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.
The English Civil War
The aims of this lesson are to analyse the Battle of Marston Moor and evaluate how the New Model Army won the battle, as well as to question if Parliament decided to kill the king from the start.
Therefore this lesson comes in two parts.
This first lesson focuses on how the two sides fought in the Civil War.
Students learn about the musketeers and pikemen, before analysing their role in the Battle of Marston Moor.
The students take on the job of Oliver Cromwell and make key decisions to win the battle, gaining points as they go along.
However they must be careful not to make mistakes and lose the battle with catastrophic consequences for Parliament and the New Model Army.
The second part of the lesson looks at an alternative view of the Civil War. Was the decision taken to kill the King early on, or did Parliament arrive painstakingly at this decision over time.
Students plot this on a graph before reaching and justifying their own conclusions, using some argument words for help if required.
A lightbulb is 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.
The Holocaust
The aims of this lesson are to explain how discrimination and persecution of the Jews within Germany led ultimately to their extermination and genocide.
Therefore this lesson must be delivered with care; it is also recommended that it is taught and delivered over two lessons.
The first part of the lesson is to explain the increasing persecution of the Jews within Germany as students analyse the events of Kristallnacht and evaluate its significance as a prelude to the holocaust.
There are worksheets to accompany and excellent video footage explaining the carnage that followed.
The second part of the lesson focuses on the Nazis change of direction on the Jewish question as war prevails and the Jews are rounded up and put into Ghettoes.
Students study the Human Rights Act of 1998 and prioritise which are the most significant and meaningful rights to them. They then apply these right to what happened in the ghettoes and focus on which rights were taken away from the Jews living in them, much to their horror and anger.
The final part of the lesson looks at the Wannsee Conference and the different ways the Nazis tried to exterminate the Jews.
The central enquiry of this and subsequent lessons in the bundle is to ask who was to blame for the holocaust?
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 difficult it is to blame a single individual or event for this catastrophe.
There is an accompanying source task and more excellent video links to life in the ghettoes and the Wannsee conference of 1942.
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.
I have created these set of resources for the History Key Stage 3 National Curriculum ‘challenges for Britain, Europe and the wider world 1901 to the present day.
These lessons are also useful if you are studying Germany at GCSE, where never enough time can be devoted to the holocaust in depth and which students find so fascinating.
The central question throughout these nine lessons is to find out who is to blame for the holocaust. They are closely linked together and students continually plot their ideas around a lightbulb, which can be referred back to each lesson (either dated or colour coded) to show progress throughout.
Pupils will learn the significance and impact of the holocaust on the wider world and be able to see the causes and consequences of the systematic attacks on Jewish communities throughout Europe since the Middle Ages.
They will learn key historical terms such as discrimination, persecution and genocide and understand the differences between concentration and extermination camps. They will be given sources to analyse such as the evidence from Anne Frank’s diary or an anti-Semitism tax return from Norwich in the Middle Ages and make historical inferences from them. Furthermore they will be able to write structured accounts and narratives of who was to blame from the Camp Guards or the SS, to Josef Mengele and the Einsatszgruppen units.
The 10 lessons are broken down into the following:
L1 An introduction to the holocaust
L2 Anti-Semitism in Britain
L3 Anti-Semitism in Europe
L4 Extremism to Extermination
L5 How was it organised?
L6 Who was to blame?
L7 Jewish Resistance
L8 Liberation of the extermination camps
L9 Diary of Anne Frank
L10 Nuremberg Trials
L11 The hunt for Josef Mengele
Each lesson comes with suggested teaching and learning strategies and are linked to the latest historical interpretations and ideas used by current history teachers.
The lessons are fully adaptable in Powerpoint format and can be changed to suit. I have included a couple of free lessons to give an idea of what is being offered.
I strongly recommend using GCSE style questions from your chosen exam board and markschemes to assess the pupils at the end of this unit, which are always available on line.
Cold War
The aim of this lesson is to explore the moon landings 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 to be the first to put a man on the moon 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.
World War I
The aim of this lesson is to question how much Britain valued its Empire soldiers in World War 1.
This subject is very topical at present as historians such as David Olusoga are putting cultural diversity at the forefront of our British history curriculum.
