cohort is too small to report. One institution, E-ACT Bristol Academy South, returns no History A-level entry at all for 2024/25.

Two of the raw dataset's rows are not live institutions in their own right. Montpelier High School (URN 135581) and Merchants' Academy (URN 135597) both closed on 31 August 2024, reason ‘Fresh Start’ according to the Get Information about Schools register. Montpelier's results now appear under E-Act Montpelier High School (URN 151303, 12 entries); Merchants' Academy's site is now E-ACT Bristol Academy South (URN 151302), which records no History A-level entry for 2024/25.

One of the seventeen published rows is not a seventeenth institution. North Bristol Post 16 Centre reports 99 History A-level entries, and that figure is exactly Redland Green School's 61 plus Cotham School's 38 — not a third cohort. The Get Information about Schools register's own Links table confirms why: North Bristol Post 16 Centre (URN 135589) is recorded as linked to Cotham School (10 August 2012) and Redland Green School (21 February 2013), both as ‘Sixth Form Centre School’ — the joint sixth form the two schools run together, not a separate provider. Sixteen distinct institutions therefore carry Bristol's seventeen published History rows, totalling 435 entries.

The Board, and the Named Options, Each Provider Actually Teaches

Board and named options were verified against four providers' own pages — St Brendan's Sixth Form College, Bristol Grammar School, North Bristol Post 16 Centre and City of Bristol College — the city's four largest History departments, covering both of the two providers that clear DfE's significance test below. These four are not put forward as complete coverage of Bristol's sixteen institutions: every other department was checked only for its DfE entries and value-added figure, not its named options, and a family at any of them should confirm the board and options directly with the school.

St Brendan's Sixth Form College

St Brendan's Sixth Form College, the city's largest History department with 106 entries, teaches Edexcel's specification (9HI0). Its own course page names three pathways — Early Modern World, Modern World – Communist States and Modern World – Democracies in Change — and states plainly that a student ‘cannot study more than one History pathway at the same time’. Coursework is a 3,000–4,000 word independently researched essay.

Bristol Grammar School

Bristol Grammar School, on 29 entries, teaches AQA (7042) and offers two named routes through its own Sixth Form subject leaflet. History 1 pairs component 1A (The Age of the Crusades, c1071–1204) with component 2D (Religious conflict and the Church in England, c1529–c1570) and sets a historical investigation on the Inca Empire and the rise of Spain. History 2 pairs component 1F (Industrialisation and the people: Britain, c1783–1885) with component 2Q (The American Dream: reality and illusion, 1945–1980) and sets its investigation on Northern Ireland in the twentieth century. Both routes are assessed 80% by exam and 20% by a 3,500–4,500 word investigation. The component codes above are AQA's own, taken from its published specification — not the school's shorthand.

North Bristol Post 16 Centre (serving Redland Green and Cotham)

North Bristol Post 16 Centre — the joint sixth form of Redland Green School and Cotham School — teaches AQA at 80% exam and 20% coursework, according to the centre's own History course page as archived by the Wayback Machine on 16 November 2025. The live nbp16c.org.uk site was unreachable when checked on 24 September 2026, so this describes what the page said as of that archived date, not necessarily what it says today; a family should verify the current position directly with the centre. As archived, the course pairs a depth study on ‘Conflict in the Church 1529–1570’ with a breadth study the centre itself describes as ‘Tsarist and Communist Russia, 1855–1917’, and sets coursework on ‘America in the 20th Century’, around 3,500 words.

City of Bristol College

City of Bristol College's own course page states its awarding organisation as OCR. The same page then structures the course as ‘Component 1’, ‘Component 2’ and ‘Component 3’, and names Component 1 as ‘Tsarist and Communist Russia 1855 – 1964’ (40% of the grade, a two-hour-thirty exam) and Component 2 as ‘The Making of Modern Britain 1951 – 2007’; Component 3 is a non-exam 3,500-word essay. Both component titles are AQA's own — AQA's specification names component 1H ‘Tsarist and Communist Russia, 1855–1964’ and component 2S ‘The Making of Modern Britain, 1951–2007’ word for word, and structures its qualification as ‘Component 1/2/3’. OCR's own H505 specification instead uses ‘Unit group’ language and a different list of 21 topic options entirely. The college's page does not say which of the two is correct, and we do not resolve it here: a family considering this course should ask City of Bristol College directly which board it actually enters before assuming either answer.

