This lesson is part of a scheme of lessons I created to try and fill a gap in the OCR Ancient History GCSE available resources. I felt like this is quite a complex era in Roman history and the resources that exist are complicated too - leading to cognitive overload for many of my students. This lesson is completely dual coded and my students loved it because it is clear and succinct. it starts with a couple of video clips recapping Sicinius’ reasons for calling for the First Plebeian Secession (Secessio Plebis) and it then tells the story of the Secession itself - followed by a debate surrounding whether it actually achieved anything meaningful. Throughout there are pertinent questions posed to students on screen that they can answer verbally or in written form and are great for AfL - there is also a 15 mark exam question at the end (based on a passage from Livy that is included) with sentence starters and a suggested plan, looking at how the relationship between the Patricians and Plebeians had changed between the exile of Superbus and the First Secession - analysing the second order concept of Change and Continuity which is one of the key second order concepts that 15 mark questions look to address in the exam. Even if you aren’t teaching the OCR AH GCSE, I’d argue this is probably the clearest and easiest to understand overview of the First Secession that exists at the moment - it’s why I made it because there was hardly anything accessible out there for me and my students… There are also embedded video clips (hence the large file size) outlining the patron-client relationship in Rome, the origins of the Conflict of the Orders and a summary of the Plebeian Secession. Thanks for taking a look!

This is a 20-30 min assembly (could easily be longer with teacher verbal embellishment and exposition) I have used with my students. The importance of Mental Wellbeing is obviously the focus - but the skills of how to achieve good mental health - showing self-regulation and resilience are focused on too. There notes explaining the resilient and self-regulation icons that I have included and practical strategies are provided for pupils. Pupils are also prompted to ask questions of themselves (on the screen for ease) during the assembly - designed to be delivered during Children’s Mental Health Week (but realistically could be presented at any time throughout the school year.

Any students trying to study the origins of Rome are met with the difficulty of marrying mythology and archaeology. The mythology of Aeneas and Romulus and Remus often takes precedent, leaving students without any contextual knowledge about what Italy was actually like at the time. This lesson helped my students address this issue. By teaching this lesson in between an ‘Aeneas’ and a ‘Romulus and Remus’ lesson, they could much more easily recall the key details of both stories - thanks to the contextual knowledge of Italy that this lesson provides. Students are introduced to all the different prominent cultures and peoples of Bronze Age Italy, including many like the Sabines and the Latins who Rome will come into conflict with shortly afterwards. this lesson provides a snapshot of Italy in 1000 BCE, which provides the handle students need to hang their subsequent learning about early Rome on. The lesson is dual coded to reduce cognitive load and videos are included (hence the large file size) at appropriate points to provide extra exposition.

These painstakingly created Graphic Organisers are ideal for Ancient History 9-1 GCSE. Quality resources for the GCSE seem scarce and this is me trying to rectify that a bit. These provide all the required information in an easily accessible and memorable way for the Period study of Persia - just over a quarter of the whole GCSE. My students really appreciate these. The organisers give enough ‘knowledge’ or ‘information’ for students to get a good grade at GCSE - a 4/5/6 depending on how much information they can retain. We print these out A5 size and stick them in the middle of our books and as I am teaching students will annotate these sheets according to how much extra information they need to get above a 4/5/6. The visuals are a huge help and icons and schemas are repeated as and when appropriate across the organisers which makes pupils feel secure and build a mental image of all the content - something I had found challenging to help them create before using these. The GOs really help tell the ‘story’ of the Achaemenid (Persian) Kings: Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius and Xerxes. Topics included: Cyrus’ birth and early life Cyrus’ conquest of Astyages and the Medes / Media Cyrus’ conquest of Croesus and the Lydians / Lydia Cyrus’ conquest of Nabonidus and the Babylonians / Babylon The importance of the Nabonidus Chronicle, Cyrus Cylinder and Herodotus as sources The foundation of Cyrus’ city at Pasargadae Cyrus’ death at the hands of Queen Tomyris and the Massegatae Early Cambyses and Succession Background to Cambyses’ invasion of Egypt Cambyses conquest of Egypt Cambyses positives as ruler of Egypt Cambyses’ negatives and 'madness as ruler of Egypt Cambyses’ military failures after conquering Egypt (Carthage, Ammonia, Ethiopia) Smerdis’ the usurper and death of Cambyses Accession of Darius Behistun (Bisitun) Inscription Darius’ reorganisation of the Persian Empire The foundation of Darius’ city at Persepolis Darius’ initial expansion attempts from 517 BCE The backstory and causes of the Ionian Revolt The events of the Ionian Revolt 499 BCE The aftermath and consequences of the Ionian Revolt Darius’ final invasion of Greece and death Accession of Xerxes to the Persian throne Xerxes’ preparations for his invasion of Greece Xerxes’ invasion of Greece The Battle of Thermopylae The sack of Athens Battle of Salamis Battle of Eurymedon End of Persian forays westward

