Cyrus the Great (dual coded) Graphic Organisers: Ancient History GCSE

These 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.

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 Cyrus the Great’s reign

Topics included:

1. Cyrus’ birth and early life
2. Cyrus’ conquest of Astyages and the Medes / Media
3. Cyrus’ conquest of Croesus and the Lydians / Lydia
4. Cyrus’ conquest of Nabonidus and the Babylonians / Babylon
5. The importance of the Nabonidus Chronicle, Cyrus Cylinder and Herodotus as sources
6. The foundation of Cyrus’ city at Pasargadae
7. Cyrus’ death at the hands of Queen Tomyris and the Massegatae