Liverpool's own 2024/25 GCSE History results, and why Liverpool schools enter more pupils for History than Geography - by a wider margin than England as a whole.
Book a Free ConsultationLiverpool is a local authority in North West England where 2,257 pupils were entered for GCSE History in 2024/25, achieving 57% at grade 4 or above and 46% at grade 5 or above. GCSE Geography, the only other subject that satisfies the EBacc humanities requirement, drew fewer entries - 1,886 - a gap that is proportionally wider in Liverpool than across England as a whole.
Whether your child's school leans towards History, Geography or both, the right preparation depends on their exact exam board and options. Our expert GCSE History tutors help students across Liverpool across AQA, Edexcel, OCR and Eduqas.
Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppFor the English Baccalaureate, a pupil must enter one of exactly two humanities subjects - History or Geography - and no other. Not religious studies, not classical civilisation, not sociology: the Department for Education's own EBacc humanities pillar is built from those two subjects alone. That makes the pillar an entirely different figure from either subject's own entry count. History and Geography entries each count a pupil once per subject, so a pupil who takes both is counted in both subjects' totals; the humanities pillar counts that same pupil only once. In Liverpool in 2024/25, 2,257 pupils were entered for GCSE History and 1,886 for GCSE Geography - a combined 4,143 subject entries - yet the Department's own published humanities-pillar entering total is 3,779 pupils (70.4% of the cohort), because entries and pupils are not the same thing once a subject can be taken in combination. The Department separately publishes the number of pupils who sat both History and Geography: 332 in Liverpool (6.2% of the cohort) in 2024/25.
GCSE History itself is a single qualification offered by four awarding bodies, each with its own specification code confirmed directly against the awarding body's own site: AQA's GCSE History is 8145, Pearson Edexcel's is 1HI0 (published inside the specification PDF rather than the overview page), OCR offers two versions - History A, Explaining the Modern World (J410) and History B, Schools History Project (J411) - and WJEC Eduqas's qualification code is C100QS (Ofqual qualification number 601/8239/8). Unlike GCSE Maths or the sciences, History has no Foundation/Higher tier split: every student, on every board, sits the same papers. GCSE History is also a distinct qualification from GCSE Ancient History and GCSE Classical Civilisation, which the Department records as entirely separate subject rows with their own entries and results. Where boards genuinely differ is in period and depth options: Pearson's specification, for example, offers a Paper 3 choice between Russia and the Soviet Union, Weimar and Nazi Germany, Mao's China, or the USA 1954-75, while AQA's own options include Elizabethan England (c1568-1603) and a Medicine through time study - but which specific options any one Liverpool school teaches is set by the school itself, not published by the Department, so this page does not attribute a specific option choice to a specific school.
Liverpool's 2024/25 GCSE History results sit behind England's state-funded average on both headline thresholds: 57% of Liverpool's entries reached grade 4 or above against 63% nationally, and 46% reached grade 5 or above against 52% nationally - gaps of 6 percentage points on each measure. GCSE Geography shows an almost identical grade 4+ gap (57% against 63%, also 6 points) but a slightly wider grade 5+ gap (44% against 51%, 7 points). The two subjects perform close to each other locally and nationally on both thresholds, which makes the entries gap between them - not the results gap - the more distinctive local feature of Liverpool's data.
| Subject / area, 2024/25 | Entries | Grade 4+ | Grade 5+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Liverpool - GCSE History | 2,257 | 57% | 46% |
| England (state-funded) - GCSE History | 281,600 | 63% | 52% |
| Liverpool - GCSE Geography | 1,886 | 57% | 44% |
| England (state-funded) - GCSE Geography | 274,424 | 63% | 51% |
A short call is enough to check how your child's own results compare with these figures, and what that means for their revision - book a free consultation.
Liverpool's GCSE History entries rose from 2,403 in 2022/23 to 2,430 in 2023/24, then fell to 2,257 in 2024/25 - a 7.1% drop in the most recent year, after a 1.1% rise the year before. Grade 4+ achievement held roughly flat across the three years (55%, 57%, 57%), while grade 5+ achievement improved slightly (43%, 44%, 46%) even as entries fell - a smaller pool of pupils, doing marginally better on the top grade. England's own History entries followed the same rise-then-fall shape but a shallower final-year drop: 285,219 in 2022/23, up to 298,206 in 2023/24, then down to 281,600 in 2024/25, a 5.6% national fall. Liverpool's own decline (7.1%) outpaced England's (5.6%). GCSE Geography moved quite differently over the same period, both locally and nationally: Liverpool's Geography entries rose sharply from 1,671 to 1,924 (up 15.1%) before easing back to 1,886 (down 2.0%) in 2024/25, while England's Geography entries rose in all three years without a single fall, reaching 274,424 in 2024/25. History fell locally and nationally in the latest year; Geography did not fall nationally at all.
