I am a History Teacher with a love for producing high quality and easily accessible history lessons, which I have accumulated and adapted for over 20 years of my teaching career. I appreciate just how time consuming teaching now is and the difficulty of constantly producing resources for an ever changing curriculum.
I am a History Teacher with a love for producing high quality and easily accessible history lessons, which I have accumulated and adapted for over 20 years of my teaching career. I appreciate just how time consuming teaching now is and the difficulty of constantly producing resources for an ever changing curriculum.
The American West, c1835-c1895, GCSE 9-1 Edexcel
This lesson focuses on the impact of Pacific Railroad Act of 1842.
Students analyse maps and original advertisements to evaluate how effective the railroad companies were in encouraging people to move west and the difficulties involved in building a railroad in the first place.
They focus on the effects of the American Civil War and judge the economic impact of the railroad in terms of travel, immigration, the rise of towns, farming as well as the growth of the cattle industry.
They also have to determine the negative impacts the railroad had on the Plains Indians and the Buffalo.
There is some GCSE exam practice on the ‘consequences’ question, with help given if required.
The plenary requires thinking around the popular head, heart, bin and bag activity.
The resource is differentiated and gives suggested teaching strategies. Some key word retrieval practice is also included using a spider diagram.
It comes in Powerpoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.
The American West, c 1835-c1895, GCSE 9-1 Edexcel
This lesson aims to explore the strengths and weaknesses of the Homestead Act of 1862.
What was the Homestead Act and who could apply? How did the US
Government make it easier for US citizens to become Homesteaders from what had happened previously?
Students will also be required to think and judge who really benefitted from it. Was it all US Citizens who benefitted or did anyone else? Were the Plains Indians considered when this Act was passed and how did it affect them? There are notes on the slides to help.
Students are required to complete a GCSE ‘importance’ practice question and are challenged to think why each specific term was significant.
The plenary requires connecting and linking key words and dates.
The resource is differentiated and gives suggested teaching strategies. Some retrieval practice is also included using an odd one out activity.
It comes in Powerpoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.
**The early settlement of the American West c.1835-c.1862 **
This bundle is the first part in a series of lessons I have created for Edexcel GCSE 9-1 The American West, c.1835-c1895
Students will be assessed on their knowledge and understanding of the early settlement of the west from the customs, traditions and lives of the Plains Indians through to the lawlessness of the towns.
They will focus on the settlement of the Great Plains with the coming of the early settlers and the problems they faced farming the land.
They will learn about the conflicts and conquest of the Great Plains such as the Gold Rush of 1849 and the use of the Oregon Trail by the Donner Party for example.
Questions will target consequence such as the US government policy towards the Plains Indians and the treaties which followed such as the Indian Removal Act, the Indian Appropriations Act and the Fort Laramie Treaty.
Furthermore students will be empowered to master the significance of key events such as the Mormon migration west and write analytical narratives such as the perils of the Oregon Trail.
I have dispensed with individual learning objectives for each lesson to focus throughout on a specific enquiry based question which addresses the knowledge and skills required for the GCSE questions and shows progression in learning required during this course.
Moreover it allows the students to critically think for themselves to decide who was benefitting from this rapid change to America as well as how and why.
For assessment purposes each lesson, with the exception of the first two, is accompanied by one of the three key exam questions with help and exam tips if needed. These can be completed in the lesson or for homework tasks if required.
The lessons are all differentiated and are tailored to enable the students to achieve the highest grades.
The lessons come in PDF and Powerpoint formats if there is a wish to adapt and change.
The lessons are as follows:
L1 Introduction to the Plains Indians (free resource)
L2 Plains Indian society
L3 The Great Plains and the Buffalo
L4 The Spirit World (free resource)
L5 Conflict over land
L6 The Oregon Trail
L7 The Gold Rush and the Donner Party
L8 The Mormon Migration
L9 Early Settlement on the Plains
L10 The Fort Laramie Treaty
L11 Problems of lawlessness
The American West 1835-1895, GCSE 9-1 Edexcel
The aim of this lesson is to explore the problems of the rapid rising of mining towns and the lawlessness they created.
Students complete a Head and Tails activity and a thinking quilt which challenges them to decide the greatest changes as well as the most important and biggest impact the early towns and settlements brought.
There is some GCSE exam question practice on the ‘importance question’, with some help given if required.
The resource is differentiated and gives suggested teaching strategies. Some retrieval practice using an A-Z task is also included.
