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.

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.

Attached is a couple of lessons work on the Boer war. Within the ppt, there is a link to a super documentary available on you tube called Scorched Earth. There is a worksheet to guide students through the programme - with various activities for students to complete. There is also a supplied answer sheet for teaching staff. The lesson will requires students to have access to the War in Society text book by Hodder education. There is a worksheet which can be printed off for students to complete regarding the impacts of the war on British society on the ppt - once they have an understanding of the background. There is also an SEN version of this on the ppt. At the end there are some exam style questions linking to the various imperial wars as recommended by OCR.

Included in this whole lesson - is an brief overview and background to the Crimean war. There is a worksheet - linked to the ppt, to help students get a quick grasp of what, who, when, where and why. There is then an activity for students to complete to cover the impact of the conflict on British society. Within the PPT there is a newspaper template for students to complete, reflecting the importance of news reporting, and the unexpected heroes: the troops and nurses. There is also a template for SEN students to use, where they can fill in the gaps and then complete the section on the nurses themselves, to help speed up the process. The SEN worksheet will need the War and Society - Explaining the Modern World Hodder Education Text book.

This resource covers all of OCR A explaining the Modern world - covering Interwar and Origins of WW2, Causes of the Cold War, Cold War crises and confrontations, the end of the Cold War and Post Cold War and USA 1945-1975 The Land of Liberty? There are numerous slides with different revision activities on each, all closely linked to the OCR specification. After each topic task slide there is a following slide which has sample questions which can be used to test student’s knowledge. These are all in the style of questions which will appear on the exam. These can be printed off in a booklet format (I have done this for my own groups) so that they can have support with their revision at home. This resource is perfect for all year 11 History students, but is something that could also be used for year 10 as part of the ongoing need for constant revision for this course.

This is a lesson which divides the class into groups and allows them to be creative with the vast amounts of evidence required for this course. Students are to all work as journalists to complete a newspaper on the Elizabethan wars. Each journalist will have their own jobs to complete, but the task is set so that should anyone finish, they can help the others complete their jobs and put together the newspaper. The ultimate goal is for each group to have completed their own newpaper of the Elizabethan wars and their impact on English Society. At the end of the ppt there is a GCSE 10 mark question which encourages students to investigate why Elizabeth chose to fight as she did.

Approx two lessons. After the teaching of the Spanish Armada. First lesson deals with the historical skill of how historians work and the concept of historical significance using the 5 Rs of significance. Examples to encourage discussion and thought involve Covid and the invasion of Ukraine. Students can then make notes around what each of the 5Rs are and how they can be used to judge historical significance. There is then a short documentary by Dan Snow that explains some great examples of how the victory was historically significant. It is advisable that the video is stopped regularly and the concepts of the 5Rs discussed to allow students greater opportunities to share their knowledge and views and so that they can then record their knowledge in the appropriate spaces in the worksheet. I have then used this to formulate a long answer question on their end of unit assessment.

An attractive timeline covering some of the key events from the Early Modern Period such as the Reformation in Europe, the dissolution of the monasteries, the English Civil War and the Jacobite rebellions. This is to support student’s chronological understanding and so that they can begin to see how the events link rather than just view them in isolation. Each student has a copy of this in their books and it forms part of their knowledge organiser.

For the OCR modern World specification with the castles unit and the study of the historic environment. Kenilworth Castle is the chosen English Heritage site for the OCR A paper in 2019. The booklet is designed to guide you through the castle and enable you and your students to note specific key changes to the building, whilst allowing time for students to take pictures for their notes. The booklet has a combination of factual questions, based on students reading the history of the castle (supplied by OCR) before attending and questions based on general knowledge of castles throughout the ages. There is an answer booklet supplied also. There is also attached a pdf of all of the photos that I took. These can be used in their own right for students to label and refer to, especially if you are unable to attend the site. I have also attached the project sheet that our GCSE students are completing over the summer based on their site visit and prior reading of the history of the castle.

A lesson examining the requirements for the AQA A2 syllabus the American Dream Primary source work. The lesson briefly covers what the students need to do for each primary source. This should NOT be set as a cover lesson, it needs teacher guidance through the analysis. Students can work in pairs or threes, they are to analyse their source (on the ppt - I would print and blow these up to A3). they are to spend 5/6 mins completing what they can examining content and argument, tone and emphasis, provenance and contextual knowledge. Students are then to swap their source with another pair and continue analysing another source. Ideally all pairs should have seen all six sources. Once everyone has seen and had ago at annotating the sources, these can then be collated and a set photocopied for all students to have a mini booklet of sample answers.

This is a one hour revision lesson on Imperial warfare covering the Seven years war, the Napoleonic, Boer and Crimean wars and their impacts on British society. The worksheet contains numerous tasks from making notes, to categorising. This is to enable the students to access a lot of material quickly so that they are then able to get onto the more important tasks of planning and answering GCSE style questions.

This is two lessons work which charts the rise of Hitler and the Nazis to total power over Germany by 1934 and the death of President Hindenburg. There is a worksheet with questions which follows a short video linked in the ppt and then there is a consolidation exercise where students are encouraged to write paragraphs explaining their knowledge and understanding of the events. There are a number of opportunities where students are asked to evaluate their progress and understanding of these events throughout the lesson. These will work as stand alone lessons, but they do follow nicely on from my first lesson Hitler and the Nazis rise to power - this covers the concepts of democracy and dictatorship and how Germany went from one to the other. These lessons are suitable for KS3 year 9.

A lovely lesson (could easily be several) lessons for GCSE students to revise the international relations unit especially for OCR, but would work really well with AQA and Edexcel modern world syllabuses. The ppt explains the variety of tasks - Various slides should also be printed out as instructions for each table. Some of the tasks are also on the slides, but others are extra attachments such as the explain away game and the timeline cards. This is a good way to keep yr 11 engaged and proactive during those last few lessons.

A quick and simple revision game! This can be played as a whole class, in pairs or small groups, or even individually! Students will need a dice, they roll twice to gain the coordinates for the subject they must then explain. If they can talk relevantly about the topic for over 30 seconds they can double their dice score. This game covers the OCR specification Explaining the modern world from Treaty of Versailles up to the War on Terror.

This is an excellent revision on skills for the OCR modern world A syllabus with the depth study on USA 1945-1975. The lesson has some class led tasks on marking and answering certain styles of questions, with accompanying guidance on how they should go about answering the questions. At the end of the ppt there are extra questions which students can work through either in their own time or in another lesson. The lesson covers the short answer (2 mark), source work and the different types of styles that could be asked as well as the large 18 mark question requiring a balanced answer with a substantiated conclusion at the end.

This activity is an excellent revision, covering all the aspects of the A2 AQA American dream unit from 1945- 1980. Students are asked to categorise the key events from social, economic, political, international and religious and then identify key changes and examples of continuity. The timeline alone is a useful resource for revision and can be printed out and used to check basic knowledge.