Cold War The aim of this lesson is to analyse the causes and consequences of the Cuban Missile Crisis , its significance and its effect on future relations between the USA and USSR during the Cold War. In an anger management task, students link various emotions to emojis as they learn why tensions (and therefore anger) between the USA and Cuba escalated following the coming to power of Fidel Castro and his subsequent alliance to the USSR. In a text mapping exercise they analyse how Castro defied the West by organising the placement of nuclear missiles on Cuba and how Kennedy reacted to this report and the stark choices he faced, urged on by the Hawkes and Doves in his assembled special committee, Excomm. Furthermore students undertake an interactive quiz which is designed to be engaging and challenging as they have to make 13 decisions in the 13 days of the crisis. The plenary is an interactive blockbusters and there are links to video evidence as well a recall, retention and retrieval task. The central enquiry of this and subsequent lessons is to ask why did civilians fear for their lives during the Cold War? Students will map out their ideas each lesson (which can be plotted in different colours or dates to show the progress of their learning and centred around the key question) and build up a picture of how these and different countries in the world responded and acted in this new nuclear age. The resource comes in Powerpoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change and is differentiated. I have also included suggested teaching strategies to deliver the lesson.

The English Civil War The aim of this lesson is for the students to decide whether Charles I was guilty or not guilty at his own trial of ‘subverting the fundamental laws and liberties of the nation and with maliciously making war on the parliament and people of England.’ The lesson starts by questioning the types of hat the judge should wear followed by a series of biased images depicting Charles at his trial, of which students have to analyse and explain why. Students then examine and evaluate information about Charles’s actions to come up with a guilty or not guilty verdict. If found guilty then they will have to sign his death warrant! There is some sentence scaffolding and argument words provided if help is required. The lesson is enquiry based with a key question using a lightbulb posed at the start of the lesson and revisited throughout to show the progress of learning. The resource includes retrieval practice, suggested teaching strategies and differentiated materials, and comes in PowerPoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.

This lesson sets out to explains how Hitler set Germany on the road to the Second World War in 5 steps. Students are challenged to find out how and why was he able to defy the Treaty of Versailles so easily with little or no consequences (shown through a causal spider’s web). Students analyse video footage and a number of sources, using the COP technique (modelled for student understanding) which has proved invaluable for evaluating sources at GCSE. A final chronological recap of the events and evaluation of the most and least important of the events that led to war, will give students an in depth understanding of why World War II started. This lesson is ideal as preparation for GCSE if you are embedding source skills or teaching the interwar years or WWII at Key stage 4. It is enquiry based with a key question using a lightbulb posed at the start of the lesson and revisited throughout to show the progress of learning. The resource includes retrieval practice activities, suggested teaching strategies and differentiated materials and comes in PowerPoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.

Cold War The aim of this lesson is to explain how Germany was divided post 1945, as agreed at the Potsdam Conference and analyse the subsequent Berlin blockade and airlift which followed. Students learn the intentions of both the USA and USSR and how this played out in the Cold War theatre of Europe. This is a great opportunity for students to be creative as they plot the preceding events on an airport landing strip, using symbols and signs found in every international airport. They will track the obstacles thrown up by Stalin and the immediate problems this caused in Berlin as he attempted to prevent any further western moves in Germany and with his aim of starving the West Berliners into submission. Therefore this is intended to be a fun, challenging and engaging lesson to suit all abilities. The central enquiry of this and subsequent lessons is to ask why did civilians fear for their lives? Students will map out their ideas each lesson (which can be plotted in different colours or dates to show the progress of their learning and centred around the key question) and build up a picture of how these and different countries in the world responded and acted in this new nuclear age. The resource comes in PowerPoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change and is differentiated. I have also included suggested teaching strategies to deliver the lesson.

This lesson aims to find out the real reason for the sinking of Henry’s flagship, the Mary Rose. The lesson starts with Henry crying (literally) and students have to decode a message to find out why. Students are then given four options as to why the Mary Rose sank, from which they give their initial opinions. Further analysis of video footage and written evidence will allow them to form their own judgements to be able to complete an extended writing task. This lesson uses Henry as a talking head, discussing how it was impossible to sink it in the first place, due to his genius and finally responding to the students’ evidence in a witty plenary. This lesson is engaging and fun and gives a different perspective of looking at Tudor seafaring and what was aboard the ships of the time. The lesson is enquiry based with a key question using a lightbulb posed at the start of the lesson and revisited to show the progress of learning. The resource includes suggested teaching strategies, retrieval practice, differentiated materials and comes in PowerPoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.

