The two-letter entry-code system, the Issue 5-to-Issue 6 specification history, and how Pearson actually sets subject and notional grade boundaries
Book a Free ConsultationEdexcel GCSE History (1HI0) is Pearson's three-paper specification, currently on Issue 6, released in August 2024 for the 2026 series onwards. This page covers what belongs to Edexcel specifically and is not on our broader GCSE History guide: the two-letter entry code a statement of entry actually carries, the Issue 5-to-Issue 6 change history, and the two levels at which Pearson sets grade boundaries. If your family is still deciding between boards, that comparison lives on the guide above.
Already know your child is sitting Edexcel 1HI0 and just need the entry code decoded? Our expert Edexcel GCSE History tutors read the statement of entry, confirm the exact option combination and specification issue, and build lessons around that -- not a generic History syllabus.
Book a Free ConsultationMessage us on WhatsAppPearson's specification names three externally examined papers with no non-exam assessment. Paper 1 (codes 1HI0/10–13) is 1 hour 20 minutes and carries 52 marks, split 16 for the historic environment and 36 for the thematic study. Paper 2 (codes 1HI0/2A–2W) is 1 hour 50 minutes and carries 64 marks, split evenly at 32 for the period study and 32 for the British depth study. Paper 3 (codes 1HI0/30–33) is 1 hour 30 minutes and carries 52 marks. Pearson's own specification document states plainly that "there are no prohibited combinations, giving you flexibility to design a coherent course that is appropriate for your students" -- so the marks split above holds whichever four options a school has chosen.
| Detail | Paper 1 | Paper 2 | Paper 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paper codes | 1HI0/10–13 | 1HI0/2A–2W | 1HI0/30–33 |
| Total marks | 52 | 64 | 52 |
| Mark split | 16 historic environment + 36 thematic | 32 period study + 32 British depth | single modern depth study |
Two other codes sit alongside these paper codes and are easy to confuse with them. The subject code used to enter a student at all is 1HI0. The Ofqual Regulated Qualifications Framework number -- what actually prints on the final certificate -- is a completely different string, 601/8092/4, given in Appendix 1 of Pearson's own specification. Neither of those two is what identifies which four topics a specific student is sitting; that is the job of the entry code, covered next.
This is the code a school's statement of entry actually carries, and it is more precise than the 1HI0/10–13, 1HI0/2A–2W and 1HI0/30–33 paper codes on their own. Pearson's specification's own appendix states it directly: "the first digit of the entry code is determined by the combination of Paper 1 and Paper 3, while the second is determined by the choice of Paper 2." Each letter is fixed to one exact combination, not a range.
Pearson's own worked example shows the mechanism. Combining Medicine in Britain with the British sector of the Western Front (Paper 1 option 11) and Weimar and Nazi Germany (Paper 3 option 31) fixes the first letter as F. Combining Superpower relations and the Cold War with Early Elizabethan England (a Paper 2 reference code) fixes the second letter as R. Put the two together and the entry code is FR -- a single two-character string that tells a tutor, without opening the specification, exactly which thematic study, historic environment, British depth study, period study and modern depth study a student has been entered for.
The second letter follows the same logic Paper 2's own reference codes already use. Reference code 2A, for example, pairs period study P1 (Spain and the New World) with British depth study B1 (Anglo-Saxon and Norman England), and that pairing is what carries entry-code digit A. The full reference range runs from 2A to 2W, one letter per period-study-and-British-depth-study pairing available under the specification. A tutor who has the entry code, not just the subject name "History", can look up the exact five texts and periods a lesson plan needs to cover before the first session.
It is fixed, and it is worth saying plainly because it is easy to assume a historic-environment site rotates year to year the way a topic option might. Pearson's specification is explicit: "historic environment sites nested within thematic studies – we have chosen a specific site linked to each of our well-established British thematic studies that will be engaging for students to study." The word "nested" is doing real work there -- each site is built into its thematic study permanently, not assigned separately.
The pairings themselves, all four of them, are named directly in the specification: Whitechapel, c1870–c1900 is paired with Crime and punishment in Britain; the British sector of the Western Front, 1914–18 is paired with Medicine in Britain; London and the Second World War, 1939–45 is paired with Warfare and British society; and Notting Hill, c1948–c1970 is paired with Migrants in Britain. A school that teaches Crime and punishment will always be teaching Whitechapel alongside it -- the pairing does not change between exam series, and a tutor planning a scheme of work for one of these four options does not need to check whether the site has moved.
Not sure which of the four thematic-and-site pairings your child's school has chosen, or which entry code that maps to? Our Edexcel GCSE History tutors work from the statement of entry itself, not a general period-and-theme list.