| Liverpool, by year | History entries | History 4+/5+ | Geography entries | Geography 4+/5+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022/23 | 2,403 | 55% / 43% | 1,671 | 57% / 44% |
| 2023/24 | 2,430 | 57% / 44% | 1,924 | 55% / 43% |
| 2024/25 | 2,257 | 57% / 46% | 1,886 | 57% / 44% |
History, and Liverpool's schools favour it more heavily than England's do. Liverpool's 2,257 History entries outnumbered its 1,886 Geography entries by 371 - 20% more History entries than Geography (a ratio of 1.20 to 1) in 2024/25. Nationally, the same comparison is far tighter: England's 281,600 History entries outnumbered its 274,424 Geography entries by just 2.6% (a ratio of 1.03 to 1). Liverpool's tilt towards History is therefore close to eight times steeper than England's own.
That imbalance is not because fewer Liverpool schools teach Geography. Exactly the same number of Liverpool's 39 state-funded secondaries enter pupils for each subject - 32 for History, 32 for Geography (the school-level partition below sets out exactly which). The gap sits entirely in how many pupils each school enters for which subject, not in whether a school offers the subject at all. Liverpool's cohort also doubles up on both humanities somewhat less than England's does: 332 Liverpool pupils entered both History and Geography in 2024/25 (6.2% of the cohort), against a national rate of 7.2%.
Liverpool had 39 state-funded secondary schools with a Key Stage 4 cohort in 2024/25, confirmed against the Department's own school-count indicator. Querying the Department's school-level subject-entry data for History and Geography separately returns 35 Liverpool schools with at least one History entry and 33 with at least one Geography entry before any exclusions. Two of the History entrants - Auckland College and Christian Fellowship School - are independent schools confirmed open on Get Information about Schools, not part of the state-funded 39; a third, St Vincent's School, is a non-maintained special school, a distinct category from both "state-funded" and "independent." One Geography entrant, Auckland College, is excluded for the same reason.
That leaves exactly 32 state-funded schools entering GCSE History and 32 entering GCSE Geography - an identical count for each subject, even though the city-wide entries gap (2,257 versus 1,886) is not identical at all. Of those, 31 schools offer both subjects; 1 - Childwall Abbey School, a community special school with a single History entry - offers History with no Geography entries; and 1 - Bank View High School, also a community special school with a single Geography entry - offers Geography with no History entries. The remaining 6 schools have neither: Abbot's Lea School, Clifford Holroyde Specialist SEN College, Palmerston School, Redbridge High School, Sandfield Park School and Woolton High School, all community special schools confirmed open on Get Information about Schools. Between them, the four groups - 31 with both, 1 History-only, 1 Geography-only, and 6 with neither - account for all 39.
Two schools carrying sizeable History and Geography entries in this same 2024/25 data - Archbishop Blanch CofE High School (61 History, 94 Geography) and Gateacre School (77 History, 72 Geography) - are not named as current schools on this page: both have since converted to academy status under new URNs, with their predecessor establishments closing on 30 November 2025 and 30 November 2024 respectively. A short call is the quickest way to find out which pattern your own child's school follows - book a free consultation.
Calderstones School, a 263-pupil-cohort open community school and Liverpool's largest entrant for both subjects, entered 174 pupils for History and 151 for Geography in 2024/25 - a combined 325 subject entries against a published EBacc humanities pillar entering total of just 242 pupils (92.0% of the cohort). The gap between those two figures is a direct illustration of how many Calderstones pupils sit both subjects rather than one: a large fraction of its cohort doubles up on History and Geography, which is why its own subject-entry sum runs so far ahead of its unique-pupil pillar total. Its Attainment 8 average, 46.1, sits above both Liverpool's 42.1 and England's 46.
Alsop High School shows the opposite pattern. This 252-pupil-cohort open academy entered 112 pupils for History against just 48 for Geography in 2024/25 - History outnumbering Geography by more than two to one - yet its EBacc humanities pillar entering total is 156 pupils (61.9% of the cohort), barely below the 160 combined subject entries. That near-match means almost none of Alsop's pupils sit both subjects: the school is not offering a shared humanities pathway so much as channelling most of its cohort towards History specifically. Its Attainment 8 average, 28.2, sits below Liverpool's own.
