I have been teaching history since 2002 and I have been head of History at a school for 10 years which sees many of my students opt for GCSE, A level and beyond. I am passionate about History being taught well, and believe that this largely stems from good resources (as well of course effective delivery). My lessons and various teaching resources are therefore produced with the intention of inspiring students to think for themselves, to be challenged yet engaged.
I have been teaching history since 2002 and I have been head of History at a school for 10 years which sees many of my students opt for GCSE, A level and beyond. I am passionate about History being taught well, and believe that this largely stems from good resources (as well of course effective delivery). My lessons and various teaching resources are therefore produced with the intention of inspiring students to think for themselves, to be challenged yet engaged.
This is 2 lessons approx, involving siting the chosen case study of Framlingham castle for the OCR Modern World A syllabus for 2018. This lesson develops into an overview of the changes to Framlingham castle's form and function. Included is a blank timeline and a ppt with lots of slides that makes the material slightly more accessible to learners than the text book. These can be used as a research activity to your liking - group work, research, or around the room collating, depending on your particular groups. This allows for appropriate differentiation - as the resources can be adapted. The timeline charts the key four phases of the castle as well as more specific changes to the form and function and the reasons why.
This is the third lesson following the siting and overview of Framlingham Castle. This lesson tracks the history of the individuals who lived in the castle over the four phases. As there is lots of information - this has been done with the intention of trying to bring a bit of fun back to the GCSE course by them doing it in the style of Through the Keyhole! This could be done on an individual basis or as a class they could all complete a few of the personalities and then they could be photocopied. If there is time, a few students could be brave enough to do their own version of " Through the keyhole" and ask the questions..."who lived in castle like this?" A follow up task would then be for the students to put them all into chronological order.
This is a series of tasks serving as an overview for the War and Society unit for the OCR Modern world A unit - Medieval to 1500, designed to help with the massive amount of content required for this course.
These revision sheets cover the threat of the Vikings and Saxon’s responses, the Norman conquest and it’s impact, the break down of the Feudal system, the Anarchy and King John and the Barons, the Age of Chivalry, and the Hundred years’ war. The intention being to give a decent overview from which to start effective revision. Students can always use their class notes to add extra details to these tasks. Some of the tasks included involve completing charts, categorising and adding evidence.
The sheets are broken down into the time period, type of warfare, attitude and responses and the impact on the British people. There are extra aspects to some - such as why was the Norman Conquest successful as this is covered in the exam spec.
There are also some opportunities for students to answer an 8 and a 14 mark questions.
A great activity for year 9 understanding the rise of Hitler and the Nazis. This can be completed as an extension activity if the content has previously been taught.
There is a link to a youtube clip on the top of the sheet and the questions follow in chronological order.
The worksheet covers everything from the depression to the various elections, the burning down of the Reichstag, Night of Long knives, and the death of Hindenburg.
As the new GCSE is largely content driven, the objective of these flash cards are for students to try to help learn, revise, test and hopefully retain some knowledge of the early part of the course.
The cards ask some basic comprehension questions - with some more complicated style qs that give a good overview of the Paris Peace conference and treaties, the LON successes and failures and the causes of WW2 with Hitler's actions.
The cards are to be backed - the numbers on each question card correlate to the number on the answer card.
The cards can be emailed out to students for them to print and revise at home, or can be printed off and cut up as part of a revision activity in lessons.
There will be more to follow as I develop them.
This resource has a number of revision tasks on the unit USA 1945-1975:Land of Liberty? period of the course. The task
This is ideal resource can be used as a lesson resource to allow students to work independently whilst supporting their individual needs, or can be printed off and given as an aid to help them with their private study at home.
This is 1/5 parts of the modern world element of the course. There is an overall pack which can also be purchased.
This is just a brief task encouraging students to read the sources about the Remonstrance and answer questions on the back.
The questions encourage students to use the evidence from the sources.
The content covers the divisions that were emerging within Parliament about the Remonstrance and is a super start in allowing students to understand the complexities of the English Civil War and that it was not quite as simple as Parliament vs the King.
