This is a powerful lesson which really gives students pause for thought. The class start with a what’s behind the squares activity which reveals a female Soviet sniper and which is designed to stimulate discussion about the nature of war. The class then read through an incredibly detailed set of notes before beginning a design-a-memorial task for which they are expected to include precise historical detail. The lesson concludes with a powerful piece of source analysis which invites further informed comment on the nature of fighting on the Eastern Front. I hope your students get as much out of this lesson as mine do.

In this lesson students work through a comprehensive set of notes before attempting a Tarsia card sort activity to consolidate knowledge acquired. The lesson concludes with a game of Nazism Guess Who whereby students ask only questions which require a yes/no response (they can use the internet to help respond). Please note prior to purchase this game works best if you already have a board upon which you can stick the pictures! I hope your students find this lesson on Widerstand as useful as mine always do.

My students always find Dingbats a really engaging starter and one which sets a nice tone for the lesson. The class then work through a set of detailed notes which are high on precision before consolidating their learning by selecting two reasons for and two reasons against the policy and using this information to complete the newspaper template. I hope your students enjoy this lesson as much as mine do.

In this powerful lesson students begin with a what’s behind the squares activity designed to get them questioning why an Olympic polo player might have been bloodied. They then work through a very detailed set of notes before completing a 48 piece hexagonal card sort which is colour coded into causes, events, and consequences. This activity is designed to ensure students can identify links and causation as well as encouraging them to select the most compelling piece of evidence. This then leads to a piece of extended written work. Students complete this lesson with a source matrix on a famous Vicky Weisz cartoon from the Daily Mirror to draw out their findings. I hope your students enjoy it as much as mine.

In this lesson students begin by identifying what’s behind the squares in the starter activity which leads to source analysis which is designed to introduce the Key Question - What were the motives of the Big Three at Versailles? The class then explore a detailed set of notes before being issued a character card. The class then hotseat in role using the masks provided before concluding with a ‘Have I got News for You?’ style plenary in which they have to fill in the gaps to show comprehension. I hope your students gain as much from this lesson as mine do.

My students love this lesson. I created it for a local history unit when I worked in Shanghai but now use it as part of my unit on C20th China. The class begin with an odd one out activity designed to get them thinking about the period. They then work through a detailed set of notes before being divided up into high society and seedy underbelly. Students create a collage of their aspect of society using the card sort and take part in a freeze frame activity. The lesson concludes with a fun game of Dingbats to test subject knowledge.

I designed this lesson when I taught History in Shanghai and so have used that city as a case study but it works really well in a unit on C21st China. In this lesson students complete an odd one out activity designed to hook them into the topic. They then work through detailed background notes and sources before attempting to complete a range of questions. The lesson concludes with a fun formative assessment task (‘Last Historian Standing’) to test them on the subject knowledge they will have acquired during this lesson. I hope you students get just as much from this lesson as mine do.

In this very detailed lesson students have the opportunity to tackle on the of the greatest history mystery activities around! The lesson begins with a Power Point activity designed to captivate the class from the go and they view a short video outlining differences people have on this question. The class then work through a detailed set of background notes to enrich their knowledge before attempting a 26 piece evidence sort. The class work in pairs or individually to place each piece of evidence into a column - they are colour co-ordinated to differentiate where required - some evidence suggests the landings were real and others suggest they were a hoax. Once complete the class use this as a scaffold to write an answer to the question ‘did man really walk on the moon in 1969?’ before voting online in their plenary activity. It really is a lesson (for high school students) which engineers original thought and allows students to discriminate between evidence to arrive at a well thought out conclusion. My students always find this a fascinating lesson and a great part of any Cold War unit or stand-alone activity. I hope yours enjoy it as much as mine do. You can find alternatives on this site which address this question and which cost a tiny bit less but I don’t think they have the level of detail and precision as you will find here :-)

This lesson begins with a fun starter activity where students view images of Putin and are introduced to the idea that Russians like a tough muzhik style leader (Geoffrey Hosking). They then read through a detailed 4-page pack of notes before completing a card sort where they divide information onto two ‘roads’ - one that suggests Russia was legitimately on the road to reform and democracy, and one that suggests it was on the road to revolution because of a Tsar who refused to give up any power. Students are then expected to write a short response to the overall question before the plenary which shows them two different Historians’ views on this question (Pipes and Morison). The class are asked to vote by standing either on the left or right of the room. I hope you enjoy this lesson as much as I do when I deliver it and please do ask me if you have any questions. The lesson is pitched at high achieving secondary school students.

This is a great project-based lesson designed to introduce students to the topic of Ancient China and to the second-order concept of significance and includes graduated learning outcomes (all of you will/most of you will/some of you will). The lesson begins with a quick starter activity where students have to guess which of four sports was not invented in China. They’re often a bit surprised by the answer (table tennis) and this leads on to a second activity in which they have to see how many inventions which originated in China they can identify (the rocket, paper, wheelbarrows - 21 are given in total). From this the class are then introduced to the idea of how historians decide what makes an event or discovery significant and they explore the acronym GREAT: G = ground-breaking, R = remembered, E = extent of importance to people at the time, A = affected the future, and T = turning point. For the main task students are given a card with three different inventions on. They need to choose one of their inventions and explain in presentation form why they felt it was so significant. The lesson concludes with a class vote on which they felt was the most important invention and why. I’ve also thrown in an assessment rubric should you wish to turn the project into a formal assessment. Please note this lesson was designed for high achieving Year 7 students with the ability to do their own research (some websites are given) but it also works well as a great library-based lesson depending on the resources you have in yours. Please let me know if you have any questions and I hope your students get as much from this lesson as mine always do.

