Edexcel GCSE History 2026 content changes

Improving the experience for students

Earlier this year we announced some changes to our GCSE History assessment model, which are being introduced for first assessment Summer 2025.

At the time of this announcement, we informed you that we were also carrying out research with teachers to make some minor amendments to topics to improve the way they can be taught. As with the changes to assessment, our intention was to minimise disruption to teachers and avoid any significant ‘knock-on’ issues arising with published resources which schools have invested in. Having worked closely with our Senior Examining team and a number of schools, we are now pleased to announce details of the changes, which will come into effect for first teaching September 2024, first exam Summer 2026.

Our approach to the content review

There are three main types of amendment:

• Rewording to clarify the focus of the content and/or to flag where too much detail is not required.
• Movement of content to make the structure and flow of ideas more logical – this is intended to help teaching and learning.
• Simplification of content, by removing unnecessary detail.

We got extensive feedback on the drafts from experienced teachers at more than 20 schools and trusts, and there was widespread support for the changes and the rationale behind them.

We have not been able to remove significant chunks of content as this could undermine the coherence of an option’s structure and focus. Significant changes must await reform. In making the changes that we have, we have also not adjusted our overall approach to how we present specification content: we think this detailed approach provides clarity about the content requirements, and we did not want to jeopardise that clarity in any way.

Supporting you with these changes

Issue 6 of the specification is now available on our website, for first teaching September 2024, first assessment 2026:

We have created a series of detailed guidance documents, one for each topic, which show details of the amendments and provide a rationale:

You can watch a pre-recorded training event which outlines the rationale behind these changes and provides a summary of the further support available:

We have created an FAQs document which will be updated in time to reflect any additional questions we are asked about the content changes:

We've also updated the Getting Started Teachers Guide to reflect these changes:

We are considering running a live online training session in the Autumn term to reflect on these content changes, as well as the 2025 assessment and language changes, and offer you an opportunity to ask questions. More information will be provided over the summer.

Reminder: timeline of Edexcel GCSE History changes

First assessment Summer 2025: changes to the assessment model and language changes (Issue 5 of the specification).

First assessment Summer 2026: specification content changes (Issue 6 of the specification, for first teaching September 2024).

Please note: because the specification content changes are not assessed until Summer 2026 we will have Issue 5 and Issue 6 of the specification up on the website at the same time until Summer 2025. We will make sure both specifications are clearly labelled to avoid confusion.

We welcome your feedback on these changes

We have created a quick survey to capture teachers' views on the 2026 content changes and we'd welcome your feedback.

We hope you found this update useful and if you have any questions about these changes please email us at teachinghistory@pearson.com