This is a whole revision session for OCR Modern world A USA 1945-1975 depth study. The lesson focuses on the political activism of the 1960s and 1970s linking to the Civil Rights movement. The lesson covers topics such as the women’s movement, Gay rights and the emergence of Gay pride, youth and student protests and hippy movement
There is an interactive quiz and worksheet for students to record their answers and notes and a game at the end which enables students to discuss the role of each president’s actions during this time, evaluating their successes and failures.
This is a brilliant guide to help students prioritise and conduct their own independent revision for their GCSE. This gives a break down of OCR's Explaining the Modern World History A, with the Depth study of USA 1945-1975 and Personal rule of Charles I, plus War and Society and the castle study of Framlingham castle. This document can of course be adapted to fit the various other OCR modules, as and where relevant. As the new course requires so much content, we have chosen to give this to our yr 11 at the start of the year to help them build up a bank of resources in preparation for the exams in the summer. The chart allows students to complete the chart to show how confident they are with certain topics, and allows them to go back and reflect on specific areas. The aim is for them to get to point (hopefully by May) where they can happily complete the green smiley face for all of the sections; showing that they are confident with all the content for the GCSE!
This is a whole lesson which starts with a quick true and false quiz about the beliefs of Charles I. The lesson then develops into understanding the liberties of freeborn Englishman which links beautifully to the key concepts of this course.
There are plenty of a number of tasks that encourage the students to categorise the beliefs of Englishmen, such as protecting the Protestant Church of England, Defending the rule of law, local power and accountability and not being taxed without Parliament’s agreement. The lesson then continues to examine one of Charles’s advisors during his personal rule - that of Sir Richard Weston. Students are then asked to examine evidence to show how he upset the liberties of free born Englishmen - by examining all the ways in which he tried to raise money for Charles.
This worked extremely well with my year 11 class.
All the resources for this lesson are within the powerpoint.
This lesson continues on from the the lesson about Charles I and Sir Richard Weston upsetting the political nation with the various taxes they implemented.
This looks at the role of William Laud and Sir Thomas Wentworth later the Earl of Strafford. Students are asked to examine which Englishmen rights were they trampling all over.
The lesson culminates with a section which explains how Charles went too far in trying to get the Scots to accept his English Prayer book.
Whilst most of the activities are on the ppt, there are a couple of occasion where the War and Society text book will need to be used.
This is a Knowledge Organiser (KOs) which covers the interregnum. As KOs, this only cover the absolute basics, however in conjunction with lessons and learning homework, the idea is that students gain valuable specific knowledge that they can then incorporate into their written answers.
This KO could be used as a starter, recap, or as a learning homework that is then assessed in subsequent lessons.
Some homework ideas that could be used along side this KO could be…
Create cue cards to show the challenges facing the Rump Parliament and Oliver Cromwell.
Create a mind map to show how Cromwell dealt with all of the challenges (timeline)
3)Create a mnemonic to explain why the rule of the Major Generals was unpopular.
Create your own quiz on this page to test someone else.
Quizzes on Socrative.
The second sheet is exam specific criteria to help students identify the key skills for the GCSE Modern World A - Personal Rule to Restoration depth study.
This is a couple of lessons work introducing students to Charles I and his beliefs. The lesson covers Charles’s attitude but also the growing power of parliament. There is a variety of tasks from a quiz, highlighting sources, fill in the gaps, to gathering evidence from around the room or on a table if you’d prefer. All the resources are on the ppt to be printed off.
This works as a brilliant introduction into the Personal rule of Charles I and was a success with my Year 11 who were dreading this aspect of the course.
The lesson will need the use of the OCR War and Society Text book.
This is a great GCSE revision lesson or 2 to allow students the opportunity to reflect on the whole OCR War and Society unit AD790 - 2010 in terms of themes. The lesson starts by explaining the various skills that they need and gives them a useful list of key words that they should be using when analysing significance, cause, consequences etc.
Student can then use the table and list of divisions to identify the nature of the division, be it, plunder, ambition, conquest, defence, terror, etc and then assess whether for each period it was an internal or external conflict as well as then assessing the concept of support.