In this lesson students are given a quick odd one out activity as a starter to invite them to consider the positives and negatives of Capone, the notorious gangster. The PPT then offers them some background information and the learning objectives are broken down into all of you will/most of you will/and some of you will. The main activity is a 44-piece card sort and there is a slide explaining the answers to this also. The lesson concludes with a short voting plenary where students are asked to side with the views of different personalities when answering the question as to whether Capone was as “black as they say” to use his own words. This lesson has been designed for high achieving high school students and please do note I use English spellings (eg colour) throughout. If you have any questions please do not hestitate to contact me.

This lesson begins with an introduction to some perspectives about Gorbachev and then the class are invited to take part in a ‘what would you do?’ starter activity. They are given 12 scenarios (ranging from the war in Afghanistan through to economic stagnation through to Chernobyl and so on) and have to decide on one of three possible options. When they have completed all twelve issues/scenarios they are given a score for each answer which explains what kind of a leader they are. After this the class move on to the meat of the lesson which is a forty-eight piece card sort (including some images). The class need the information into those relating to foreign policy, perestroika (political and economic), glasnost, foreign policy, and nationalities issues. They glue these to a large piece of paper and label on successes/failures and causes/consequences. There are two versions of this card sort included so as to differentiate (one is colour coded already and has some key prompts emboldened). Once complete it leads to a good discussion of why Gorbachev acted the way he did and what the impact of his policies was. The lesson concludes by referring back to earlier perspectives and applying the knowledge acquired to see if the class agree or disagree with these before reviewing Gorbachev’s own conclusions on his rule. I have pitched this lesson towards high achieving post-16 students. Please let me know if you have any questions and I hope your students gain as much from this lesson as mine do.

This lesson begins with an ‘Odd One Out’ starter activity where students are asked to look at four people (Honecker, Emperor Qin, Emperor Hadrian, and Donald Trump) and to offer reasons for one of them being the odd one out. The answer we are looking for is that they all built walls bar Trump whose proposed southern wall was never built. That introduces the concept of walls and their purpose. The class then take part in an escape room activity. (Please note this takes a bit of setting up to be done properly, but can be done more simply if missions and codes are just printed back to back - just tell students they can’t turn over the page until you have verified they have got the code correct). Nevertheless, if you can it is a whole lot more enjoyable with boxes and padlocks! There are six missions - each with background information about key turning points in the Wall’s History (from the end of WWII and the split through to the Berlin Blockade through to the border being closed through to barbed wire Sunday through to the Next Gen Wall through to Escape attempts). Each mission is then completed on the worksheet. Please note I do not cover the collapse of Communism or the fall of the wall here (because I cover that in a separate lesson). The lesson concludes with a ‘play your cards right’ chronology activity in which the students use the knowledge they have gained to test their awareness of key events and dates. The lesson comes with an accompanying 11-page set of notes. I hope your students get as much out of this fun lesson as mine always do and please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

If you teach a six period day like me I hope you enjoy this simple, editable resource. Just amend the timings, text, and colour code your lessons. Feel free to swing by my shop to have a look at hundreds of other resources.

This is one of my most popular lesson activities. Students read detailed background knowledge before completing a hexagonal card sort to divide reasons up into belief systems, technology, geography and economics. Here students will make links between their factors to create a visual map which they can use for an extended piece of written analysis. I am especially proud of the level of precision and detail in the historical content here. The eighteen cards are broken down and color coordinated for differentiation purposes. I really hope you enjoy this activity and that your students get as much from it as mine do.

In this lesson students read very detailed information in the background notes before creating a factor-led mind map. Please watch the accompanying short video to see some of my students in action in this lesson. Its a great way for them to acquire super strong subject knowledge and to visually map out Deng’s domestic rule.

During this lesson students work their way through a fantastically precise and detailed set of background notes before completing a 33 piece evidence sort. Students are asked to arrange the evidence firstly into industrial and agricultural, and then into successes and failures. This is a brilliant lesson which suits many learners’ needs and in particular which appeals to high-end learners. I hope your students get as much from this set of activities as mine do. If you watch the short video clip attached you can see some of my students putting this knowledge to good use.

In this lesson students read through precise and carefully selected knowledge in the background notes before attempting a colour-coordinated hexagonal card sort. This helps them break reasons for the Key Question down into factors and also offers them the opportunity to make and explain links between the evidence they choose. My students really enjoy this lesson and I hope yours get just as much out of it as mine do.

Students read through the background notes before using this knowledge to help them create a physical timeline in the form of a road map. Click the link to watch just how powerful a teaching strategy this can be for raising chronological awareness as well as boosting subject knowledge significantly. I hope your students enjoy the lesson as much as mine do!

Includes detailed 4 page set of notes, starter activity, question pack, and exit ticket plenary.