Welcome to the Law department

Department Leader: Georgia Bainbridge

What is offered?

The Law Faculty offer both A Level Law and Applied Law at KS5.  A Level Law is the traditional academic A Level which is assessed by way of 3 exams at the end of Year 13.  Applied Law is a more vocational course which is assessed by a mix of assignments and controlled assessments over the 2 year course. The Sixth Form Prospectus provides full details.

What is Law?

Every area of our lives is affected by legal rules; school, shopping, travel, sport, driving, marriage, even in death there is no escape!     

Law is vital to ensure the smooth running of our community.  It regulates not only our own personal conduct but also the way the country is run and the way society interacts.                                         

It is an important aspect of citizenship to understand our rights and responsibilities. To understand, for example, our rights on arrest, when buying goods and services, our liabilities when buying a house and the consequences that will follow if we default on those rules and rights.

We do not have absolute freedom to do as we choose; other people need to be considered – as Montesquieu said ‘liberty is the right of doing whatever the laws permit’.

Pathways in Law

Many students will choose law because they are interested in pursuing a career in the legal profession.  These include becoming a solicitor, a barrister, a licensed conveyancer, working for the Crown Prosecution Service, a legal executive or a legal secretary.  However, most degrees do not require you to study a particular A Level and studying Law will allow you to present plenty of important skills to future universities or employers:

• Through your analysis of case studies and other work on the course, you will become skilled in researching and absorbing large amounts of information. These are important skills in a vast range of professions in business and industry.
• You will develop your oral and written communications skills, which are needed by all universities and employers these days.
• You will learn how to approach tasks in a clear, reasoned and logical way.
• You will learn how to become an effective problem solver.

A vast range of professions also require the study of some aspects of law.  These include accountancy, social work, banking, the police, journalism, teaching, mediator, and areas of local government and some departments of the civil service.