This is one of the most controversial lessons on the curriculum and it always produces excellent and thought provoking history for able secondary students. Students work through detailed information on the bombing of Germany before being drip-fed 41 pieces of precise historical information. They have to compile these in groups into evidence which suggests it was morally right to bomb Germany (it took anti aircraft guns away from the Eastern Front for example) and evidence which suggests it was morally wrong (even Churchill by March 1945 felt the bombing should be reduced). This in turn leads to great student debate. I really hope your classes get as much from this very stimulating lesson as mine do.

My students love this activity. 120+ questions based on the following categories: Rise to Power Purges & Show Trials Cult of Personality WWII Five Year Plans Collectivisation It takes a little while to cut out the cards and the board and works best once laminated but your students will love this revision activity. The questions are designed to boost subject knowledge and focus on precise historical detail which in turn helps student examination performance. Allow students to use Ipads or Internet devices to research answers depending on their level of subject knowledge. At IB/A Level I expect students to answer unaided but at GCSE/IGCSE and below I use this activity as a research lesson and allow them to research responses. I hope your classes enjoy this activity as much as classes always do! Its one of my favourite revision activities.

Students learn a huge amount of content in this lesson but do so in an engaging manner. The lesson begins with the starter activity in which students are invited to create a VENN diagram to compare two characters - one from the Golden Years and one from Nazi Germany. This introduces the idea of social change and economic recovery between 1923-29 and the class then work through a detailed set of notes in order to gain subject knowledge. The main task is a Tarsia shape card sort activity and students complete the lesson by playing a game of Guess Who to introduce key characters. Please note (prior to purchase) you will need your own board for this plenary activity to work best and you should allow students to use the Internet to research as they play. I hope your students get as much out of this lesson as mine do.

The lesson begins with a game of Bingo to see how much they already know (there are 30 different cards and a list of 61 key questions to read out with answers such as Article 231, Woodrow Wilson, 100,000 etc). The winner is the first to get a line crossed off and to shout out Bingo. A second starter activity then leads to students address the views of Harold Nicolson who said the treaty was “neither just nor wise” with historian Alan Clark who argues that this view “needs to be abandoned.” Lesson aims and objectives are introduced and these are graduated (all will/most will/some will). Students then proceed to work through a very detailed set of slides (teacher talk) which is broken into for and against arguments. Arguments that it was justified include the Kaiser’s September programme, the harshness with which Germany had treated Russia at Brest-Litovsk, and the need to crush German militarism after the invasions of France in 1870 and 1914. Arguments given that the Treaty was not justified include how it created the stab in the back theory, German expectations based on Wilsonianism and the 14 Points, the argument that Germany might not be solely responsible for the First World War, and of course the economic and political instability it caused in Germany. Students then complete a 14-piece card sort activity (there is a colour-coordinated version for purposes of differentiation if required) and they then fill in and glue on the explanation cards. The lesson concludes with a Blockbusters game plenary. Students choose an acronym and the teacher reads out the clue. If they get it right they continue. The winner is the person who makes a continuous line from top to bottom or from left to right. The final plenary asks students to revisit the debate between Nicolson and Clark and to vote with their feet.

In this lesson students begin by exploring Maoist propaganda of a source using the OPVL technique (origin, purpose, value and limitations) before moving on to work through a set of notes about the Great Leap Forward and the Five Year Plans. Students are then given a job application activity where they need to apply for one of two jobs using the information provided. The lesson concludes with a game of bingo to test understanding of all the key words (emboldened in the notes). My students love this topic and I created this resources whilst teaching History in China so they mean a lot to me. I hope you will find them just as useful in your own teaching.

In this lesson students explore the reasons the victors left Versailles feeling that they did not get everything they wanted. To introduce the topic the class work through a series of map-based questions before proceeding to dig into detailed notes. The class then complete a 24 piece hexagonal card sort to answer the Key Question. This lesson finishes with a fun Who Wants to be a Millionaire Plenary designed to test student understanding. I hope your students enjoy it as much as mine do.

In this lesson students explore the Key Question ‘How successful was the League of Nations in the 1930s?’ They begin by acting out cards which they will have covered in the 1920s as a game of charades. The class then work through a set of detailed notes before playing a game of snakes and ladders bingo. It needs to be printed in colour and laminated but these work great with students and as an activity the league’s successes (ladders) and faults (snakes) become very clear. The lesson concludes with an angram plenary to test student comprehension of key terms. I hope your students enjoy this lesson as much as mine do.