This lesson tells what can be a relatively confusing story in a clear, step by step way. It’s dual coded to reduce cognitive load and take students through all the key details from who Ascanius was and why Romulus and Remus were outcast to the differing accounts of Remus’ death. Short video clips are also included at appropriate places within the powerpoint (hence the large file size) which help to break up the ‘teacher talk’ and add colour to the story. The final tasks involve storyboard creation and student explanation. My classes were big fans of the simplicity of the presentation and the clarity of the story - it really helped them retain all the information. There are a few quick quizzes included which are great for AFL.

This lesson is designed to be delivered in an hour and includes a range of handouts and video clips (hence the larger file size) included as slides within the PowerPoint. Students are introduced to the key features a Greek Theatre and the role they played in Greek society and religion. It is clear and concise and throughout there are numerous comprehensions and other opportunities to engage the students and embed their learning. This lesson was ideal in our introduction to GCSE Classical Civilsation unit we did at the end of KS3 / beginning of KS4 as students are starting to discover the Classical World - it helps give them an excellent sense of period. Thanks for taking a look :-)

Contained within the .ppt file are 19 separate handouts which detail each important event in AQA’s ‘Conflict and Tension 1945-72’ History GCSE unit on the Cold War. Each handout focuses on causes of the event, the event itself, and its consequences within the context of the Cold War. These can be used as a support in lessons or as a revision aid. Each sheet also has one or two challenge/thinking questions which encourage students to engage with the information they are reading and form an opinion on the event one way or another, backed up by specific examples. Handouts are mixture of information and helpful images/sources which can also be used as a basis for discussion. These have proved particularly useful in my lessons when printed a5 size, stuck in the middle of a page in an exercise book and get highlighted and annotated by students as the lesson progresses. Being able to answer the challenge/think questions also gives students an instant sense of achievement.

This series of five slides is designed to be printed off and stapled together in the top left and given to students to work through in roughly an hour. The question they will be working on is the following 8 mark WJEC Religious Education GCSE question: Explain from Christianity and Islam attitudes to the use of contraception. On the first page, students are given a very simple model answer an are tasked with explaining how it could be improved. On the second and third pages, students are given indicative content that could be included and are tasked with highlighting key information from both Christianity and Islam’s viewpoints on the issue. They are then, on the third slide, given a better model answer. They will read this and explain, given the information they now have in their heads from the previous two pages, how it could be improved. Finally, they are given space to write their own answer to the 8 mark GCSE question without looking at any notes. My students really liked this because it was clear and the tasks were ‘chunked’ into easy to digest pieces. There was a clear structure to the lesson which needs minimal teacher input since the instructions are clear on each page. Lined paper isn’t needed either - it’s all self-contained. By the end of the lesson every single student had made progress and, crucially, felt better able to answer 8 mark questions under timed pressure. Hope this helps, thanks for looking and hopefully it’ll save you some time in the hectic run up to exams! :)

These ‘at a glance’ revision notes were specially written to give AQA A Level History students a comprehensive overview of the key knowledge from the specification for the depth study: The Crisis of Communism: The USSR and the Soviet Empire, 1953–2000 Part one: Crisis in the Soviet Union, 1953–2000 De-Stalinisation, 1953–1964 Years of Stagnation, 1964–1985 The Gorbachev Revolution, 1985–2000 Part two: Crisis in the Soviet Empire, 1953–2000 (A-level only) Soviet Satellites, 1953–1968 (A-level only) ‘Real existing Socialism’, 1968–1980 (A-level only) The Collapse of the Soviet Empire, 1980–2000 (A-level only) They are especially useful for students whose note-taking in lesson isn’t as good as others, or whose organisational skills mean they are missing notes/handouts on certain topics/areas. These notes will certainly help reduce the time it takes them to catch up with their peers, and also students like to use these as a checklist of topics to go into in further detail. Hopefully these notes help to save your students (and you!) some time in the hectic run up to exams. Thanks for taking a look :)

