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.
This bundle follows the Key Stage 3 National Curriculum - the development of Church, state and society in Britain 1509-1745.
I have designed the lessons to be challenging and engaging as well as fun and enjoyable.
The aims of this bundle are to know and understand how peoples’ lives were shaped by the Tudors from Henry VII to Mary I, how they changed the course of British history and why we are still fascinated by their lives today.
Students will learn and understand key historical skills throughout; for example, the concepts of continuity and change under Henry VII after the Wars of the Roses, recognising the causes and consequences of Henry’s break with Rome, explaining the similarities and differences in the reigns of the Tudors, analysing the significance of the Black Tudors and Edward VI as well as evaluating sources and interpretations, such as the reputation of Mary 1.
The 12 lessons are broken down into the following:
L1 The War of the Roses
L2 An introduction to the Tudors (free lesson)
L3 Henry VII
L4 Henry VIII introduction
L5 Did Henry VIII break with Rome for love?
L6 Did Henry VIII break with Rome for faith?
L7 Did Henry VIII break with Rome for money?
L8 The dissolution of the monasteries
L9 The sinking of the Mary Rose
L10 Edward VI
L11 Bloody Mary
L12 Black Tudors
Each lesson comes with suggested teaching and learning strategies and are linked to the latest historical interpretations and debate from the BBC and other sources.
The lessons are fully adaptable in PowerPoint format and can be changed to suit. I have included a free lesson to give an idea of what is being offered.
Although this bundle is aimed at Key Stage 3, it is ideal if you are studying the Tudors for GCSE as it covers the main themes, concepts and skills required.
World War II
The aim of this lesson is to question Britain’s policy of appeasement in the 1930’s, but also defend the decision Chamberlain took.
Students have to make up their own minds through a variety of learning tasks which include gathering evidence from video footage of the time, completing a card sort activity, creating causational chains and analysing sources from the time.
Some higher order questions at the end are aimed at getting them to think and challenge the perceptions they have made about appeasement.
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 at the end 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.
World War II
The aim of this lesson is to analyse the reasons behind Hitler’s invasion of Poland and to evaluate if his actions were justified.
Within this lesson, students learn about Blitzkrieg, making comparisons with the static and attritional First World War and understanding how the German Army had learnt from their previous mistakes.
Students have to also complete a thinking quilt to test their comprehension and literacy skills as it requires them to explain and justify these initial German successes in 1939 and 1940.
The plenary finally asks the students to predict what is about to happen in the future through conjecture and formulation their opinions using the information from the lesson.
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 activities, suggested teaching strategies and differentiated materials, and comes in Powerpoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.
What happens at a slave auction? How are the slaves prepared? Who attends the auction? Who is chosen and why?
This lesson attempts to answer these questions and more; from branding to advertisements and the auction itself.
Students also learn of the heartache and pain of those who are sold and how and why slaves are sold at different prices.
They are also challenged in a task to think who would be more expensive and why.
By the end of the lesson, students have to give examples in a true or false quiz of what they have learned in the lesson, including having to decide the worst aspects of the slave auction.
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 this lesson is to analyse life in a slave plantation.
What was a typical day like? How hard was the work? Was it made easier by the invention of the cotton gin? How did they relax if at all in the evening and what were their living quarters like?
Learning tasks include comparing a day in their school life with the day of a plantation slave and recognising the hardships endured.
Students also have to use a number of sources, which are differentiated according to ability and challenge a statement which suggests a slave’s life wasn’t really that bad.
The plenary asks them to use four letters and come up with as many associated words as they can from their learning.
The lesson comes with a retrieval practice activity, suggested teaching and learning strategies and is linked to the latest historical interpretations, video clips and debate.
The lesson is fully adaptable in PowerPoint format and can be changed to suit.
This is the complete bundle in a series of lessons I have created for AQA GCSE 9-1 Britain: Health and the People, c.1000-present.
I have taught this course for more than 20 years now and have decided to completely overhaul my lessons to bring them up to date with the latest teaching and learning ideas I have picked up and with a focus on the new 9-1 GCSE.
Furthermore I have dispensed with learning objectives to focus on specific enquiry based questions which address skills required for the GCSE questions.
As well as focusing on GCSE exam practice questions, the lessons are all differentiated and are tailored to enable the students to achieve the highest grades. They are also fully resourced and contain easy to print worksheets.
The lessons will allow students to demonstrate (AO1) knowledge and understanding of the key features and characteristics of the periods studied from the impact of Hippocrates and Galen on medieval medicine to the new ideas of the Renaissance, the laissez-faire approach of preceding Governments through to modern day Government and the nanny state.
They will study (AO2) second-order concepts such as change and continuity in the development of ideas about disease as well as the causes and consequences of medical treatment throughout the ages
The analysis and evaluation of sources (AO3) are used in for example, surgery, Public Health and the introduction of the NHS whilst substantiated judgements are made (AO4) on the discovery and development of penicillin, the development of the welfare state and the influence of the seven factors in medicine.