There is then a list of the styles of questions, plus examination guidance on how to structure their answers for this unit.
At the end there are then opportunities for students to reflect on their completed chart and identify key themes, such as how the nature of conflict has changed across time.
As this course is so heavily content driven, this has proved invaluable in allowing students to reflect and form an overview, something which is essential for the bigger questions on this unit.
To cover the vast amounts of content required for the OCR explaining the modern world course, I have constructed mini homework booklets for students to complete content coverage at home.
Attached is a booklet that works along side the OCR GCSE Hodder education book - page numbers have been included - but can be changed to suit text books.
There are a number of tasks that are in line with the specification and covers the reasons for the Vikings and Norman conquests and their impact on English society.. There are also some exam questions for students to practise.
Throughout the booklet there are a number of opportunities to stretch the gifted and talented with the "Be Brilliant" sections.
I have actually set this as summer homework for my GCSE class with the intention of giving us a head start in September, but it will work equally well as a homework booklet for the start of the Year 11 course.
To help my year 11 gain an overview of the War and Society unit and in particular the attitudes and responses to variety of warfare - I created this revision sheet.
This proved invaluable for their mock revision as they were able to draw on similar and different attitudes across the various periods.
A super GCSE revision lesson also suitable as a consolidation lesson. Includes ppt and worksheet covering the end of the Cold war and the impact of Reagan and Gorbachev on various events. The worksheet works along side the ppt, giving students options to work out the actions of which leader, match up key words with their definitions, complete a timeline showing the reductions in Cold War, make notes on a short youtube clip about the collapse of the Soviet Union.
There is a section which examines specific crisis in Poland, Romania and Germany with some sample questions to test students knowledge at the end with OCR 5 and 10 mark style questions.
This is a Knowledge Organiser (KOs) which covers the short and long term causes of the English Civil War. Obviously as KOs, these only cover the absolute basics, however in conjunction with lessons and learning homework, the idea is that students gain valuable specific knowledge that they can then incorporate into their written answers.
This KO could be used as a starter, recap, or as a learning homework that is then assessed in subsequent lessons.
Some homework ideas that could be used along side this KO could be…
Create 2 different revision (revision cards/ mindmap / mnemonic etc) to show how Charles ruled during his Personal Rule.
Create a flow chart of the short term causes.
Using the spider diagram on Tensions – recreate and give specific reasons for the increased in tensions between Parliament and the King 1629-1640.
Create a mind map using the short and Long term causes of the Civil War. Don’t forget the key themes of tension!!!
Quizzes on socrative
The second sheet is exam specific criteria to help students identify the key skills for the GCSE Modern World A - Personal Rule to Restoration depth study.
This is a Knowledge organiser for the Berlin Wall and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
It has been designed with the OCR Modern World A syllabus in mind, but the knowledge would be useful for all modern world GCSE / or other style of exam classes and would even serve as a good overall basic knowledge for A level.
The second sheet, gives some suggestions on homework, starters or even basic lesson ideas using the knowledge organiser.
As this is a knowledge organiser it only contains the absolute basics! We stress to students (especially those wanting top grades) the need to know more than just this information.
Kenilworth project (Non Visit Covid 19 friendly)
As we were unable to take our GCSE students to Kenilworth this year, I designed a tour of the history of Kenilworth castle with its key owners and their various changes identified.
This unit of work includes specialist youtube clips that talks through the history along side the ppts plus a written overview to support students to work independently. The youtube video links are at the start of the each of the overview ppts for each period they correspond with.
There is also project booklet - done as a ppt, which has 5 tasks connected to it that help guide students through the history of the castle whilst encouraging them to eventually apply their knowledge to sources. The tasks range from creating a timeline - with various owners and changes, a commentary on the seige of 1266, plus a detailed overview where students are identifying key changes and are encouraged to make decisions about the function of the castle throughout key 4 times. There is a check list at the end to encourage students to plan their time effectively.
This unit is primarily focused on the requirements for OCR explaining the modern world - study of a historic environment (paper 3) - but will be more than suitable for other exam boards/ courses studying Kenilworth.