OCR A-Level History Unit 1 British period study and enquiry: a complete overview

OCR A-Level History Unit 1 is the British period study and enquiry. Like the other units it is option-based, so your school chooses the British period you study. This overview ties together the popular options and the two distinct skills the paper demands. Each section has a matching dot-point page.

How Unit 1 works

Unit 1 lasts 1 hour 30 minutes for 50 marks and is worth 25 per cent of the A-level. Section A is a compulsory enquiry on four contemporary sources, worth 30 marks and testing AO2 (source evaluation). Section B is a period study essay chosen from two, worth 20 marks and testing AO1 (your own analytical argument). You study one British period of roughly a century.

The Early Tudors, England 1485 to 1558

This option studies the establishment and testing of the Tudor dynasty. Henry VII secured the throne after Bosworth in 1485, surviving the pretenders Simnel and Warbeck and rebuilding royal finance. Henry VIII broke with Rome between 1527 and 1534 and dissolved the monasteries, provoking the Pilgrimage of Grace. The mid-Tudor crisis under Edward VI and Mary I brought Protestant and then Catholic reformation, the rebellions of 1549, and a disputed succession.

Britain 1930 to 1997

This option traces British politics from the slump to the end of the post-war consensus. The National Government managed the 1930s depression; the Second World War and the Attlee government of 1945 to 1951 built the welfare state and the NHS; the affluent 1950s and 1960s sustained the consensus; and Margaret Thatcher broke it after 1979 through privatisation, union reform and monetarism, reshaping British politics by 1997.

How Unit 1 is examined

• The enquiry (Section A, AO2). Evaluate four contemporary sources for how far they support a hypothesis, using content, provenance and your own knowledge.
• The period essay (Section B, AO1). Build a ranked, analytical argument across the period and reach a substantiated judgement on a claim.