The lessons are as follows:
L1 An introduction to the course
L2 Hippocrates and Galen
L3 The influence of the Christian Church
L4 Islamic Medicine (free resource)
L5 Doctors and surgeons in the Middle Ages
L6 Public Health in the Medieval towns
L7 The Black Death and the Plague
L8 Renaissance Medicine
L9 Medicine in the 17th and 18th Century (free resource)
L10 John Hunter
L11 Edward Jenner and smallpox
L12 Surgery in the 19th Century
L13 Florence Nightingale and hospitals
L14 Pasteur, Koch and Tyndall
L15 Public Health in the 19th Century
L16 Liberal Reforms
L17 Medicine and war (free resource)
L18 Magic Bullets and the Pharmaceutical Industry
L19 Penicillin
L20 The NHS
L21 How to answer the factor question
Please note that setting a full mock examination in class after completing each unit is strongly recommended (L1-7, L8-15 and L16-21).
All the examination resources and markschemes are subject to copyright but can easily be found on the AQA website.
Unfortunately TES restrict bundles to 20 lessons and therefore please download Lesson 17 separately, which is a free resource.
AQA GCSE 9-1 Elizabethan England, 1568-1603
The overarching aim of this and the subsequent bundle of eleven lessons is to question and explore how Elizabeth tried to assert and establish her authority in the early years of her reign.
The lessons are therefore linked together to build up a picture of her difficulties in trying to overcome this.
This second lesson on Elizabeth focuses on the workings of her government. Where did the real power lie in Elizabethan England?
Students question who Elizabeth might want in her government and using a text mapping exercise find out who is who in the different establishments.
The second part of the lesson examines a significance question and compares the inner workings of her government to today’s cabinet and the role of Parliament.
Students have to write about the importance of the Royal Court using the information provided, which is also linked to a brilliant BBC video clip and with a model answer included.
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 Tudors
The aim of this lesson is to discover why the Elizabethan Poor Law was introduced and to assess its impact on Elizabethan society and beyond.
Students first of all have to analyse the causes of poverty and prioritise which has been the main reason for its increase whether that be the actions of local landowners and Henry VIII in his break with Rome or the debasement of the coinage.
They are also required to write to the local landowner, using suggested key argument words, to express their sympathy for the poor which was in sort supply in the Elizabethan era.
As well as source analysis, students learn the so called tricks of the trade for begging and how Tudor propaganda shaped these negative views of the poor.
Students subsequently have to assess the details of the new Elizabethan Poor Law, the reasons for a change in attitude towards the poor and assess its significance and impact upon society as a whole.
The final task is to talk like an historian and answer the questions in a quiz picking up points for the harder questions.
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.
This lesson aims to examine the reasons why King John quarrelled with his barons and ultimately was forced to sign the Magna Carta.
But on which terms was King John forced to accept?
Firstly students have to work out what the terms of the Magna Carta were.
Secondly students have to evaluate the significance of the Magna Carta in the short, medium and long term for King John, for future Kings of England as well as for us today.
They will use sources and video footage as well as retrieval grids and a true or false quiz to help them in their research,
They will also continue to plot the power struggle between the king, the church, the barons and the people in a sequence of lessons.
This lesson includes:
Fun, engaging and challenging tasks
Links to video footage
Printable worksheets
Differentiated tasks
Suggested teaching strategies
PowerPoint format, which can be changed to suit
The French Revolution
The aim of this lesson is to assess the personalities and characters of King Louis and Marie Antoinette and how these contributed to the French Revolution.
Students are required to build up a picture of the French monarchy using some source scholarship and written accounts from the time.
This will enable them to decide and explain the most important reasons why they became so unpopular with the French population.
Furthermore, they will be required to chart a popularity rating for each of them and justify their choices, using some extended writing techniques.
The plenary uses a summarising pyramid to evaluate and condense what they have learnt in the lesson.
The lesson comes with retrieval practice activities, differentiated materials, suggested teaching and learning strategies 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 Industrial Revolution
This lesson aims to describe and explain the conditions of Victorian prisons through the eyes of a young person awaiting trial.
Students learn how a poor diet, pointless tasks and a payment system for every amenity meant a miserable existence for inmates.
So why did things begin to improve? How did key prison reformers change attitudes and make the government of the day reform the prisons?
These questions and more will explored through prose, quizzes, video links and knockout tournament competitions to see and judge how far the prison reforms went and how effective they were.
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.
Germany 1890-1945: Democracy and Dictatorship
This lesson looks at how Hitler transformed himself and the Nazi Party to be able to secure enough votes to become Chancellor by 1933.
Many GCSE questions centre around why people voted for the Nazis before 1933. This lesson shows how he was able to do this focusing on four main areas: his beliefs, organisation, leadership skills and voters.
How he dressed, spoke, acted and performed in public were crucial in his propaganda assault on the German people.
Students write this up and evaluate the success of this transformation using worksheets, video footage and visual aids.
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.
Germany 1890-1945: Democracy and Dictatorship
This lesson focuses on the change in policy towards the treatment of the Jews by the Nazis.
Students have to put events into chronological order and understand why the beginning of World War II changed everything.