Book a Free ConsultationMessage us on WhatsAppBecause two specification issues govern different exam series, and a revision resource written against the wrong one gives a student the wrong timing or the wrong content emphasis. Issue 5 was released in June 2024 as "an update for students who are assessed in 2025," and Pearson's own Paper 1 guide states plainly that "the changes in Issue 5 of the Specification are to the assessment model." Concretely, that meant every paper grew longer: Pearson's summer 2025 subject update shows Paper 1 moved from 1 hour 15 minutes to 1 hour 20 minutes, Paper 2 from 1 hour 45 minutes to 1 hour 50 minutes, and Paper 3 from 1 hour 20 minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes -- five, five and ten minutes respectively. Our GCSE History guide already sets out the timings that resulted; what is new here is why they changed and when.
Issue 6 is the specification a 2026 candidate is actually sitting, and its two dates are worth holding apart rather than picking one. The document itself carries the header "Specification – Issue 6 – June 2024" on every page. Pearson's own Paper 1 guide, however, states that "Issue 6 of the specification was released in August 2024 and is for students who will be assessed in 2026." So the specification's own printed date is June 2024, while Pearson's account of when it actually reached schools is August 2024 -- both are genuine dates about the same document, describing different moments in its life. Issue 6 carries Issue 5's assessment-model changes forward and layers content clarifications on top, which Pearson describes carefully: the amendments "have not added content; generally, they clarify content... or adjust the order of content." A tutor checking past papers against a student's specification issue is checking which of these two documents that student's course is actually running under.
Edexcel's structure is genuinely different from splitting breadth and depth into separate papers, which is how some other specifications are built. Paper 1 pairs a thematic (breadth) study with a site-based historic-environment enquiry inside the same 52-mark paper -- not two papers, one component. Paper 2 does the equivalent pairing at a larger scale, combining a period (breadth) study with a British depth study across its 64 marks, evenly split. Only Paper 3 stands alone, as a single non-British modern depth study with no breadth component attached to it.
The practical consequence is that a student cannot revise "breadth" and "depth" as separate skills tied to separate exam days on this specification. Paper 1 asks for both inside its single 1 hour 20 minute sitting, and Paper 2 asks for both inside its single 1 hour 50 minute sitting; only in Paper 3's 1 hour 30 minutes is a single kind of historical thinking being tested in isolation. A revision timetable built around "breadth papers" and "depth papers" as if they were interchangeable across boards will schedule Edexcel's Paper 1 and Paper 2 practice wrongly, because each already contains both.
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Want a revision timetable built around what each Edexcel GCSE History paper actually asks for, rather than a generic breadth-and-depth split? Our Edexcel GCSE History tutors plan sessions against the specific paper structure above.
Book a Free ConsultationMessage us on WhatsAppThis is the mechanism a topic-list guide has no reason to explain, because it has nothing to do with content and everything to do with how Pearson turns raw marks into a grade across a qualification with dozens of possible option routes. Pearson publishes boundaries at two separate levels, and confusing them is the single easiest mistake a family can make when reading a boundary document.
Subject-level boundaries are the official figures that appear on a student's actual results. Pearson's own grade-boundaries subject update is direct: "Subject level boundaries are the official grade boundaries for the overall subject. There is one set of boundaries for each possible route through the specification. Because each option is awarded separately, the overall subject boundaries may differ depending on which topics students have been entered for." In other words, two students with the same raw mark total can sit on different subject-level grade boundaries simply because they were entered for different options.
Notional paper-level boundaries exist for a narrower purpose: marking a single mock paper before the subject-level figures exist. Pearson is explicit that these "are not displayed on official/formal results documentation" -- they never appear on a certificate and are not the number a school reports as a final grade.
The scale of the difference between options, even at notional level, is real and worth planning around. In the summer 2025 series, the notional grade 9 boundary out of 32 marks for the British depth study section of Paper 2 ranged from 27 on option B1 (Anglo-Saxon and Norman England) to 30 on option B2 (Richard I and King John) and 29 on option B3 (Henry VIII and his ministers). On the period-study side of the same paper, the notional grade 9 out of 32 ranged from 26 on option P3 (the American West) to 28 on option P4 (Superpower relations and the Cold War). A three-mark spread on a 32-mark section is not noise; it is Pearson's own evidence that some option combinations are consistently harder to score highly on than others, within the same paper and the same total.
There is also a separate, precise weighting figure worth distinguishing from Edexcel's AO1–4 percentage breakdown, which our GCSE History guide already covers by paper. Pearson's grade-boundary documentation states that "GCSE History Paper 1 has a total raw mark of 52 and is weighted at precisely 30.9524% of the qualification," with Paper 3 weighted identically at 30.9524% and Paper 2 at 38.0952%. That is the assessed-content weighting used in setting boundaries, calculated before SPaG marks are folded in -- a different number, doing a different job, from the AO-by-AO split already published elsewhere on our site.
