Hello and welcome to the Politics Department!
My name is Nick de Souza and I’m Head of Politics at Reigate College. I’m looking forward to welcoming you in person to our department at the beginning of the academic year when we’ll make a start on the A Level curriculum. In preparation for this, I’d like you to complete a series of tasks and activities over the coming months.
Politics will be a new course for many of you so these activities have been designed to introduce you to some of the key themes and ideas you’ll be learning about. Each task should be completed independently at home, but you’ll have the chance to discuss what you’ve learnt in September, after you formally enrol onto the course.
The tasks are organised in three distinct steps and should all be completed by Choices Day on 25 August 2026. This is to give you the best insight into what the courses will be like and/or help prepare you for them.
Please note, some Course Leaders (for example for Music) may release their tasks earlier, as they may form part of the College’s audition process. If this applies to you, you’ll be notified separately.
New Starters Course Tasks and Activities
| Release date | Suggested Completion Dates | |
| Explore your Subject | 1 June | 1 July |
| Get Going | 1 June | 1 August |
| Aim High | 1 June | 1 September |
Exploring Politics and Power
Just how powerful is Prime Minister Keir Starmer? His party won the General Election in 2024, giving it a mandate to implement its promises, such as increasing VAT on private school fees. Yet many people are asking whether the government has the “vision thing”. What exactly does Labour and its leader stand for? And as we move further away from the general election, just how popular is the governing party and, by extension, the prime minister?
What we find is that power and authority are not fixed – and nor should they be in a democracy. They also show that “A week is a long time in Politics” – a leader might be popular one moment and shouted at the next. This is why Politics is such a fascinating subject to study.
We consider issues of power and authority, and lots more besides, in our weekly podcast, The A Level Politics Show. Click on this link to stream it or search for it in your podcast app.
TASK 1 Choose an episode that interests you and write down ten bullet points of information that details what you found out when listening to it.
Keeping up to date with the News
In preparation for the A Level course, it’s important to get used to staying up to date with all the latest developments in Politics. The best way to do this is by reading newspapers and political websites.
For general political news, you should regularly look at the following:
- Broadsheet newspapers: Times, Independent, Daily Telegraph, Guardian, etc.
The best Politics website with updated detail and video clips of the important news stories of the day is:
- The BBC Politics Website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics
TASK 2 Over the next month, please make it part of your daily routine to read the news from at least one of the above sources.
Recording the News
As you know, to be a successful Politics student, you need to keep up to date with what’s going on in the news, and we hope that over the past month, you’ve been regularly spending time reading newspapers and visiting news websites.
TASK 1 For your next task, we’d like you to explore the news further by keeping your own ‘Politics Diary’ for five days:
- Using a notebook or A4 piece of paper, recreate the chart (below)
- On each of the five days, summarise TWO news stories you come across
- You must also write down the news outlet you received your information from (links to the online newspaper websites are listed below the chart)
- Each news story must focus on what the UK Government is doing, or how it has been criticised. To help you, make sure the news stories you choose contain one or more of the following words:
- prime minister
- MP
- Parliament
- Labour
- Conservative / Tory
- Cabinet
- minister
- government
- Kemi Badenoch (Conservative leader)
- Keir Starmer (Labour leader)
- Try to vary the news stories each day, or at least look for a different angle – don’t just repeat the same headlines each time
www.independent.co.uk
www.bbc.co.uk/news
https://news.sky.com/politics
https://www.guardian.co.uk/audio
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/
The role of political debate
Many of the news stories you wrote down will have included an element of criticism or debate, and the ability to hold political leaders to account is a really important aspect of UK democracy.
We’d like you to explore the role of political debate further by watching some debates from the UK’s political institutions, both live and recorded (Prime Minister’s Question Time (PMQs) is particularly recommended). Check out:
- BBC Politics Live: www.bbc.co.uk/news/politics
- Guardian Politics Website: www.guardian.co.uk/politics
- Politics.co.uk: www.politics.co.uk
You can also gain a lot of knowledge and appreciation for what goes on in Politics by watching some of the following programmes on television:
- Sunday Politics (BBC 1, Sundays 12.00 noon)
- Channel 4 News (Channel 4, Daily 7.00pm)
- Newsnight (BBC 2, Daily 10:30pm)
- Question Time (BBC 1, Thursday 10:35pm)
TASK 2 As well as continuing to read newspapers, please build watching some political debates and TV Politics shows into your routine. Make a note of any debates you find particularly interesting.
Profiling the Prime Minister
Hopefully you’ll have watched some interesting Political debates over the past month. Whatever topics were being discussed, it will have been abundantly clear that everyone has their own opinion! Explaining what you think (and why you think it) about a particular issue is a really important skill in A Level Politics.
TASK 1 To help develop your skill in this area, we’d like you to write a one-page profile on Keir Starmer. Outline the key events in his career, how he became prime minister and what others have said about him. Towards the end of this profile, include what you think about him and why. You can use the article below as background, but feel free to conduct a general Google search about him.
Introducing Institutions
Over the past weeks, you’ve investigated some of the major political issues facing the country. As well as keeping up to date with the news, in order to prepare yourself for the A Level course, you should also make yourself aware of the workings of the political institutions that govern the UK.
TASK 2 To find out about the core institutions you need to know about in A Level Politics, please spend time familiarising yourself with the following quick guides:
- How Parliament Works
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17827461
- Guide to the House of Commons
http://news.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/hi/guides/newsid_8144000/8144100.stm
Alongside this, you should also continue to be reading newspapers and watching political debates on a regular basis.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this series of tasks introducing you to A Level Politics and I’m looking forward to hearing what you’ve learnt and found most interesting when we start the course in September.
Head of Politics