These detailed course / revision notes were specially written to give OCR A Level History students a comprehensive overview of the key knowledge from the specification for Unit Y104: England 1377–1455: Enquiry Topic: Richard II 1377–1399 a) Richard II’s minority 1377–1380 b) Personal Rule 1380–1388 c) Personal Rule and overthrow 1388–1399 British Period Study: England 1399–1455 a) The reign of Henry IV b) The domestic rule of Henry V c) War with France 1399–1453 d) The minority of Henry VI and the origins of the Wars of the Roses They are especially useful for students whose note-taking in lesson isn’t as good as others, or whose organisational skills mean they are missing notes/handouts on certain topics/areas. These notes will certainly help reduce the time it takes them to catch up with their peers, and also students like to use these as a checklist of topics to go into in further detail. Hopefully these notes help to save your students (and you!) some time in the hectic run up to exams. Thanks for taking a look :)

These ‘at a glance’ revision notes were specially written to give AQA A Level History students a comprehensive overview of the key knowledge from the specification for the depth study: The Reformation in Europe, c1500–1564 Part one: the origins of the Reformation, c1500–1531 The condition of the Church, c1500–1517 The challenge of Luther, 1517–1521 The Protestant challenge, 1521–1531 Part two: Reformation Europe, 1531–1564 (A-level only) The expansion of the Reformation, 1531–1541 (A-level only) The second wave of Protestant Reform, 1541–1564 (A-level only) The Catholic Reformation, 1531–1564 (A-level only) They are especially useful for students whose note-taking in lesson isn’t as good as others, or whose organisational skills mean they are missing notes/handouts on certain topics/areas. These notes will certainly help reduce the time it takes them to catch up with their peers, and also students like to use these as a checklist of topics to go into in further detail. Hopefully these notes help to save your students (and you!) some time in the hectic run up to exams. Thanks for taking a look :)

These notes were created for students studying the WJEC / Eduqas AS Level Religious Studies specification and are designed to be ‘at a glance’ revision notes that go into detail for each part of the specification - i.e. what each student needs to know about Islam Theme 1 (religious figures and sacred texts) for their exam. For students who are predicted lower grades than their peers, I have found this resource is invaluable in giving them ‘slimmed down’ content for Islam Theme 1 and these notes allowed them to tackle revising the topic without the fear of drowning in lots of content. For my more able students they used these for self-quizzing and as a starting point for making their own very detailed notes (an important part of revision in itself). Thanks for looking and I hope this saves you a little bit of time in the run up to exam season! :)

These detailed course / revision notes were specially written to give OCR A Level History students a comprehensive overview of the key knowledge from the specification for Unit Y208 Philip II 1556–1598 1) Political authority 2) Religion 3) Foreign policy 4) The Netherlands These extensive notes are especially useful for students whose note-taking in lesson isn’t as good as others, or whose organisational skills mean they are missing notes/handouts on certain topics / areas. These notes will certainly help reduce the time it takes them to catch up with their peers, and also students like to use these as a checklist of topics to go into in further detail. They give peace of mind that every corner of the specification/syllabus has been covered. Hopefully these notes help to save your students (and you!) some time in the hectic run up to exams. Thanks for taking a look :)

These detailed course / revision notes were specially written to give OCR A Level History students a comprehensive overview of the key knowledge from the specification for Unit Y113: Britain 1930–1997: The Middle East c.550–620 The establishment of Islam c.620–632 The beginning of the Empire and the rule of the ‘Rightly Guided Caliphs’ The establishment and expansion of the Umayyad Empire These extensive notes are especially useful for students whose note-taking in lesson isn’t as good as others, or whose organisational skills mean they are missing notes/handouts on certain topics/areas. These notes will certainly help reduce the time it takes them to catch up with their peers, and also students like to use these as a checklist of topics to go into in further detail. They give peace of mind that every corner of the specification/syllabus has been covered. Hopefully these notes help to save your students (and you!) some time in the hectic run up to exams. Thanks for taking a look :)

These detailed course / revision notes were specially written to give AQA GCSE History students a comprehensive overview of the key knowledge from the specification for Unit (AD) America, 1920–1973: ‘Opportunity and inequality’: 1) American people and the 'Boom’ 2) Bust – Americans’ experiences of the Depression and New Deal 3) Post-war America These extensive notes are especially useful for students whose note-taking in lesson isn’t as good as others, or whose organisational skills mean they are missing notes/handouts on certain topics / areas. These notes will certainly help reduce the time it takes them to catch up with their peers, and also students like to use these as a checklist of topics to go into in further detail. They give peace of mind that every corner of the specification/syllabus has been covered. Hopefully these notes help to save your students (and you!) some time in the hectic run up to exams. Thanks for taking a look :)