It comes in PowerPoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.
The American West 1835-1895, GCSE 9-1 Edexcel
This lesson aims to introduce the Fort Laramie Treaty and how the Government began to force the Plains Indians into fixed territories.
Students have to decide and justify why conflict and tension grew between the Plain Indians and white settlers, with some red herrings thrown in for challenge.
The terms of the Fort Laramie Treaty are given, which the students should learn and a printable worksheet is provided.
They also have to rate the success of each term and/or fact about the Treaty by colour coding a battery and then deciding the problems each might cause. A quick fire quiz also will reinforce their learning.
There is some GCSE question practice on the consequences question, with some help given if required.
A play your cards right plenary (complete with music) will test chronology and understanding from this and previous lessons.
The resource is differentiated and gives suggested teaching strategies. Some retrieval practice is also included on the first slide on treaties.
It comes in PowerPoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.
The American West 1835-1895, GCSE 9-1 Edexcel
The aim of this lesson is to analyse some of the problems the early settlers faced moving west onto the Great Plains.
Students have to work out the initial problems through various images and think through how they could solve these.
They also have to decide how to deal with the swarms of locusts that descended on the Great Plain such as in 1874 when an estimated 120 billion grasshoppers devastated over 300,000 square kilometres of land.
There is some GCSE exam question practice on the consequences question with some help given if required.
The plenary requires students to use dice to pick and link key words together to create sentences.
The resource is differentiated and gives suggested teaching strategies. Some retrieval practice with talking heads is also included on the front slide.
It comes in PowerPoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.
The American West 1835-1895, GCSE 9-1 Edexcel
This lesson aims to examine the role of the two leaders of the Mormons; Joseph Smith and Brigham Young and the story of the Mormon migration West to Salt Lake City.
Students learn the teachings of the Mormons and how isolationist the movement became in the face of so much hostility and persecution.
Students have a choice of tasks using key questions or a story board to plot the life of Young and then annotate some text to analyse the leadership qualities of Brigham Young.
They also complete a prioritisation activity as well as a planning thinking quilt of Brigham Young to ascertain his successful migration west.
There is some GCSE exam question practice on the ‘importance’ question, with help if required and a noughts and crosses quiz at the end to reinforce the learning of the lesson.
The resource is differentiated and gives suggested teaching strategies. Some retrieval practice is also included.
The resource comes in PowerPoint format is there is a wish to adapt or change.
The American West 1835-1895, GCSE 9-1 Edexcel
This lesson examines the process and problems of migration using the Oregon Trail, exacerbated and proliferated by the discovery of Gold in California.
Students analyse the positive and negative effects of migrating to California and are then challenged to link statistics to the various facts shown.
There is some text analysis on the Donner Party and its consequences with key questions as well as video footage to reinforce the learning.
Some GCSE question practice focuses of the narrative account question with key exam skills attached as well as some help if required.
The plenary uses an interactive hangman game.
The resource is differentiated and gives suggested teaching strategies. Some retrieval practice using the odd one out is also included.
It comes in PowerPoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.
The American West 1835-1895, GCSE 9-1 Edexcel
This lesson aims to examine push and pull factors which contributed to the migration west.
Students are introduced to the Oregon Trail and learn how the Government promoted its use by providing $30,000 for an expedition led by John Fremont to map it out and report how exciting and achievable it was to travel along it.
An excellent accompanying video in contrast shows the realities however of travelling to the west.
Students are given various scenarios which they have to decide are push and pull factors and for extra challenge decide if they are social, political or economic factors.
There is some follow up exam question practice using the ‘consequences’ question worth 8 marks.
The resource is differentiated and gives suggested teaching strategies. Some retrieval practice is also included on spelling key words.
It comes in PowerPoint format which can be amended and changed to suit.
The American West 1835-1895, GCSE 9-1 Edexcel
This lesson aims to assess how positive the US Government’s early attempts were to ‘civilise’ the Plains Indians between c.1830-1851.
By adopting a westward expansionist policy, students have to question how beneficial this was and for whom?
Was America to benefit from improving the Plains, by ploughing it for farming, digging up its minerals for manufacturing or simply clearing its forests for timber?
Students are given various scenarios and laws such as the Indian Removal Act and the Indian Appropriations Act and individually rate each scenario by colour coding a battery to signify positive or negative before coming to a conclusion as to who benefited from this conflict over land.
There is some follow up exam question practice using the ‘write a narrative account’ worth 8 marks.