The starting point of the lesson is to analyse the story of Private Johnson Beharry, focusing on his background and the reasons why he was awarded a Victoria Cross, through source or video evidence.
Students will then link his story to World War 1, where they will learn how more V.C.’s were awarded to Empire soldiers than anyone else and discover which parts of the Empire contributed to the war effort and why.
There are case studies in the lesson focused on troops from the Punjab and the West Indies.
The main task students face is to judge how valued Empire soldiers were at the time and if not, how and why they were viewed differently. Ultimately they will need to clarify why this varied widely according to country and race.
They will also be required to write an extended answer using their own opinions, with argument words and scaffolding given if required.
There is a plethora of video evidence to accompany this lesson, with brilliant clips from the BBC and other sources.
Students will finally consolidate their learning by creating sentences from
‘fragments’ and a retrieval task.
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 suggested teaching strategies and differentiated materials, and comes in Powerpoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.
The Tudors
This lesson aims to question the importance of Edward VI and his priorities when he became King.
Recent research has claimed Edward was not a sickly boy at all and therefore this is not the emphasis of the lesson.
Instead students have to think about the importance of religion and the changes he made, even to the extent of altering the succession.
The lesson starts with a play your cards right game, the cards turning and the dates revealed as students are tested on their chronological understanding.
In true world cup fashion, they have to narrow down his fixtures culminating in a final and winning priority.
This lesson challenges students using numbers, a true or false quiz, source work as well as video evidence to give the students a thorough knowledge of his six year reign.
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.
World War II
The aim of this lesson is to understand how the British Government prepared for war.
The lesson leads students through a wealth of primary sources from path𝑒 news, government films and information leaflets.
It analyses how the government used propaganda to rally and convince the nation to stand firm against Hitler and how they could endure and eventually win the war.
How effective and convincing their messages were is up to the students to unpick and judge for themselves.
Primary evidence, which not surprisingly gives a positive outlook on events such as the evacuation of Dunkirk, Churchill’s radio broadcasts and the bombing of cities, is used; but how effective is their message and will the nation adhere to their warnings about spying and what not to say?
Students are questioned throughout the slides and complete some independent research on the types of propaganda posters published.
A summarising pyramid at the end builds upon the evidence and judgements they have made.
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.
The Norman Conquest
This lesson has two aims; to discover if medieval towns were dangerous places to live and to question how dirty and unhygienic they actually were.
Students learn how Medieval towns grew up through Charters and Guilds and how shops and their names and surnames became intertwined. An exercise tests their ability to interpret shop signs.
They analyse a number of statements about the dangers facing townsfolk and evidence this on a road map (or dirt track) using danger symbols and accompanying road signs.
The second part of the lesson focuses on the filth and dirt of Medieval towns and questions how much the local authorities did.
Students evaluate how hygienic towns were, colour coding thermometers and rating each step taken by the local authorities (or not as the case may be).
This lesson is therefore designed to be interactive, fun, challenging and engaging and could be used over two lessons.
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 resource in booklet form sets out the whole AQA GCSE 9-1 Britain: Health and the People c.1000 to present course in two sides of A4, including the exam questions
This is ideal for the student who wants a quick recap before the exam as it sets out all the main details in bullet form.
The summary guide includes all the main individuals, events and discoveries made which are asked in the exam.
It is also great and cheap for quickly printing and giving out for revision lessons, especially when the students claim they cannot remember anything you have taught!
I have included both PDF and Word formats if there is a wish to change and adapt.
Elizabethan England 1568-1603
This is a Summary Revision Guide tailored to the AQA GCSE 9-1 Elizabethan England 1568-1603 unit.
It has also been revised to include the historic environment question for 2024 for the Americas and Drake’s Circumnavigation, with an emphasis on location, function and structure, people connected, design and important events connected to it.
The resource is in booklet form and is ideal for the student who wants a quick recap before the exam as it sets out all the main details in bullet form.
It is also extremely useful and cheap for printing and giving out when the students claim they have forgotten everything they have been taught!
I have included both PDF and Word formats so the resource can be edited and changed to suit.
This 40 page revision guide is tailored to the Edexcel Weimar and Nazi Germany 1918-1939 specification for GCSE 9-1.
It is broken down into 4 main sections: The Weimar Republic, Hitler’s rise to power, Nazi control and dictatorship and life in Nazi Germany.