This CPD, aimed at new and existing members of SLT, goes through the rationale behind conducting subject deep dives in the style of Ofsted, and how to implement them. Included are two files: a PowerPoint file in the event you would like to deliver this CPD to staff as a presentation a PDF in case you want to disseminate this CPD via email, or follow up with the notes to the presentation above. This resource provides step-by-step insights into navigating subject deep dives, focusing on intentional strategies for refining teaching practices and achieving incremental improvements, fostering a culture of reflection and adaptability within the constraints of secondary education. Thanks for taking a look - hopefully after using this guidance you’ll be in a place as a senior leadership team, or as a highly competent middle leader, where you are able to convey the need for and benefits of subject deep dives, not just in the context of preparing for Ofsted, but also importantly in the spirit of a commitment to continuous school improvement.

This lesson is designed to fit neatly into an hour. It could equally be used as an assembly and can easily be shortened by taking out the discussion and written tasks that are included within the Powerpoint at pertinent points. It takes students step by step through the process of becoming an MP. It is meant to be both informative and aspirational - while at the same time pointing out some of the pitfalls present in the process. The lesson is fully dual coded and therefore information is presented throughout in a way that reduces cognitive load for pupils. There is also a coloured overlay on each slide to aid any pupils with dyslexia or Irlen’s who find this useful. Although, this can easily be deleted from each slide if it isn’t necessary for your pupils. There are quotations throughout from relevant literature and also from winning Members of Parliament and losing candidates. The rigour, length and cost of the process of becoming an MP is laid bare and students are constantly prompted with questions on screen regarding the time and financial costs versus the reward involved. This can also lead to questions surrounding whether our MPs are paid too much or too little, and whether candidates receive the support they need for the system to be truly fair. Thanks for taking a look and I hope this resource proves as useful for your students as it did for ours :-)

This lesson was designed for my GCSE English Lit students who were about to embark on their study of Othello. The lesson isn’t Othello specific though, it is more a brief overview of the cultural and social changes that were going on during Shakespeare’s own times - and prompting students through a variety of tasks to think about how this changing society ended up influencing Shakespeare’s writing and being reflected in his plays. E.g. Renaissance themes, Golden Age of Elizabethan England, increased prosperity including a video (embedded) looking at the emergence of the new merchant class - and the effect this had on what kind of audience Shakespeare came to write for. Also the number of theatres springing up in Elizabethan London is also looked at - along with prompt questions which students can answer in written form or verbally regarding the effect that increasing demand had on the number of plays Shakespeare wrote. At the beginning and the end of the lesson is a short quickfire quiz which is designed to get students thinking about the lesson content. The lesson was really designed with the idea of ‘world-building’ in mind i.e. getting the students to develop a really vivid picture of what Elizabethan England was like and the changes it was undergoing, in order to have excellent grounding to refer back to studying any Shakespeare play, enabling them to place much of Shakespeare’s idoms etc into context. Thanks for taking a look :)

The lesson starts with an embedded TEDed video recounting the 12 Labours of Hercules so the students are reminded of why he was so famous in the ancient world. This is followed by discussion on why Hercules ‘ended up’ as part of Roman religion (Hercules’ journey through Italy and Aeneas’ subsequent discovery of the cult after escaping from Troy is given as the backdrop for this). Students are then introduced to the reasons why the Temple of Hercules Victor is located where it is in Rome, and passages from Virgil and Livy are included (as hidden slides for printing to be handed out) where students are encouraged to pick out various aspects of the Cult of Hercules and describe its key features for themselves. The lesson ends by looking at how the Cult of Hercules established itself over time in Ancient Rome and students discuss what Rome’s obsession with Hercules says about themselves and their own identity. This lesson was designed for my students who are studying the OCR GCSE Classical Civilisation Myth and Religion Unit. All the knowledge pupils need for their exam is contained within the lesson, which itself is fully dual-coded which we have found really helps to reduce cognitive load, allowing students to focus on what they need to, aiding knowledge retention. There is also a coloured overlay on each slide to help students with Dyslexia / Irlen’s (which can easily be deleted if you don’t need it). Thanks for taking a look :)