Students also learn about the Wannsee Conference and the experimental attempts by the Nazis to murder the Jews in Europe from shooting to mobile gas vans before deciding upon the use of Zyklon B crystals.
Using numbers and figures they also discover the sheer scale of the atrocities involved in this genocide and what happened in the concentration camps.
There are some excellent links to video evidence to accompany the lesson, which are suitable to show.
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.
American Civil Rights
This lesson questions how far the African American community in America has come since the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The lesson starts with focusing on the inspirational actions of two American athletes during the Mexico Olympics of 1968.
The students are questioned on the symbolic nature of their protest and how their message had far reaching implications.
Seven case studies are investigated by the students from the achievements of Michael Johnson and Barak Obama to the tragic incidents surrounding Rodney King, James Byrd and George Floyd.
There is much accompanying video footage as well as differentiated tasks to enable students to make a judgement at the end.
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, differentiated materials and comes in Powerpoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.
AQA GCSE 9-1 Britain: Health and the People, c1000 to present
The aim of this lesson is to determine how much of an impact the Renaissance had on Medicine.
Students study and analyse Vesalius, Pare and Harvey with their individual specialisms and contributions at the time of the Renaissance.
They then have to decide who has made the most important contribution to medicine and justify their decisions thinking about short, medium and long term significance.
Opposition to all three is evaluated as students decide who was being criticised and why.
There is a brilliant video link to bbc teach as well as learning activities to check understanding.
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.
World War II
The aim of this lesson is to challenge the Government’s claim that during World War Two, a Blitz spirit of togetherness emerged across the country in defiance of the bombing of Britain’s cities.
This lesson takes students on a journey through archive video footage, government announcements and source information to determine if there was indeed a Blitz Spirit during the war.
Students are given details of what the Blitz entailed using some contextual evidence and a thinking quilt.
They then have to analyse and evaluate a variety of sources and statistics before they conclude and justify which sources best suit the driving question of the lesson.
The plenary is a take on the television programme, ‘Would I lie to you?’ and the idea is to again challenge assumptions.
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 includes retrieval practice activities, suggested teaching strategies and differentiated materials.
It comes in PowerPoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.
World War II
The aim of this lesson is to question if it was really necessary for the Allies to bomb Dresden in World War II.
Sir Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris stands today as a controversial figure and therefore the lesson revolves around his reputation; did he bring an the end of the war with the bombing raids and save thousands of lives or the reverse?
The lesson builds up a picture of why the bombing raids on Germany were stepped up, how the Government used propaganda posters to justify these and why Dresden was a ‘legitimate’ target.
Differentiated tasks analyse the consequences of the bombing on Dresden and a mini plenary checks understanding.
The ultimate task is for the students to decide if he was a war hero or a criminal, with prompts and help if required.
The plenary challenges the students to link the key words to controversial themes developed throughout the lesson.
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 activities, suggested teaching strategies and differentiated materials, and comes in Powerpoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.
World War II
The aim of this lesson is to understand how the British Government prepared for war and if they were successful in doing so.
The lesson begins by analysing a source and making inferences about the precautions to be taken in times of war.
Furthermore students will also have to decide the Government’s priorities by making judgements as to whether they are low or high, from ideas such as rationing to aid raids or war work to conscription.
They will then complete some research focusing on four areas: warning people of air attacks, the Homeguard, the use of gas masks and the blackout.
Students will plot what the government did or didn’t do on a grid and then after analysing and processing the evidence, justify their conclusions using a colour coding evaluation table as well as completing an extended written task.
The plenary requires students to answer differentiated questions to check their understanding.
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.
The British Empire
This lesson aims to question whether Britain was in India for the right reasons.
The subject matter is the East India Company and a study of how it slowly took over the country of India taking with it a precious diamond and making a fortune out of its trade. There are some great video links used here from the BBC and Dan Snow which help bring reasoning and clarity.
Students are asked if we should return the Koh-i-Noor diamond to India, the jewel in the British crown, after analysing some important evidence.
Students are also given key words to help them with their arguments as to whether the diamond should be returned to India or not.
The final activity focuses on the legacy of the East India Company and who benefitted from their rule before the company’s eventual collapse.
The lesson comes with retrieval practice activities, suggested teaching and learning strategies and are linked to the latest historical interpretations, video clips and debate.
The lesson is enquiry based with a key question of who benefitted from the Empire 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.
World War II
The aim of this lesson is to understand how the British Government prepared for war and why it introduced rationing.
The lesson begins by deciding which foods were rationed and why. Students will also have to work out which foods also became unavailable and the reasons for this.
There has always been an assumption that as foods were rationed and restricted, people on the Home Front therefore struggled to make ends meet.
Students are given information on all the goods rationed and compare this to the recommended weekly healthy intake per person today. As they will soon find out, rationing did not always mean everyone suffered as a result.
Students will also be required to analyse the effectiveness of some posters at the time, encouraging people to grow their own food and well as a comprehension task and a challenging thinking quilt on clothes rationing.
The plenary uses flashcards to question their understanding of the lesson.
The lesson comes complete with embedded videos and a lesson plan on how to use the activities.
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.