This revision guide includes 21 GCSE practice exam questions throughout on the 6 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 explanation, inference and interpretation as well as source utility.
The information is also broken down into an easy to use format to aid the students in their revision programme. I have also included some useful mnemonics for specific areas of study which have really helped in the past to remember subject content.
This Guide has been designed to be engaging, detailed and easy to follow and come in PDF format. It can be used for revision, interleaving, homelearning as well as class teaching.
Any reviews on this resource would be much appreciated. Please email me for a free copy of my Edexcel Weimar and Nazi Germany revision summary guide if you do.
This bundle follows the Key Stage 3 National Curriculum - challenges for Britain, Europe and the wider world, 1901 to the present day with a focus on the rise of Dictators
The aims of this bundle are to know and assess the characters and personalities of a number of Dictators of the Twentieth Century and understand how they have shaped our history today.
I have also created and used these lessons to challenge and engage students and to show how much fun learning about this part of history really is.
Students will learn and understand key historical skills throughout such as change and continuity in Dictatorships of the Twentieth Century, the causes and consequences of Castro’s Cuban Revolution and the similarities and differences of Dictators such as Hitler and Stalin.
They will also learn about the significance of the abdication of Tsar Nicholas and his subsequent murder, the execution of Saddam Hussein as well as interpretations as to how much love their was for Chairman Mao in China.
The lessons are as follows:
L1 Tsar Nicholas
L2 Adolf Hitler
L3 Josef Stalin
L4 Benito Mussolini
L5 Chairman Mao
L6 Fidel Castro
L7 Saddam Hussein
L8 Idi Amin
L9 Robert Mugabe
L10 Francisco Franco
This bundle includes some retrieval practice activities, suggested teaching strategies and differentiated materials.
All lessons come in Powerpoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.
I have created these set of resources for the History Key Stage 3 National Curriculum ‘challenges for Britain, Europe and the wider world 1901 to the present day’.
These lessons are also useful if you are studying the Cold War at GCSE, where the students will gain an invaluable insight into the key terms, ideologies, events and people post 1945.
The central question throughout these eleven lessons is to find out why civilians feared for their lives during the Cold War. They are closely linked together and students continually plot their ideas around the key question, which can be referred back to each lesson (either dated or colour coded) to show progress throughout this unit of work.
Pupils will learn the significance and impact of the arms race on the wider world and be able to see the causes and consequences of the Berlin blockade and airlift finally culminating in the building of the Berlin Wall.
They will learn key historical terms such as containment, buffer zones, mutually assured destruction and the domino theory as well as understand the differences between the capitalist and communist ideologies.
They will be given sources to analyse such as the evidence from the moon landings in 1969 and make historical inferences from them as to whether they are fact or fiction.
Furthermore they will be able to write structured accounts and narratives on the Vietnam war as to whether US soldiers committed war crimes by killing innocent civilians or how much of a threat is North Korea to world peace?
Each lesson comes with suggested teaching and learning strategies and are linked to the latest historical interpretations and ideas used by current history teachers on twitter.
The lessons are fully adaptable in PowerPoint and can be changed to suit. I have included a couple of free lessons to give an idea of what is being offered.
I strongly recommend using GCSE style questions from your chosen exam board and markschemes to assess the pupils at the end of this unit, which are always available on line.
The 11 lessons are broken down into the following:
L1 The defeat of Germany in 1945
L2 Introduction to the Cold War
L3 The Arms Race
L4 The Berlin Blockade and Berlin Airlift
L5 The Berlin Wall
L6 The Korean War
L7 The Cuban Missile Crisis
L8 Man on the Moon
L9 The Vietnam War
L10 Cold War sports
L11 Mikhail Gorbachev
(+ Key word History display)
Any reviews would be greatly appreciated.
Norman Conquest
This lesson further explores the theme of William’s control and tightening grip on England as rebellion and opposition dominate his early years.
Students will study his castle building program, from the Motte and Bailey through to stone keep castles and analyse their strengths and weaknesses.
They will question why the Normans placed their reliance on these eye sores and how their features gave them control and defence against a hostile population.
Furthermore they will evaluate how much control he was able to exert over the population using a control ‘o’ meter.