The resource is differentiated and gives suggested teaching strategies. Some retrieval practice is also included using causal equations.
It comes in PowerPoint format which can be amended and changed to suit.
The American West 1835-1895, GCSE 9-1 Edexcel
This lesson aims to explain how the Plains Indians believed that everything in nature had a spirit.
Students analyse how humans and nature work together and complete a thinking quilt linking key ideas and key words together.
They are also challenged as to what significance certain objects have as well as ascertaining why some tribes went to war .
They will evaluate why land was so important to the Plains Indians and why they had difficulty when the US Government tried to allocate them certain areas of the Great Plains.
This evaluation is put to the test with some GCSE exam question practice using the 8 mark ‘consequences’ question.
The final learning task is writing a recipe and mixing up key ingredients of the lesson which will reinforce the learning during the lesson.
The resource is differentiated and gives suggested teaching strategies. Some retrieval practice is also included.
It comes in PowerPoint format which can be amended and changed to suit.
The American West 1835-1895, GCSE 9-1 Edexcel
This lesson explores the significance of the Buffalo to the Plains Indians way of life.
Students learn about how survival depended on the Buffalo for everything as they analyse which parts of the Buffalo are used for what and how each part had a significance. They can map this out on a printable worksheet.
There is an excellent video link to Ray Mears and his brilliant American West series.
The final part of the lesson introduces the students to the ‘importance’ question and some tips on how to tackle it for GCSE exam question practice. Some answers for peer assessment are given if required.
The plenary requires students to answer questions to reveal a catchphrase from the lesson.
The resource is differentiated and gives suggested teaching strategies. Some sentence starters for retrieval practice are also included.
It comes in PowerPoint format which can be amended and changed to suit.
The American West 1835-1895, GCSE 9-1 Edexcel
This lesson explores the role of the Chief in Plains Indian society, with his different qualities, role and duties to perform.
Students learn as each tribe could have many chiefs, this led to confusion and distrust amongst the US Government Officials who struggled to come to terms with their customs and traditions.
Famous Chiefs such as Sitting Bull are analysed as well as the role of a council. Students will also evaluate the role of warrior brotherhoods and women in Plains Indian society.
Students are also questioned on how the Plains Indians way of life might change if the US Government struggled to develop relationship with them due to the tribes having many Chiefs.
The resource is differentiated and gives suggested teaching strategies. Some key word retrieval practice is also included.
It comes in PowerPoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.
The American West 1835-1895, GCSE 9-1 Edexcel
This lesson aims to introduce students to the course and some of the key ideas which will affect America in the 19th Century ranging from Manifest Destiny to survival, colonisation, migration and civilise.
Students are introduced to the Great Plains and its weather extremes as well as the Plains Indians and their communities.
Using an enquiry based learning question, students are required to annotate around a lightbulb. This is central to this unit of study and students will map this out over the course of each lesson to show progression.
Questions are also asked throughout to challenge assumptions, culminating in a balloon debate as to who can move America forward into becoming a great nation.
A road map task at the end tests their new knowledge and is ideal for setting as a homework.
The resource is differentiated and gives suggested teaching strategies.
It comes in PowerPoint formats if there is a wish to adapt and change.
Edexcel GCSE 9-1 Medicine Through Time c.1250 to present.
This 42 page revision guide is broken down into 5 main sections: Medieval Medicine, Renaissance Medicine, Medicine in 18th and 19th Century, Modern Medicine and the Historic Environment, British sector of the Western Front .
This revision guide includes 29 GCSE practice exam questions throughout on the main questions and gives examples on how to answer each using model answers.
This will enable all learners to achieve the higher grades required by the exam board, including the skills of description, explanation, interpretation, change and continuity, source utility and cause and consequence.
The information is also broken down into an easy to use format to aid the students in their revision programme.
This Guide has been designed to be engaging, detailed and easy to follow and comes in Word and PDF format if there is a wish to change.
It can be used for revision, interleaving, home learning as well as class teaching.
Any reviews on this resource would be much appreciated.
Please email me for a free copy of any of my resources worth up to £3.50 if you do.
This 42 page revision guide is tailored to the Edexcel Medicine Through Time c.1250 to present specification for GCSE 9-1. It is broken down into 5 main sections: Medieval Medicine, Renaissance Medicine, Medicine in 18th and 19th Century, Modern Medicine and the Historic Environment, British sector of the Western Front .