The aim of the lesson is to understand how WIlliam the Conqueror asserted his control over the population using the feudal system. Students get to know how the feudal system works by interacting with each other in an interactive Norman style ‘party’. They each have a card to read which tells them their status and their oath to William. However they will have to decide and justify if they are happy with their status or not. This lesson is designed to be fun, with students required to interact with each other and show their status by using the tables and chairs in the room. The lesson uses video footage and music to engage and connect the learning. Further learning tasks include creating a feudal system diagram using differentiated prompts, as well as explaining how it worked and analysing how pleasant it was to be a peasant under this system. The lesson is enquiry based with a key question using a lightbulb posed at the start of the lesson and revisited at the end using a rate ‘o’ meter to show the progress of learning. The resource is differentiated and gives suggested teaching strategies. It comes in PowerPoint format which can be amended and changed to suit.

This lesson explores the role of monks and nuns in Medieval society and Norman England and questions their importance. Students learn how people joined the monastic community and how they helped the local community. Students also analyse their dress code and the reasons behind it, before engaging in literacy tasks such as linking their daily life to particularly headings and writing a narrative account. There are accompanying worksheets and video links to reinforce the learning. The plenary of ‘find and fix’ challenges the students to rewrite and correct a number of statements made. The lesson is enquiry based with a key question using a lightbulb posed at the start of the lesson and revisited at the end using a rate ‘o’ meter to show the progress of learning. The resource is differentiated and gives suggested teaching strategies. It comes in PowerPoint format which can be amended and changed to suit.

AQA GCSE 9-1 Elizabethan England, 1568-1603 This lesson focuses on the threat posed by Mary, Queen of Scots through her activity and inactivity under the close guard and ‘protection’ of Elizabeth I. Students are taken through Mary, Queen of Scot’s life from the controversy of her husbands in Scotland to her imprisonment in England by Elizabeth. Through sources, visual and video evidence, they have conclude how much of a threat Mary posed to Elizabeth using a colour coding activity which includes of all the plots associated with Mary, Queen of Scots including the infamous Babington Plot. A threat’o’meter gets the students to make an overall judgement and justify their conclusions. They also learn about her execution and answer a GCSE practice question on the significance of her execution on Elizabethan England. The lesson is enquiry based with a key question using a lightbulb posed at the start of the lesson and revisited to show the progress of learning. The resource includes suggested teaching strategies, retrieval practice, differentiated materials and comes in PowerPoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.

Edexcel Superpower Relations and the Cold War, 1941-91 The lesson aims to explore the development of nuclear weapons and their significance in the Cold War. Students will first learn the devastating effects of a nuclear fallout before examining why they were developed by the USA and how the Superpower rivalry spurred the Soviet Union on to develop weapons of her own in a comprehension exercise. Students will also complete a fill in the gaps exercise of how nuclear weapons were meant to act as a deterrent to a nuclear war. There is also some excellent Pathé news footage of the tests conducted at the time, from which students use inference to evaluate the real propaganda behind the headlines given and the impact on superpower relations. There is some GCSE question practice to complete at the end with help and prompts given if required. The final task is to complete a Cold War road map as students attempt to answer questions correctly to reach the safety of a nuclear bomb shelter. The lesson is enquiry based with a key question using a lightbulb posed at the start of the lesson and revisited throughout this and subsequent lessons to show the progress of learning. The lessons in this bundle are therefore linked together to build up a picture of how diplomacy, propaganda and spying led two Superpowers with opposing political ideologies to create tensions, rivalries and distrust as well as subsequently forming mutual understanding and cooperation over the time period in question. The resource includes retrieval practice, suggested teaching strategies, differentiated material and GCSE question practice. It comes in PowerPoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.

