This is one of my favourite lessons. It take a little bit of preparation by the teacher beforehand though, although there is a short cut you can take too. In this lesson you will find six codes to crack and six missions all of which help answer the question ‘how did Rasputin die?’. As the class figure out the codes and complete the missions they fill in the worksheets provided. By the end they will have six different responses which help them understand the Felix Youssopov-inspired version of events but which also leave them questioning this version of events. This lesson works best with a few props (beard, bottle, crucifix etc as well as six boxes and six padlocks) but you can if you prefer simply print off the codes and print them back to back instead. Any questions please email me. This lesson has been pitched towards high achieving secondary aged students and please do be aware there is one image of a dead Rasputin in this lesson. Please include/leave out at your discretion.

This is a one-page Power point slide (editable) which can be set as a project-based assessment for the second order concept of change and continuity (this one about castles). Students are given clear criteria (beginning, developing, expected, and mastery) and a set task with a list of key words which can help them. The slide also has a section to show students how long they have to work on this assessed piece of work. Please note: this assessment task can very easily be edited for any assessed piece of work focusing on the second order concept of change & continuity and works especially well with my lesson resource on how and why castle design changed across time which can be found here - https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/how-and-why-did-castles-change-6-page-full-lesson-notes-worksheet-project-12016455 Thanks for your interest in this and I hope it helps you ! Best wishes, Daniel

In this lesson students tackle the question ‘what were the causes of the February revolution in 1917?’ and complete an assessed piece of work. The lesson begins with a starter activity (short movie clip with comprehension questions to introduce the question). The class then explore some background notes and a range of long and short term reasons on the PPT provided. From this the class digest this information into their own protest boards and these are then compiled by the teacher and either printed or shared digitally so the class can create their own personalised storyboard. After this students are given as assessment rubric (beginning, developing, expected, and mastery is the graduated criteria) in order to help them write a piece of extended written work to the question. The lesson concludes with a quick odd one out plenary. Please let me know if you have any questions about this lesson, which is pitched towards high achieving secondary students.

This is a four-part lesson in which students tackle the essential question ‘why did Russia do so badly in the First World War?’. The lesson begins with a starter activity in which students pick the odd one out. This is designed to get them thinking about the nature of fighting on the Eastern Front, something they might be less familiar. They are then given a set of detailed notes before attempting a card sort activity which is broken into three categories: socio-economic, military, and political reasons for Russia’s lack of success. The class can glue these into their books and then write up their own summary before attempting the plenary, which is a ‘Find Someone Who Can’ activity where they walk around the class asking peers to help fill in their sheets and in so doing test their own and the class’ subject knowledge. I hope your students get as much out of this lesson as mine do and please don’t hesitate if you have any questions. This lesson is pitched towards high-ability secondary aged students.

This lesson begins with a chronology exercise designed to recap students’ prior learning (from events dating back to 1905 onwards) in the forms of a ‘Play Your Cards Right’ activity. The class are given two events and simply need to state whether or not the second of these took place earlier or after the preceding event. The final event given is of course the Russian Civil War which is the focus of this lesson. The class then work through some background information and are given reasons why the Reds won the Civil War (ranging from Trotsky’s leadership skills in charge of the Red Army through to the lack of uniformity in the White Army’s motives through to the Reds’ access to the Tsarist arsenal etc). From this students are asked to design a storyboard to recap the reasons, leaving out one (so they are discriminating between factors and deciding which is least/most important). The lesson concludes with a plenary where students have to stand on one side or the other of the class to decide on whether one of the 11 statements is true or false and in this way they test their subject knowledge acquired in the activation and consolidation tasks. I hope you find this lesson and its resources as useful as my students do. It has been designed by myself and pitched at high achieving secondary school students. Please do let me know if you have any questions.

This is a fully-resourced lesson which will help your class understand the reasons the Bolsheviks came to power. Please note though that this lesson does not cover the weaknesses of the Provisional Government (that is done in a previous lesson) but instead focuses solely on the strengths of the Bolsheviks and Lenin. The lesson includes learning objectives which are broken into all of you / some of you / most of you will and begins with a starter activity designed to encourage students to consider a range of different historiographical perspectives on the importance of Lenin and the Bolsheviks (Pipes, Merridale, McMeekin etc). From here the class work through background notes before attempting a Diamond 9 activity where they place different factors into a sequence with the most important at the top and the least important at the bottom. After this students are prepared to complete an assessed piece of written work and a detailed and graduated rubric is provided for this based on the second order concept of interpretation. The lesson concludes with a plenary where students are asked to vote on which side of the historiographical debate they side with. I hope your students get as much out of this lesson as mine do and please do let me know if you have any questions. This lesson is pitched towards high-achieving secondary aged students.

In this lesson students begin with a starter activity which reveals Marco Polo believed in some odd things, including men with dogs’ heads! From here they work through some background information including the views of historian Dr. Frances Woods who believes Marco Polo never really made it to China after all. In the main activity students sort evidence from a card sort into two columns, things that suggest he did go to China (the accuracy of his descriptions of things like currency for example) and evidence that suggests he did not actually visit China (his book was ghost written and he makes no mention of things like chopsticks or the Great Wall etc.) The lesson concludes with a plenary where students vote on their beliefs. It is a great lesson designed to get students thinking and can be taught as part of an Ancient China/Mongol Empire unit or as a stand-alone lesson. Please note this lesson has been pitched towards high achieving secondary aged students. Please do ask if you have any questions and I hope your students get as much out of this lesson as mine always do.