Finally there is an interactive question and answer session with an Anglo-Saxon castle builder at the time who has some interesting things to say about his compliance in all of it.
This lesson is therefore designed to be fun, challenging and engaging.
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.
The Suffragettes
The aim of this lesson is to analyse the Cat and Mouse Act of 1913 and the actions of the Liberal Government against the Suffragettes in their quest for the vote
But as the students will have to work out, this act was used for propaganda purposes by both sides to put each other in an unfavourable light. It was after all the Suffragettes who coined the phrase the Cat and Mouse Act and made sure everyone knew the callous actions of the Liberal Government!
As well as completing a prioritising exercise and a literacy challenge, an excellent video allows students to question how it worked and why the Government used it (petrified they might have Suffragette ‘martyrs’ dying in prison).
At the same time, they had no doubts about criminalising the Suffragettes with mug shots from prison as the Suffragettes refused to accept their actions as ‘criminal’ and instead ‘political’ (thus refusing to have their photographs taken as shown on the opening slide).
Students have to analyse the various propaganda sources from each side and decide the messages, who they were targeted against and how effective they were in their aims.
These opinions have to then be tweeted according to various people in society and how they might have be influenced by seeing them.
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.
Cold War
The aims of this lesson are to explain how weapons developed during and after World War 2.
The new destructive power of the atomic bomb is shown in a great video link and students colour code a worksheet (differentiated) with challenge questions to describe and explain the development of the arms race.
Facts and figures are also given which students have to interpret, as well as key word tasks and source analysis, with help given if required.
The plenary is literally an arms ‘race’ complete with interactive dice and bombs as board pieces.
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.
The British Empire
The aim of this lesson to investigate the causes and consequences of the Boer War (1899-1902) for the British Empire and the character of Lord Horatio Kitchener, appointed Commander of the British Army in South Africa.
Students are required to analyse and make judgements on his character by deciding how heroic he was, before, during and after the war by rating each of his actions.
They are soon shocked to find his underhand tactics of trying to win the Boer War through initial incompetence to devastating ruthlessness as the war progressed with his scorched earth policy and the setting up of concentration camps.
They also learn how the war impacted upon the Government at the time, culminating in the Liberal Reforms and evaluate how these measures helped improve public health which left a lasting legacy on Britain.
The lesson comes with retrieval practice activities, suggested teaching and learning strategies, differentiated materials 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 lessons are fully adaptable in PowerPoint format and can be changed to suit.
Germany 1890-1945: Democracy and Dictatorship
The aim of this lesson is to analyse the terms of the Treay of Versailles and its impact upon Weimar Germany.
From the start, students have to understand how difficult it was for the Allies (the Big Three) to decide how to treat Germany at the end of the war.
Moreover when they did eventually agree, how did it affect Germany and what were it terms?
The emphasis is also on how students can remember the terms of the treaty, especially with the land lost, complete with difficult spellings such as Schleswig-Holstein and Alsace-Lorraine.
Learning tasks include making notes from video evidence, creating a chatterbox, analysing sources, completing quizzes and filling in a ‘find someone who can’ worksheet (a brilliant idea from Aaron Wilkes).
The second part of the lesson focuses on GCSE exam practice using cartoon sources related to the Treaty as well as how to answer the first three source questions on the exam, with help on how to answer each.
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 examines the different punishments that the slaves endured on the plantations.
Different sources are analysed showing the positive and negative aspects of plantation life as students have to extract fact from fiction.
Students then look at the different forms of resistance from passive to active resistance and decide the best and most effective form of resistance and justify their reasons.
There is also a chance of being more interactive as students are selected to take on some forms resistance which the class have to find out and decide.
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.
World War I
The aim of the lesson is to understand why alliances and rivalries at the beginning of the Twentieth Century led to the outbreak of war.
This lesson sets out the long term causes of the First World War based on four underlying principles: Nationalism, Imperialism, Alliances and Militarism.
The lesson asks the students who and why were countries arguing with each other based on their geographical as well as their historic national rivalries.
Students then have to decide who could sit next to each other at a dinner party after they have justified their reasons for distrust and paranoia.
The alliances are plotted and colour coded on maps, culminating in a task prioritising and linking the reasons as to why the world was ready for war in 1914.
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 suggested teaching strategies and differentiated materials, and comes in Powerpoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.