Great activity for revision. There are two different question cards and the battleships are all named after significant ships (eg Hitler’s personal yacht, the Grille). Students take it in turns to guess a square and if they answer the quesiton correctly they are awarded a hit or miss. Needs to be printed back to back. I hope your students enjoy this as much as mine do.

In this lesson students piece together a linear card sort as a starter activity to understand how US troops ended up fighting in Vietnam. Once this has been achieved the class work through very detailed notes on the nature of fighting on both sides before beginning a model making task to explain US/VC tactics (the model can be a built model, a written model, a picture model or a computer generated model). The lesson concludes with a Dingbats plenary on some of the key terms covered in the lesson (punji trap, domino theory, guerilla tactics). 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.

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 twelve page lesson pack students engage in a hot seat story telling starter, work through very detailed notes, before attempting a twenty-one piece factor led evidence sort (technology, leadership, tactics) to map out a visual response to the key question, before finishing off the lesson with a craps-style formative assessment game (you just need to provide your own dice). I hope you students get just as much from this lesson as mine do.

A twenty minute guide in which I talk through tips and tricks for students and teachers on how to produce an excellent IA. The IA has a weighting of twenty percent of the overall grade for Higher Level History and twenty five percent for Standard Level History for the I B course and in this video I have used my teaching and examining experience to piece together advice for students in this crucial piece of work. I hope your students find it just as useful as mine do.

In this lesson students begin by working through the set of background notes before completing a large diamond 9 activity as a group task. They then fill in their pyramid activity collectively before making recipe equations. I hope your students get as much from this lesson as mine always do.

This 34-page pack is the incredibly detailed and complete set of notes I have written for my students. It is basically an entire course on Why do events in the Gulf Matter? in one pack! Suitable for 16+ including GCSE, AP, A Level, and IB students. Notes are broken down into the following sections: How did Saddam Hussein rise to power in Iraq? What was the nature of Saddam Hussein’s rule in Iraq? Why was there a revolution in Iran in 1979? What were the causes of the Iran-Iraq War, 1980-88? What were the consequences of the Iran-Iraq War, 1980-88? Why did the First Gulf War take place? I am confident you will love this resource because there is nothing on the Internet which I have found which offers the same level of breadth and detail on this topic.

Ideal for an end of unit fun quiz on the USA in the roaring Twenties and thirsty Thirties … Seventy eight slides with fourteen categories and a whole range of activities to help students think about the key areas in this period. Tasks include anagrams, photo fit faces, chronology activities, dingbats and lots more. You might wish to allow students to use phones or devices to help them throughout the quiz or you may wish them to attempt it without them. I hope your students find this as fun and useful a revision activity as mine do.

I designed this lesson for my IB students and it is pitched at more able students. The lesson begins with a simple starter activity to introduce them to the topic. The hook here is the Socialist Fraternal Embrace and it leads to a discussion of the symbolism of the Breznev-Honeker kiss on the Berlin Wall. From here students read the introductory notes before working through a highly detailed card sort. The cards are coloured to guide those who need it (lighter and darker tones portray positive and negative aspects of life in Brezhnev’s USSR whilst the colours themselves represent factors - domestic, foreign, economic etc). Students then use this information to model a spoken or written responses to the Key Question. The plenary is a fun dingbats powerpoint in which students have to shout out one of the key words or events covered in this lesson and explain its significance. I created this last week and used it with my students for the first time and they really understood the period in so doing whilst showcasing a range of higher order Historical skills. I hope your students can benefit from it also.

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 :-)

In this lesson students explore the long term causes of the 1905 revolution in Russia. The starter activity invites them to discuss the concepts of revolution from above and below. They are then provided with a bespoke set of notes which break down the knowledge into socio-economic, political, and military reasons for unhappiness amongst the population. Students then follow this with the main consolidation activity which is a card sort (broken down into reasons why military, peasants, urban dwellers and opposition groups might be unhappy) and use this information to write speeches to the Tsar seeking reform. The lesson concludes with a plenary activity in which students tie together their answer to the lesson question. Please let me know if you have any questions about this lesson pack, which has been designed for students of secondary age. I have also included a colour coded version of the card sort for purposes of differentiation.