In this lesson’s starter activity students are introduced to some of the weird ideas that existed before Marco Polo’s travels (such as headless men and women with single giant feet) and there are graduated learning outcomes provided (all of you will/some of you will/most of you will). Students are then provided with background information about Marco Polo’s voyage and are given a list of key events on slide 14. The main activity is that students are asked to use this information to create an Instagram style storyboard to narrow this down to the ten key events of his life (examples are given). The lesson concludes with a Dingbats plenary designed to get students to shout out some key words relating to Marco Polo’s voyage. I hope your students enjoy this lesson as much as mine and thanks for your interest. Please be aware this lesson is pitched at high ability secondary aged students (11+). I hope your students enjoy it as much as mine do (I teach in China so this is always an extremely popular lesson with my students!) and please let me know if you have any questions.

This is a History mystery lesson in which students explore the Essential Question ‘what happened to Princess Anastasia?’ This is always a popular lesson because of the 1997 Disney movie (!) but more importantly one that really challenges student second order thinking and gets them working on their reasoning skills. The lesson begins with a starter activity where students watch two short video clips about Anastasia’s death and answer a few quick questions on this. The clips are deliberately very different and from this the class are encouraged to create their own lesson title (which will be very similar to the title given here). Students then work through graduated learning objectives (all of you will / most of you will / some of you will) before working through some detailed background information. The class then work through a card sort activity detailing evidence which suggests a) that Anastasia did die at the Ipatiev House and b) evidence which suggests she may have survived (the Anna Anderson story). A colour coded differentiated version is supplied also. Students then use this information from the card sort activity to complete a template to help them write an Okhrana police report which answers the Essential Question. The lesson concludes with a voting plenary. This lesson is pitched towards high achieving secondary students and is always one they really do well in. Please let me know if you have any questions. Have a great day fellow teachers and if you enjoy this lesson please leave me a review.

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 begin with a quick starter activity to see how many Rolls-Royce owning celebrities they can identify - they’re usually rather surprised to see that Lenin is one of these! The lesson has learning objectives which are graduated (all of you/most of you/some of you) and the class then work through a very detailed set of background information/notes focused on Lenin’s big promises of peace, land, and bread. The main activity is then for students to collate information on how well he achieved his aims in these three areas by creating a ‘school report card’ on him. A completed example is also included. The lesson then concludes with a simple voting plenary which asks students to answer the lesson’s question and to support it with evidence (ie did he achieve his promises of peace, land and bread). This lesson is aimed at high achieving secondary students. Please do ask if you have any questions and thanks for popping by. I hope your students get as much out of this activity as mine do.

This is a one-page Power point slide (editable) which can be set as a project-based assessment on interpretation of whether Emily Davison died deliberately. Students are given clear criteria (beginning, developing, expected, and mastery) and a set task with a list of key words which can help them. The slide also has a section to show students how long they have to work on this assessed piece of work. Please note: this assessment task can very easily be edited for any assessed piece of work focusing on the second order concept of interpretation and works especially well with my lesson resource on Emily Davison which can be found here - https://www.tes.com/teaching-resource/suffragette-emily-davison-10-page-lesson-pack-11920338 Thanks for your interest in this and I hope it helps you ! Best wishes, Daniel

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 ‘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.

Please note: To use this lesson you need to have a copy of the 1998 animated Disney movie Mulan. This is a great lesson in which students are given graduated learning objectives (some of you will / most of you will / and all of you will) in order to help them answer the essential question 'what can we learn about Ancient China from the Disney movie Mulan?". The lesson begins with a starter activity to engage your students in which they are invited to guess the odd one out from a group of Disney characters (the answer is Mulan - because she has killed whereas the others, Bambi’s mother et al, had been killed. This leads them into the lesson nicely and the idea that the ballad of Hua Mulan is no ordinary ‘Disney Princess.’ The class then work through 45 different evidence cards and arrange these into things they can learn from the movie (ie accurate things like the use of rickshaws and only the Emperor being allowed to wear yellow etc) as well as movie mistakes and things which are inaccurate (such as Mulan being allowed to hug the Emperor and the way she inserts her chopsticks vertically into her rice etc). There are two versions of this card sort, one for students who like a challenge and a differentiated version for students who need a more straightforward task. Students can also divide them using the labels given (info relating to women, family, rule and government, culture, society, military etc. Students then watch the movie and tick off those they spot (a nice end of term type activity - but not simply ‘watching a movie for the sake of it’!). From this the class then complete a movie review exercise using the template given before attempting a plenary in which they vote with their feet to establish how many stars (1-5) they would rate the movie for historical authenticity (ie they now answer the essential question). I have also included a final slide which is an assessment rubric should you wish to turn this series of lessons into a formal testing point. I teach this to high achieving high school students as part of a scheme of learning about Ancient China and I hope your students get as much out of it as mine always do. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask and thanks again for your interest in this lesson, which is in PPT form but which does need the buyer to have purchased a copy of the 1998 animated movie (not the 2020 version.)

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.

Students are given one of the 26 different character cards ranging from Kaiser Wilhelm to Gavrilo Princip to lesser known players such as Leopold Lojka. Once students have got to know their character they then get into teams of fellow countrymen and attempt to find evidence to answer the question as to why the war began. There are 31 pieces of evidence for them to sift through, all greatly detailed and colour-coded for differentiation. This is one of the lessons I’m proudest of and it always leads to powerful debate (such as from those students pictured - they have placed the evidence around their tabards!) and empowers students with extremely high levels of subject knowledge from which to begin extended written responses to one of the biggest questions in History. I hope you enjoy it as much as my students do.

A very detailed set of notes with questions based on these which will cover the persecution of groups during the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. This lesson also comes with an appropriate starter and plenary activity to ensure students understand this very important period of history. If you have any questions please let me know. Thank you.

This is a simple but effective way to spruce up any History display. Key terms and words. Just print and stick on your displays. Et voila! Have a wonderful day.