GCSE Grades and Other Entry Requirements Bristol's Providers Actually Ask For

Entry requirements were checked against the same three providers whose boards and options are verified above — St Brendan's, Bristol Grammar School and City of Bristol College — and they are not alike.

St Brendan's Sixth Form College asks for five GCSEs at grade 4 or above, GCSE English Language at grade 5 (or grade 4 alongside GCSE English Literature at grade 5), GCSE Maths at grade 3 or above, and GCSE History at grade 5 or above — but only ‘if taken’. A student who did not sit GCSE History at all is not excluded by that requirement.

Bristol Grammar School sets no fixed GCSE History grade at all. Its own subject leaflet says it is ‘normal’ to have gained a high grade in IGCSE or GCSE History, but that ‘well-motivated students who are likely to achieve good GCSE results in other humanities subjects, especially English, will also be considered’ — the only one of the three providers checked here that explicitly welcomes a student without the GCSE.

City of Bristol College is the strictest of the three: five GCSEs at grade 4 or above, including English and Maths at grade 4 or above, ‘with a grade 6 in History or English language’ specifically — a grade 6 in either subject satisfies the requirement, not History alone.

These three are not necessarily representative of Bristol's other thirteen institutions, none of which were checked for entry requirements here. Ask your own sixth form's admissions office directly.

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Where DfE's Value-Added Data for History Clears Zero Across Bristol's Providers — and Where It Doesn't

DfE separately publishes a value-added score for every A-level subject at institution level: how far each entry's grade sits above or below what students with the same prior attainment achieve nationally, expressed with a 95% confidence interval. A figure is a genuine finding only when that interval sits entirely above or entirely below zero — anywhere the interval crosses zero, the true effect could be positive, negative or nothing at all, so a difference between two point estimates on its own is not evidence of a real difference. Across Bristol's seventeen published rows, three clear zero.

St Brendan's Sixth Form College clears zero at −0.22 (95% confidence interval −0.4 to −0.05) from 106 entries — the largest cohort in the city, and a result that is real but small: about a fifth of a grade below the national pattern for students of the same prior attainment.

Clifton High School clears zero at +0.73 (95% confidence interval 0.06 to 1.4) from just 7 entries, and City of Bristol College clears zero at −0.97 (95% confidence interval −1.6 to −0.35) from 8 entries — both far larger in size than St Brendan's effect, and both resting on cohorts small enough that a handful of individual results could move the figure substantially.

These three do not describe the same kind of finding. St Brendan's result is large in sample and small in size: precisely measured, and modest. Clifton High School's and City of Bristol College's results are large in size and small in sample: real by DfE's own test, but far less precisely pinned down, and the true effect at either could plausibly sit anywhere within its wide interval. A large, precise, small effect and a small, imprecise, large effect are different kinds of finding, and neither is simply ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than the other on that basis alone.

Fourteen of the seventeen published rows — including Bristol Grammar School at +0.3 (95% CI −0.03 to 0.63, 29 entries) and Redland Green School at −0.15 (95% CI −0.37 to 0.08, 61 entries) — straddle zero and are not statistically distinguishable from the national pattern at all, however different their point estimates look side by side. DfE's data does not let us say which of Bristol's eighteen History departments is ‘best’ — only which ones differ from the national pattern by more than chance alone.

How Leading Tuition Helps A-Level History Students in Bristol

Whichever of Bristol's sixteen History departments a student attends, and whichever board or option pairing their own department has set, our expert A-level History tutors build every programme around that student's actual course — the named breadth study, the depth study and the coursework question their school has given them, not a generic survey of ‘A-level History’. A student sitting Edexcel's Democracies in Change pathway at St Brendan's needs different support from one sitting AQA's Industrialisation and American Dream pairing at Bristol Grammar School, and our tutors prepare for the paper a student is actually taking.

91% of our students achieve their desired grades, and our tutors work with students preparing coursework investigations as well as the written papers — building research and referencing skills alongside exam technique, whichever board and option combination a student has been set. For general grade-boundary and coursework rules that apply nationally rather than to any one Bristol provider, see our A-level History overview.

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