Cold War The aim of this extended lesson on the Vietnam War is to analyse its significance in the Cold War and the ideology of the Domino Theory. The lesson will analyse its dubious beginnings and inception to the types of weapons used such as Agent Orange, the war crimes which followed at My Lai and the ensuing lack of support at home as well as the consequences for the civilian population of Vietnam. So why did America fail to win this war despite overwhelming manpower, control of the air and sea and the most modern military weapons available at the time? As a starting point, students focus on Paul Hardcastle’s 19 song and his reasons for writing it and analyse the photograph of Kim Phúc before examining the details surrounding the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. They are given a number of differentiated tasks to analyse both American and Vietcong tactics to win the war (using printable worksheets) and the horrors surrounding search and destroy and the My Lai massacre, the tunnelling system as well as the use of napalm and agent orange. At the end they will prioritise the reasons for Vietcong success and American failure and how this war played its key part in the Cold War. The central enquiry of this and subsequent lessons is to ask why did civilians fear for their lives during the Cold War? Students will map out their ideas each lesson (which can be plotted in different colours or dates to show the progress of their learning and centred around the key question) and build up a picture of how these and different countries in the world responded and acted in this new nuclear age. The resource comes in PowerPoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change and is differentiated. I have also included suggested teaching strategies to deliver the lesson.

Cold War The aim of this lesson is to analyse the Korea War between 1950-1953 and understand the threat Communist North Korea posed to the world then and today. They will also analyse Korea’s insistence on spending millions on producing nuclear weapons, despite catastrophic failures of industry and the famine of the 1990’s. Students learn about present day Korea using a brilliant video link and annotate key facts around a map. They analyse key information about US involvement in the Korean War in the 1950s, the 38th Parallel, the subsequent stalemate and how this produced an armistice in 1953 during the Cold War, which is still in force today. Students have to complete a variety of differentiated tasks which focus on the causes and consequences of the war and evaluate the reasons for the subsequent stalemate. The central enquiry of this and subsequent lessons is to ask why did civilians fear for their lives during the Cold War? Students will map out their ideas each lesson (which can be plotted in different colours or dates to show the progress of their learning and centred around the key question) and build up a picture of how these and different countries in the world responded and acted in this new nuclear age. The resource comes in PowerPoint formats if there is a wish to adapt and change and is differentiated. I have also included suggested teaching strategies to deliver the lesson.

Cold War The aim of this lesson is to analyse the moon landings during the Cold War and the subsequent conspiracy theories which suggest it was faked and not real at all. Students have to decide why it was so important for the USA and NASA to be the first to put a man on the moon with Apollo 11 and prioritise their reasoning using their knowledge of the Cold War. They analyse footage from the time and are introduced to Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to emphasise this audacious achievement in 1969. However they also analyse sources from the time and different interpretations making their own sustained judgements as to whether the moon landings were fake or fiction. They finish with writing an extended piece on the evidence they have selected and are given some argument words to help if required. The plenary required them to judge if further facts are fake or authentic news. The central enquiry of this and subsequent lessons is to ask why did civilians fear for their lives during the Cold War? Students will map out their ideas each lesson (which can be plotted in different colours or dates to show the progress of their learning and centred around the key question) and build up a picture of how these and different countries in the world responded and acted in this new nuclear age. The resource comes in Powerpoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change and is differentiated. I have also included suggested teaching strategies to deliver the lesson.

Cold War The aims of this lesson are to explain what the Cold War was in post war Europe and how it developed between the two existing Superpowers in 1945. The USA and the USSR had different ideologies and students will learn the differences between Capitalism and Communism. Furthermore, despite cordial relations at the three meetings held before the end of the war at Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam, suspicions were soon aroused. Students will analyse the preceding decisions made about the divisions of Germany and Berlin and make informed judgements as to why these suspicions developed especiallu after Churchill’s Iron Curtain speech. The central enquiry of this and subsequent lessons is to ask why did civilians fear for their lives? Students will map out their ideas each lesson (which can be plotted in different colours or dates to show the progress of their learning and centred around a lightbulb) and build up a picture of how these and different countries in the world responded and acted in this new nuclear age. The resource comes in PowerPoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change and is differentiated. I have also included suggested teaching strategies to deliver the lesson.

The Cold War The aim of this lesson is to explore the winds of change within the USSR during the Cold War as Perestroika and Glasnost are introduced with the appointment of Mikhail Gorbachev as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. But despite all the achievements he made, was it all in vain and just how successful was he with the Soviet Union in his short six years in office? Students are required to emoji rate the problems facing Gorbachev in 1985 and then justify the most serious one using a pressure gauge. Furthermore they have to evaluate how successful his policies were and how they were received in the west as compared to back home, with the fall of the Berlin Wall and Eastern Europe revolutions. A thinking quilt at the end challenges their thinking as they have to group all they have learnt into categories and then explain the significance of each fact. The central enquiry of this and subsequent lessons is to ask why did civilians fear for their lives during the Cold War? Students will map out their ideas each lesson (which can be plotted in different colours or dates to show the progress of their learning and centred around the key question) and build up a picture of how these and different countries in the world responded and acted in this new nuclear age. The resource comes in PowerPoint formats if there is a wish to adapt and change and is differentiated. I have also included suggested teaching strategies to deliver the lesson.

