A Welsh-Government-regulated A-level, not available to schools in England — five units, Uniform Mark Scale grading and full period, depth and breadth options explained.
Book a Free ConsultationWJEC A-level History (1100QS) is a Welsh-Government-regulated qualification examined across five unitised papers worth 20% each, with AS and A2 marks banked together on a 500-point Uniform Mark Scale rather than sat as one linear exam. WJEC states plainly on its specification cover that this qualification is ‘not available to centres in England’ — a scoping fact every family comparing boards needs before anything else on this page.
Already studying towards WJEC 1100QS?
Our expert WJEC A-level History tutors work unit by unit — the Period Study, the Depth Study, the Breadth Study and the Historical Interpretations NEA — building each programme around the specific options a school has actually entered, not a generic “A-level History” syllabus. Rated 4.8/5 on Trustpilot from 58 reviews. Book a Free ConsultationMessage us on WhatsApp
No. WJEC's specification cover page for History states, in terms: “ACCREDITED BY WELSH GOVERNMENT. This Welsh Government regulated qualification is not available to centres in England.” WJEC is the Wales-facing awarding body regulated by Qualifications Wales; its England-facing sibling brand is Eduqas. The two brands are not interchangeable, and a family searching “WJEC A-level History” from a school in England is looking at a qualification that school cannot enter a student for.
The natural next question — does Eduqas offer its own version of A-level History, so an English school could take the same subject under a different name — has a clear answer, and it is no. Fetching eduqas.co.uk/qualifications/history-as-a-level returns HTTP 404, as does the alternative URL shape history-asa-level, and as does history-a-level. That is not because the Eduqas domain is broken: fetching the equivalent URL for a real Eduqas A-level, English Literature, returns HTTP 200 without incident, and a nonsense control path returns the same 404 as the History URLs. The strongest proof is Eduqas's own qualifications index page, which embeds a structured list of every qualification the board offers. Filtering that list for “History” returns exactly one entry: GCSE History, specification code C100QS. There is no AS History or A-level History entry anywhere in it. Eduqas teaches History up to GCSE only.
The practical consequence is straightforward. A school in Wales choosing WJEC A-level History is choosing a specification built for, and only available to, centres in Wales. A school in England wanting to offer A-level History under either WJEC or Eduqas cannot — it will be offering AQA, Edexcel or OCR, each covered on its own page linked below.
WJEC's specification describes itself directly: “This is a unitised specification which allows for an element of staged assessment. Assessment opportunities will be available in the summer assessment period each year, until the end of the life of the specification.” Each of the five units can, in principle, be sat in the summer series in which it suits the student best, rather than every mark being decided in a single end-of-course sitting.
What holds those staged results together is the Uniform Mark Scale (UMS). WJEC's specification explains it as “a device for reporting, recording and aggregating candidates' unit assessment outcomes… so that candidates who achieve the same standard will have the same uniform mark, irrespective of when the unit was taken.” An AS GCE totals 200 uniform marks; a full A-level GCE totals 500 uniform marks. In practice this means a strong Unit 1 or Unit 2 result banked at AS in Year 12 carries its full weight into the overall A-level grade in Year 13, on the same scale as the A2 units sat afterwards.
Resits are governed by a specific rule WJEC calls a “fresh start”. A unit may be attempted twice. If a candidate wants to sit any unit a third time, WJEC's specification requires that “the candidate will have to re-enter all units and the appropriate cash-in(s)” — not simply retake the one weak unit. Marks for the Unit 5 non-exam assessment, however, “may be carried forward for the life of the specification”, so a strong NEA result is not put at risk by a fresh start triggered elsewhere.
Each of the five units is weighted equally at 20% of the full qualification and worth 60 marks. What differs is when a student sits it, how long the paper runs, and whether it is examined at all:
| Unit | Stage | Focus | Assessment | Duration | Weighting |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unit 1 | AS | Period Study — choice of 1 from 8 options | Written exam | 1 hour 30 minutes | 20% / 60 marks |
| Unit 2 | AS | Depth Study, Part 1 — choice of 1 from 8 options | Written exam | 1 hour 45 minutes | 20% / 60 marks |
| Unit 3 | A2 | Breadth Study — choice of 1 from 10 options | Written exam | 1 hour 45 minutes | 20% / 60 marks |
| Unit 4 | A2 | Depth Study, Part 2 — continues the Unit 2 choice | Written exam | 1 hour 45 minutes | 20% / 60 marks |
| Unit 5 | A2 | Historical Interpretations | Non-exam assessment, 3,000–4,000 words | — | 20% / 60 marks |
Unit 2 and Unit 4 are not two separate choices — WJEC's specification is explicit that a Depth Study “will be studied at both AS and A2 levels”, so the Depth Study a student picks in Year 12 for Unit 2 determines which Unit 4 paper they sit in Year 13. Unit 4's question is described as “a source based question and an essay arising from further study of the depth study chosen for AS in Unit 2” — there is no fresh choice at A2.