St Francis Xavier's Catholic Academy, a 177-pupil-cohort boys' academy, is the only one of the three where Geography outnumbers History: 102 Geography entries against 78 for History in 2024/25. Its EBacc humanities pillar entering total, 149 pupils (84.2% of the cohort), sits well below its 180 combined subject entries, showing a meaningful minority of its pupils - as at Calderstones, though a smaller share of the cohort - take both subjects rather than just one. Its Attainment 8 average, 36.7, sits below Liverpool's 42.1.
| School, 2024/25 | History | Geography | Cohort | Humanities pillar entering | Attainment 8 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calderstones School | 174 | 151 | 263 | 242 (92.0%) | 46.1 |
| Alsop High School | 112 | 48 | 252 | 156 (61.9%) | 28.2 |
| St Francis Xavier's Catholic Academy | 78 | 102 | 177 | 149 (84.2%) | 36.7 |
Three named, open Liverpool schools, three different choices: one where a large share of the cohort takes both humanities, one where almost none do and History dominates heavily, and one where Geography leads and a meaningful minority still take both. A citywide average cannot substitute for checking which of these patterns your own child's school actually follows - book a free consultation and we'll work from your child's actual specification.
History competes for a shared slot, not a dedicated one. Attainment 8 is built from four buckets filling eight GCSE-equivalent slots: English counts twice (double-weighted), maths counts twice (double-weighted), three slots go to a pupil's best results from the EBacc group of subjects, and a final three go to any other qualifications, the "open" group. History does not have its own slot - it competes for the three EBacc slots alongside Geography, languages and computer science, and a pupil's best result from that whole group fills those three places, whichever subjects it comes from. There is no Progress 8 measure for 2024/25 or 2025/26 - the Department has published none, and Attainment 8 and the EBacc entry/achievement rates below are the relevant published measures.
Liverpool's average score across that shared EBacc bucket was 12 in 2024/25, against 13.5 for England - a 1.5-point gap on a bucket that History results feed into alongside Geography, languages and computer science, smaller than the 42.1-versus-46 gap on Attainment 8 as a whole. The EBacc qualification's own humanities requirement is entering either History or Geography - not both, and not any other subject - and 70.4% of Liverpool's 2024/25 cohort met it, against 81.2% for England, a 10.8 percentage-point gap that is markedly wider than either subject's own grade-4+ attainment gap to England (6 points each). Within the pupils who did enter a humanities subject, Liverpool's cohort achieved grade 4 or above in the EBacc humanities pillar 57.3% of the time and grade 5 or above 45.6% of the time, against England's 63.5% and 51.3% - gaps of 6.2 and 5.7 points, both narrower than the 10.8-point entry gap. The pattern holds across every measure here: Liverpool's shortfall against England is wider on whether pupils enter a humanities subject at all than on how those pupils then perform.
Leading Tuition's GCSE History tutors work from a student's own school, exam board - AQA, Edexcel, OCR or WJEC/Eduqas - and specific period and depth options, rather than a generic scheme of work that assumes the wrong specification. Sessions run one-to-one online with a shared whiteboard, so a tutor can work through source-analysis and extended-writing questions on the correct papers, mark them against the real mark scheme, and share annotated resources with a student in real time. Our wider GCSE tuition service covers every subject alongside History for families who need more than one, our GCSE History guide covers topic-by-topic revision, and families thinking ahead to Sixth Form can see our A-level History page. Families in Liverpool wanting a different GCSE subject can also see our GCSE English tutors in Liverpool, GCSE Maths tutors in Liverpool and GCSE Biology tutors in Liverpool pages, and families researching tutoring in other cities can browse every location we cover.
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Book a Free Consultation Message us on WhatsAppThe Liverpool and England figures above are drawn from the Department for Education's Key Stage 4 performance, 2024/25 release and its open subject-entry and school-level datasets, queried directly on 2 September 2026; Calderstones School, Alsop High School and St Francis Xavier's Catholic Academy's figures come from the same school-level datasets, cross-checked against all three schools' Get Information about Schools records to confirm they remain open, and the same source confirmed Auckland College and Christian Fellowship School are independent, St Vincent's School is non-maintained, and Archbishop Blanch CofE High School and Gateacre School's predecessor establishments closed on 30 November 2025 and 30 November 2024 respectively as part of academy conversions. Specification codes are confirmed directly at each awarding body: AQA's GCSE History (8145), Pearson Edexcel's GCSE History specification PDF (1HI0), OCR's History A (J410) and History B (J411), and WJEC Eduqas GCSE History (C100QS). For topic-by-topic revision guidance, see our GCSE History guide; parents wanting wider GCSE support across every subject can see our GCSE resources for parents guide.