This revision guide includes 29 GCSE practice exam questions throughout on the main questions and gives examples on how to answer each using model answers.
This will enable all learners to achieve the higher grades required by the exam board, including the skills of description, explanation, interpretation, change and continuity, source utility and cause and consequence.
The information is also broken down into an easy to use format to aid the students in their revision programme.
This Guide has been designed to be engaging, detailed and easy to follow and can be edited and changed to suit with both PDF and Word files included.
It can be used for revision, interleaving, home learning as well as class teaching.
Any reviews on this resource would be much appreciated. Please email me for a free copy of any of my resources worth up to £3.50 if you do.
This 40 page revision guide is tailored to the Edexcel Weimar and Nazi Germany 1918-1939 specification for GCSE 9-1.
It is broken down into 4 main sections: The Weimar Republic, Hitler’s rise to power, Nazi control and dictatorship and life in Nazi Germany.
This revision guide includes 21 GCSE practice exam questions throughout on the 6 main questions and gives examples on how to answer each using model answers.
This will enable all learners to achieve the higher grades required by the exam board, including the skills of explanation, inference and interpretation as well as source utility.
The information is also broken down into an easy to use format to aid the students in their revision programme. I have also included some useful mnemonics for specific areas of study which have really helped in the past to remember subject content.
This Guide has been designed to be engaging, detailed and easy to follow and come in PDF format. It can be used for revision, interleaving, homelearning as well as class teaching.
Any reviews on this resource would be much appreciated. Please email me for a free copy of my Edexcel Weimar and Nazi Germany revision summary guide if you do.
The British Empire
The aim of this lesson to investigate the causes and consequences of the Boer War (1899-1902) for the British Empire and the character of Lord Horatio Kitchener, appointed Commander of the British Army in South Africa.
Students are required to analyse and make judgements on his character by deciding how heroic he was, before, during and after the war by rating each of his actions.
They are soon shocked to find his underhand tactics of trying to win the Boer War through initial incompetence to devastating ruthlessness as the war progressed with his scorched earth policy and the setting up of concentration camps.
They also learn how the war impacted upon the Government at the time, culminating in the Liberal Reforms and evaluate how these measures helped improve public health which left a lasting legacy on Britain.
The lesson comes with retrieval practice activities, suggested teaching and learning strategies, differentiated materials and is linked to the latest historical interpretations, video clips and debate.
The lesson is enquiry based with a key question posed at the start of the lesson and revisited at the end to show the progress of learning.
The lessons are fully adaptable in PowerPoint format and can be changed to suit.
The British Empire
The aim of this lesson is to explore the reasons for why Africa became so important to the British Empire and how its people were affected in a global race to exploit it.
The scramble for Africa was the reference given by the Times newspaper when several European nations, including Britain, took over most of the continent of Africa.
These countries looked to Africa to enrich themselves; students learn which resources they could acquire and analyse the various reasons these European powers grabbed whatever land they could.
A thinking quilt challenges thinking and ideas for this scramble and the dangers involved for European nations, whilst a true or false quiz and summarising pyramid checks understanding and reinforces the aims of the lesson.
There is also an excellent video link to Cecil Rhodes and his importance to British colonial power in Africa.
The lesson comes with retrieval practice activities, suggested teaching and learning strategies, differentiated materials and is linked to the latest historical interpretations, video clips and debate.
The lesson is enquiry based with a key question posed at the start of the lesson and revisited at the end to show the progress of learning.
The lesson is fully adaptable in PowerPoint format and can be changed to suit.
The British Empire
The aim of this lesson is to discover who the Zulus were and how and why their fighting left a lasting legacy on the British Empire.
Students will also find out why the British army, allegedly the best and most disciplined fighting force in the world at the time be defeated and humiliated at the Battle of Isandlwana?
They will also analyse how within hours they were heroically defending their lives at Rourke’s Drift in one of the most unlikely ‘victories’ in British military history.
Students evaluate both battles, creating headlines and writing articles, using argument words and second and third tier vocabulary.
They finally appraise the events of 1879, concluding how both battles should be viewed overall in history and their legacy.
The lesson comes with retrieval practice activities, suggested teaching and learning strategies, differentiated materials and is linked to the latest historical interpretations, video clips and debate.
The lesson is enquiry based with a key question posed at the start of the lesson and revisited at the end to show the progress of learning.
The lesson is fully adaptable in PowerPoint format and can be changed to suit.