Across the qualification, WJEC weights its three assessment objectives unevenly: knowledge and understanding (AO1) carries 55% of the full A-level, source analysis (AO2) carries 25%, and evaluating interpretations (AO3) carries 20% — a table in the specification headed simply “Total 100% 55% 25% 20%” against the three objectives in order. Source-handling technique for AO2 therefore carries more marks at WJEC than the interpretations skill tested most directly in Unit 5.
This is the part of the specification a school's own timetable decides and a search engine cannot: which topics a given student is actually allowed to study together. WJEC does not let a centre mix options freely across the five units — the choices are bound by rules designed to guarantee both chronological range and a mix of British and non-British history.
Options 1–4 cover the history of Wales and England; options 5–8 cover continental Europe:
Eight Period Study options, one binding pairing rule.
Our WJEC A-level History tutors know the combination rules as well as the option content — so a student never ends up prepared for a Depth Study pairing their school was never going to enter them for. Book a Free ConsultationMessage us on WhatsApp
Each option splits into an AS “Part 1” (Unit 2) and an A2 “Part 2” (Unit 4) covering the same topic across the two years. Options 1–4 again cover Wales and England; options 5–8 cover continental Europe or the United States:
The two lists are linked by a binding rule. WJEC's specification states it directly: a learner “choosing their Period Study from options 1–4 (History of Wales and England) must choose their Depth Study from options 5–8 (non-British History)”, and a learner “choosing their Period Study from options 5–8 (non-British History) must base their depth study from options 1–4 (History of Wales and England).” A student cannot, for example, study the Wales-and-England Period Study on Politics, Protest and Reform (option 3) alongside the Wales-and-England Depth Study on Reform and Protest (option 3) — the pairing rule forces one British choice and one non-British choice across Units 1, 2 and 4.
Each Breadth Study theme spans “an extended period of at least 100 years, with a focus on change, continuity and development”, longer than the narrower Unit 1 Period Study. One option is Wales-only, with no equivalent England pairing:
Unit 3 is not a free tenth choice either. WJEC's specification carries a full permitted-combinations matrix, because “there are certain combinations of options with Units 1, 2 and 4 that are prohibited due to overlap of content and failure to cover topics from a chronological range of 200 years.” As one illustrative row: a student taking Period Study option 1 (Government, Rebellion and Society in Wales and England, c.1485–1603) with Depth Study option 5 (Religious Reformation in Europe) may then only choose a Breadth Study from options 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10 — not the full list of ten. The specification sets out every combination this way, unit choice by unit choice.
The chronological-range rule sits above all of it: across every examined unit, “the earliest date studied in any examined unit must be separated by at least 200 years from the latest date studied in any examined unit”. The Unit 5 NEA topic does not count towards this 200-year span. WJEC also asks teachers to draw out the Welsh angle wherever it exists: “Each of the options in Units 1–4 which cover the history of Wales and England have a distinctive focus on key issues and content of the history of Wales,” and centres are told to integrate that Welsh-history content into teaching where appropriate, not treat “Wales and England” options as English history with a Welsh label attached.
My son was low in confidence after COVID and the gaps in learning were building up. Using this service helped plug those gaps, rebuild confidence, and improve his ability to learn properly again.
We arranged maths and English tuition ahead of GCSEs and both tutors were brilliant. My daughter's grades improved, and by results day she achieved two grades higher than in her mock exams.
I attended an English bootcamp with Leading Tuition and the experience was excellent. The teacher gave focused attention to the small group while keeping the lessons interactive and engaging.
Unit 5, Historical Interpretations, is a 3,000–4,000 word non-exam assessment worth 20% of the qualification and 60 marks, focused on “a specific historical problem or issue” rather than a further exam paper. Students can extend or enhance a topic already touched on elsewhere in the specification, or choose an issue from an area of history not studied at all in their other four units.
The one hard constraint is overlap. WJEC's specification states that “the issue chosen must not duplicate the content of the depth studies chosen in Units 2 and 4” — so a student who has taken the Depth Study on Germany: Democracy to Dictatorship, for instance, cannot write their NEA on the same period and topic in different words. Planning the NEA title against a student's already-confirmed Period Study, Depth Study and Breadth Study choices is therefore a genuine piece of specification-level judgement, not a free essay topic picked independently.
The specification in force is Version 2, March 2019, teaching from 2015 with AS awards from 2016 and full A-level awards from 2017. The Version 2 amendment specifically clarified “resit rules and the carry forward of NEA marks” in the making-entries section — the same rules described above.
Qualifications Wales published a targeted review of all its currently approved Welsh AS and A levels on 16 December 2024. Its own stated position is that “this targeted approach to a review of AS and A levels is more appropriate than a more significant programme of reform at this time”, and that it does “not anticipate significant changes will be needed in the majority of subjects.” History is not named individually anywhere in that document, so this is the general policy the WJEC History specification falls under — not a History-specific finding, and this page does not claim one.