2,257 pupils were entered for GCSE History in Liverpool in 2024/25, and 57% achieved grade 4 or above while 46% achieved grade 5 or above, according to the Department for Education's Key Stage 4 performance data for state-funded schools. GCSE Geography, the only other subject that counts towards the EBacc humanities pillar, had fewer entries in Liverpool - 1,886 - with the same 57% at grade 4 or above but a slightly lower 44% at grade 5 or above.
No, and the two are commonly confused. The EBacc humanities pillar counts a pupil entering either History or Geography once, so it is never higher than the sum of the two subjects' own entry counts and is usually lower, because pupils who take both are counted twice in the subject totals but once in the pillar. In Liverpool, 3,779 pupils entered the EBacc humanities pillar in 2024/25 (70.4% of the cohort) against a combined History-plus-Geography entry count of 4,143 (2,257 + 1,886); England's own humanities pillar entry rate, 81.2%, is 10.8 percentage points higher than Liverpool's. The Department for Education also separately publishes the number of pupils who entered both History and Geography: 332 in Liverpool (6.2% of the cohort), against 45,170 in England (7.2%).
Falling in the most recent year, after two years of small rises. Liverpool's GCSE History entries went from 2,403 in 2022/23 to 2,430 in 2023/24, then down to 2,257 in 2024/25 - a 7.1% drop in the latest year. England's own History entries followed a similar shape but a smaller final-year fall: 285,219, then 298,206, then 281,600 in 2024/25, a 5.6% national drop. Liverpool's GCSE Geography entries fell far less over the same final year - 1,924 to 1,886, just 2.0% - while England's Geography entries rose in every one of the same three years, reaching 274,424 in 2024/25.
History, and by a wider margin locally than nationally. Liverpool's 2,257 GCSE History entries in 2024/25 outnumbered its 1,886 Geography entries by 20% (a ratio of 1.20 to 1); England's own History entries (281,600) outnumbered its Geography entries (274,424) by just 2.6% (a ratio of 1.03 to 1). Despite that gap in entries, exactly the same number of Liverpool's 39 state-funded secondary schools offer each subject at GCSE - 32 offer History and 32 offer Geography - so the local tilt towards History shows up in how many pupils each school enters, not in which schools choose to teach it at all.
32 of them, exhaustively checked against Get Information about Schools. Liverpool has 39 state-funded secondary schools with a Key Stage 4 cohort in 2024/25; of these, 31 enter pupils for both GCSE History and GCSE Geography, 1 - Childwall Abbey School, a community special school - enters History only, 1 - Bank View High School, also a community special school - enters Geography only, and 6 enter neither: Abbot's Lea School, Clifford Holroyde Specialist SEN College, Palmerston School, Redbridge High School, Sandfield Park School and Woolton High School, all community special schools. Two schools with sizeable History and Geography entries in the 2024/25 data - Archbishop Blanch CofE High School and Gateacre School - have since converted to academy status under new URNs, closing their predecessor establishments on 30 November 2025 and 30 November 2024 respectively, so neither is named as a current school on this page.
No. GCSE History has a single tier - every student sits the same papers, unlike GCSE Maths, Combined Science and the separate sciences, which each split into Foundation and Higher tiers. Neither AQA's GCSE History specification (8145) nor Pearson Edexcel's (1HI0) makes any reference to tiering; all students take the same three papers regardless of prior attainment. GCSE History is also a different qualification from GCSE Ancient History and GCSE Classical Civilisation, which the Department for Education records as separate subject rows.
For tutoring across other subjects and stages in the city, see our Liverpool tuition hub.
Whichever way your child's school splits its humanities pupils between History and Geography, a History tutor who works from your child's actual specification and options starts from a stronger position than one working from a generic scheme of work. 91% of Leading Tuition's students achieve their desired grades, and we are rated 4.8 out of 5 on Trustpilot. Explore tutoring across Liverpool or our wider GCSE tuition service.
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