The Industrial Revolution The aim of this aim is to assess why coal became known as ‘black gold’. Students learn how important coal was to the Industrial Revolution and how it was used in a number of areas. However the interesting facts focus on its extraction and yet again the dangers involved for all concerned, especially children. Students have to rate how effective the various measures put in place were to overcome some of the problems They also have to tackle some historical hexagonals to get them thinking and linking all the information together. A find and fix plenary should test their recall and knowledge from the lesson. The lesson is enquiry based with a key question using a lightbulb posed at the start of the lesson and revisited at the end to show the progress of learning. The resource comes in PowerPoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change. I have also included suggested teaching strategies to deliver the lesson and there are differentiated materials included.

This guide is aimed at students to help them study, revise and be prepared for the AQA Elizabethan Historic Environment question for 2025. I have broken down the main details into manageable chunks using the 5 w’s of what, where, when, why and who , This guide has been revised from my 2018 version and focuses on the main concepts of location, function, structure, design, people connected to it, the culture, values and fashions of the time and how the site links to important events of the period. I have also included all the key information needed such as Bess’s background and status, the latest in fashions and the designing of Hardwick Hall as well as its furnishings and garden layout. Please note that many of the pictures from the AQA guidance on Hardwick Hall are not included due to copyright. Please feel free to therefore adapt the guide and include them. Any reviews on this resource would be greatly appreciated

The aim of this lesson is to understand why building trenches led to a static war of attrition in the First World War. It focuses on some key questions: Why did they build trenches in World War I in the first place? Why were the trenches built in zig zags? Why were there lines of trenches behind the front ones and how did they use the barbed wire and sandbags? Through video footage and visual aids, students build up a picture of what a trench looked like, the equipment a soldier would have to carry to build them and the advantages and disadvantages of protecting themselves in a trench. Key knowledge Bingo for the plenary will test students understanding of the lesson. The lesson is enquiry based with a key question of ‘How frightening was the First World War?’ using a lightbulb posed at the start of the lesson and revisited throughout the lesson and this unit of study to show the progress of learning. The resource includes retrieval practice activities, suggested teaching strategies and differentiated materials, and comes in PowerPoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.

**The First World War ** The aim of this lesson is to question how successful Lord Kitchener’s recruitment drive was in 1914 and how ‘frightening’ it might be to sign up for the First World World War. The lesson shows students how the themes of heroism, patriotism, shame and anti-German feeling led to thousands of young men volunteering to join the army and enlist in World War I. Students are led through video footage, an extract from Private Peaceful and Government propaganda posters to analyse how these four key themes were utilised to recruit young men into the army. They also learn about the success in the recruitment of Pals Battalions from the Caribbean and India, to the Footballers Battalion of Walter Tull, as well from towns across the country. They will also learn about the horror and frightening consequences of this policy especially with what happened to the Accrington Pals in 1916. The lesson is enquiry based with a key question using a lightbulb posed at the start of the lesson and revisited throughout the lesson and this unit of study to show the progress of learning. The resource includes retrieval practice activities, suggested teaching strategies and differentiated materials, and comes in PowerPoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.

Edexcel GCSE Medicine in Britain c.1250 to present. The aim of the Medicine Revision Guide is to help students with their revision for the History GCSE exam. 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.

I have produced these Bitesize Cards to help my GCSE History students revise. They summarise the content for the Germany 1890-1945, Democracy and Dictatorship course, which can be overwhelming for some students. They contain the main events, people and key words needed for the exam. Students can use these 14 cards in lessons or for homelearning to help them with recall, retrieval and retention. I also use them as starters in the lessons or for interleaving to help with the course content. I have broken down the revision cards down into the following themes: Kaiser Wilhelm The Treaty of Versailles Problems in Germany Super Stresemann The Rise of Hitler Hitler’s consolidation of Power The Nazi Police State The Nazi economy Propaganda Youth groups and women Churches Opposition Persecution to Genocide The German Homefront They have proved a great success as a revision tool. I have also posted them on our google classroom (digital platform) so students can access them, when GCSE practice questions are set or they are required to revise for an assessment test. They simply need cutting, hole punching and tying with treasury tags, or simply stapling together. I have included both PDF and PowerPoint versions if you wish to amend or adapt.