Confirmed which options your child is sitting?
Our WJEC A-level History tutors plan around the exact Period Study, Depth Study and Breadth Study combination a school has entered a student for, and around the non-duplication rule governing the Unit 5 NEA topic — not a generic revision list. Book a Free ConsultationMessage us on WhatsApp
Separately, and more concretely: the approval period for the current suite of WJEC AS and A levels — which includes History — ends in September 2027. Qualifications Wales has asked WJEC “to confirm to us which AS and A levels it intends to continue to make available from September 2027”. WJEC has not yet published that confirmation for History, so a family starting the course now is starting it on a specification whose life beyond the current approval period has not been settled in public.
Our expert WJEC A-level History tutors work from the specific option combination a student's school has chosen, not a generic History A-level syllabus. That starts with identifying which Period Study, which Depth Study and which Breadth Study a centre has entered its students for — the binding pairing rule between Units 1, 2 and 4 means those choices are locked together — and then building the tutoring time around where the marks actually sit: source-handling practice for the AO2-weighted units, extended essay technique for the AO1-heavy Period and Breadth Study papers, and structured planning support for a Unit 5 NEA question that genuinely does not duplicate the Depth Study a student is already sitting.
For a family choosing between exam boards, or checking whether a school's stated “A-level History” is actually WJEC's 1100QS, our A-level History hub sets out how AQA, Edexcel and OCR compare on grade boundaries, coursework and paper structure, alongside our wider A-level tutoring support. For a younger sibling working towards GCSE History first, the same discipline — reading a specification's own rules rather than a generic topic list — applies just as directly a stage earlier, on our GCSE History tuition page. Families wanting subject support more broadly can also see our History tutoring service.
We are rated 4.8 out of 5 on Trustpilot from 58 reviews, read on 7 September 2026, and 91% of our students achieve their desired grades.
No. WJEC’s own specification cover states plainly: “This Welsh Government regulated qualification is not available to centres in England.” WJEC (1100QS) is the Wales-facing awarding body; its England-facing sibling brand, Eduqas, publishes no AS or A-level History at all — only a GCSE History specification (C100QS). A family in England researching “WJEC A-level History” is looking at a qualification their child’s school in England cannot enter them for.
The A-level is 1100QS and the AS is 2100QS, teaching from 2015, with AS awards from 2016 and full A-level awards from 2017. There is one current edition: Version 2, March 2019, which amended the making-entries section to clarify resit rules and the carry-forward of NEA marks. WJEC also lists Qualification Number 601/5817/7 for the A-level and 601/5830/X for the AS.
WJEC’s specification describes itself as “a unitised specification which allows for an element of staged assessment,” with assessment opportunities available every summer for the life of the specification. Marks from each of the five units are recorded on a Uniform Mark Scale — 200 UMS marks make a full AS and 500 UMS marks make a full A-level — so a unit sat at AS in Year 12 keeps the same weight when it is combined with A2 units in Year 13, rather than every mark being decided in one final exam series.
WJEC enforces a binding pairing rule between Unit 1 (Period Study, 8 options) and Units 2/4 (Depth Study, 8 options). A learner choosing a Period Study from options 1–4, all Wales and England topics, must choose a Depth Study from options 5–8, which are non-British. A learner choosing a Period Study from options 5–8 must choose a Depth Study from options 1–4. Unit 3’s Breadth Study choice is then restricted further, against a full permitted-combinations matrix, so that every combination covers a chronological range of at least 200 years across the examined units.
Unit 5, Historical Interpretations, is a non-exam assessment of 3,000 to 4,000 words worth 20% of the qualification and 60 marks, focused on a specific historical problem or issue. The chosen issue may extend the taught content or come from an area not studied elsewhere in the specification, but WJEC states it “must not duplicate the content of the depth studies chosen in Units 2 and 4” — so the NEA topic has to be planned against, not repeat, whichever Depth Study a student is already sitting.
A unit may be attempted twice. If a candidate wants a third attempt at any unit, WJEC requires a “fresh start” — re-entering every unit and the appropriate cash-in, not just the one unit in question. Marks for the Unit 5 NEA may be carried forward for the life of the specification, so a strong NEA mark does not have to be re-earned if other units are resat later.
Qualifications Wales published a targeted review of all currently approved Welsh AS and A levels on 16 December 2024, stating it does “not anticipate significant changes” in most subjects; History is not named individually in that document. Separately, the approval period for WJEC’s current suite of AS and A levels ends in September 2027, and Qualifications Wales has asked WJEC to confirm which qualifications will continue beyond that date — a confirmation that has not yet been published.
Leading Tuition’s tutors work with WJEC 1100QS’s five-unit structure, its option combination rules and its Unit 5 NEA every week. Rated 4.8 out of 5 on Trustpilot from 58 reviews, and 91% of our students achieve their desired grades. See our wider A-level tuition programme and, for the national board comparison, our A-level History hub.
Book a Free Consultation