Three pieces of information matter more to a tutor than the word "History" on a timetable. The entry code identifies the exact five texts and periods -- thematic study, historic environment, British depth study, period study and modern depth study -- without anyone needing to re-derive them from a syllabus name. The specification issue, Issue 5 or Issue 6, determines which timings and which version of the taught content apply, and confirming it against the school's own scheme of work avoids revising against the wrong assessment model. And because Edexcel sets grade boundaries at subject level per option route, a mock mark should be checked against the notional paper-level boundary for the specific options a student sat, not a generic GCSE History grade table that assumes every route behaves the same way.
Put together, that is the difference between a tutor who has read the syllabus name and a tutor who has read the statement of entry. Our own scheme planning for Edexcel GCSE History starts with the entry code, not the topic list, precisely because the code already answers the first three questions any lesson plan needs. A student carrying that essay technique forward into sixth form can see how the assessment changes shape in our A-level History guide.
Send us your child's entry code and we will tell you exactly which five texts and periods it covers, which specification issue applies, and where the notional boundaries sit for that combination. Our Edexcel GCSE History tutors then plan lessons around that, not a generic syllabus.
Book a Free ConsultationMessage us on WhatsAppEdexcel GCSE History is specification code 1HI0, currently on Issue 6, with a specification header dated June 2024 and released by Pearson in August 2024 for the 2026 exam series onwards. Pearson's own Appendix 1 gives the Ofqual Regulated Qualifications Framework number -- the code that appears on a student's final certificate -- as 601/8092/4, a different code from the 1HI0 subject code used to enter students for the qualification itself.
Paper 1 (codes 1HI0/10-13) is 1 hour and 20 minutes and carries 52 marks, split 16 for the historic environment and 36 for the thematic study. Paper 2 (codes 1HI0/2A-2W) is 1 hour and 50 minutes and carries 64 marks, split evenly at 32 for the period study and 32 for the British depth study. Paper 3 (codes 1HI0/30-33) is 1 hour and 30 minutes and carries 52 marks. Pearson's specification states there are no prohibited combinations across the three papers.
It is fixed, not rotated. Pearson's specification describes "historic environment sites nested within thematic studies," stating the board has "chosen a specific site linked to each of our well-established British thematic studies." Whitechapel is permanently paired with Crime and punishment, the British sector of the Western Front with Medicine, London and the Second World War with Warfare and British society, and Notting Hill with Migrants in Britain -- a pairing set by the specification itself, not something that changes by cohort or exam series.
Issue 5 was released in June 2024 for students assessed in the 2025 series and changed the assessment model -- Paper 1 grew from 1 hour 15 minutes to 1 hour 20 minutes, Paper 2 from 1 hour 45 minutes to 1 hour 50 minutes, and Paper 3 from 1 hour 20 minutes to 1 hour 30 minutes. Issue 6 carries a specification header dated June 2024 but was released by Pearson in August 2024, for students assessed from the 2026 series onwards; it keeps Issue 5's timings and adds content clarifications to specific options, which Pearson states "have not added content" but "generally... clarify content... or adjust the order of content."
It is separate from the 1HI0/10-13, 1HI0/2A-2W and 1HI0/30-33 paper codes. Pearson's specification states the first letter is fixed by the Paper 1 and Paper 3 combination chosen, and the second letter by the Paper 2 combination. Its own worked example combines Medicine in Britain with the Western Front and Weimar and Nazi Germany for a first letter of F, and Superpower relations with Early Elizabethan England for a second letter of R, giving the entry code FR.
Pearson publishes boundaries at two separate levels. Subject-level boundaries are the official ones on a student's results, with one set for each route/combination because each option is awarded separately. Notional paper-level boundaries exist only for mock-marking a single paper and, in Pearson's own words, "are not displayed on official/formal results documentation." In the summer 2025 series, the notional grade 9 boundary out of 32 marks ranged from 27 on British depth option B1 to 30 on option B2, and from 26 on period-study option P3 to 28 on option P4 -- different options in the same paper, marked out of the same total, needing different raw marks for the same grade.
They describe different things, and it is worth knowing which is which. Pearson's assessed-content weighting, used for grade-boundary purposes, puts Paper 1 and Paper 3 each at precisely 30.9524% and Paper 2 at 38.0952%. Our GCSE History guide already sets out Edexcel's AO1-4 percentage breakdown by paper, including the fact that Paper 2 carries no AO3 or AO4 marks at all -- that is objective-by-objective weighting, not the assessed-content weighting quoted here, and the two are not the same figure expressed two ways.
Leading Tuition's tutors read the entry code, the specification issue and the notional grade boundaries for your child's exact option combination every week, not a generic History topic list.
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