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.
Norman Conquest
The aim of this lesson is to assess how scary the Black Death was in1348.
Students are introduced to the idea of why the Black Death was so scary, learning about the symptoms of the Bubonic Plague and Pneumonic Plague and the devastation that lay in its wake from empty villages today to paintings showing devastation and death.
They learn key words such as contagion, flagellants, humours and miasmas and how these words link to the learning objective through a thinking quilt.
They will also find out how the peasants gained in status as a result of the reduction of the workforce and how this gave them more bargaining power with their landlords over wages.
The plenary is a Black Death connecting wall which requires students to link four key phrases and to explain how and why they link together.
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 is the complete bundle in a series of lessons I have created for AQA GCSE 9-1 Britain: Health and the People, c.1000-present.
I have taught this course for more than 20 years now and have decided to completely overhaul my lessons to bring them up to date with the latest teaching and learning ideas I have picked up and with a focus on the new 9-1 GCSE.
Furthermore I have dispensed with learning objectives to focus on specific enquiry based questions which address skills required for the GCSE questions.
As well as focusing on GCSE exam practice questions, the lessons are all differentiated and are tailored to enable the students to achieve the highest grades. They are also fully resourced and contain easy to print worksheets.
The lessons will allow students to demonstrate (AO1) knowledge and understanding of the key features and characteristics of the periods studied from the impact of Hippocrates and Galen on medieval medicine to the new ideas of the Renaissance, the laissez-faire approach of preceding Governments through to modern day Government and the nanny state.
They will study (AO2) second-order concepts such as change and continuity in the development of ideas about disease as well as the causes and consequences of medical treatment throughout the ages
The analysis and evaluation of sources (AO3) are used in for example, surgery, Public Health and the introduction of the NHS whilst substantiated judgements are made (AO4) on the discovery and development of penicillin, the development of the welfare state and the influence of the seven factors in medicine.
The lessons are as follows:
L1 An introduction to the course
L2 Hippocrates and Galen
L3 The influence of the Christian Church
L4 Islamic Medicine (free resource)
L5 Doctors and surgeons in the Middle Ages
L6 Public Health in the Medieval towns
L7 The Black Death and the Plague
L8 Renaissance Medicine
L9 Medicine in the 17th and 18th Century (free resource)
L10 John Hunter
L11 Edward Jenner and smallpox
L12 Surgery in the 19th Century
L13 Florence Nightingale and hospitals
L14 Pasteur, Koch and Tyndall
L15 Public Health in the 19th Century
L16 Liberal Reforms
L17 Medicine and war (free resource)
L18 Magic Bullets and the Pharmaceutical Industry
L19 Penicillin
L20 The NHS
L21 How to answer the factor question
Please note that setting a full mock examination in class after completing each unit is strongly recommended (L1-7, L8-15 and L16-21).
All the examination resources and markschemes are subject to copyright but can easily be found on the AQA website.
Unfortunately TES restrict bundles to 20 lessons and therefore please download Lesson 17 separately, which is a free resource.
The aim of this revision bundle for AQA GCSE 9-1 Britain: Health and the People c.1000 to present is to help and thoroughly prepare students for the GCSE exam in the summer.
It contains the following:
A complete Revision Guide with 18 GCSE practice questions, model answers and tips on how to access the exam questions.
Flashcards to help improve recall, retrieval and retention skills. Each of the individuals from the course are summarised and explain the significance of each to achieve the higher marks in the GCSE exam.
A Summary Revision Guide which summarises all the course on two sides of A4. This is easy to print and great for the student who wants a quick refresh on the course content when revising.
A Health and the People work booklet revising the 4 main question types in the exam.
All the resources are in Word format so can be easily changed or adapted to suit.
The aims of this bundle are to investigate the causes of the French Revolution, how it changed the lives of French people and its consequences for Europe and the Wider World with the rise of Napoleon and the Napoleonic Wars.
I have also created and used these lessons to challenge and engage students and to show how much fun learning about this part of European history really is.
By studying this unit, pupils will be able to make connections, draw contrasts, and analyse trends within this period of history by using an enquiry based question throughout all the lessons.
Students will learn and understand key historical skills throughout such as the change and continuity of the Government of France in the Eighteenth Century, the causes and consequences of the execution of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and the similarities and differences of absolute monarchs such as Louis XVI of France, and Frederick the Great of Prussia in comparison to George III of Britain.
They will also learn about the significance of the Tennis Court Oath, the Storming of the Bastille, the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte as well as different interpretations of Marie Antoinette and Maximilien Robespierre.
Finally they will create relevant, structured and evidentially supported accounts in response to claims that the Terror was justified, Britain had every reason to fear Napoleon or that Louis XVI deserved to be executed.
The lessons are as follows:
L1 Introduction to the French Revolution
L2 The French Monarchy
L3 The Three Estates
L4 Louis XVI financial problems
L5 Tennis Court Oath
L6 Storming of the Bastille
L7 Execution of King Louis XVI
L8 The reign of Terror
L9 Maximilien Robespierre (free resource)
L10 Support for the French Revolution
L11 Napoleon Bonaparte
L12 Napoleonic Wars
L13 Legacy of the French Revolution (free resource)
All the lessons come with retrieval practice activities, differentiated materials, suggested teaching and learning strategies and are linked to the latest historical interpretations, video clips and debate.
The lessons are enquiry based with a key question posed at the start of the lesson and revisited at the end to show the progress of learning.
They are fully adaptable in PowerPoint format and can be changed to suit.
I would highly recommend assessing students at the tend of this unit of study, using GCSE style questions from your chosen exam board.
If you have any questions about this unit, please do not hesitate to contact me via my shop for further information.
The Industrial Revolution
This lesson aims to examine and assess factory conditions during the Industrial Revolution.
The poor conditions and punishments are explored through the eyes of a pauper apprentice, whose story tells us the harsh discipline, rules and punishments for factory workers.
Students have a chance to complete a diary entry and evaluate if life was bad for everyone including using causation equations in the plenary.
The lesson alludes to factory owners like Robert Owen who built quality houses, schools, shops with cheap goods and parks for his workers (although factory reform and reformers is dealt with in another lesson).
The lesson is enquiry based with a key question using a lightbulb posed at the start of the lesson and revisited at the end to show the progress of learning.
The resource comes in PowerPoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.
I have also included suggested teaching strategies to deliver the lesson and there are differentiated materials included.
Cold War
The aim of this lesson is to explain how Germany was divided post 1945, as agreed at the Potsdam Conference and analyse the subsequent Berlin blockade and airlift which followed.
Students learn the intentions of both the USA and USSR and how this played out in the Cold War theatre of Europe.
This is a great opportunity for students to be creative as they plot the preceding events on an airport landing strip, using symbols and signs found in every international airport.
They will track the obstacles thrown up by Stalin and the immediate problems this caused in Berlin as he attempted to prevent any further western moves in Germany and with his aim of starving the West Berliners into submission.
Therefore this is intended to be a fun, challenging and engaging lesson to suit all abilities.
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 Suffragettes
The lesson focuses on the main differences between the Suffragists and Suffragettes, but also looks at their similarities.
Students are asked as to why women wanted the vote and how they were going to achieve it?
Further into the lesson, students have to analyse the various methods used by both groups and have to question, prioritise and justify their effectiveness.
Included is a thinking quilt which tests pupils’ understanding and links the key ideas, dates, people and definitions together.
A differentiated plenary questions and checks their understanding of the lesson.
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.
Britain: Health and the People c.1000-present
These key individual flashcards aim to get the students thinking of key people and their significance in medicine.
I always find students have revised thoroughly for exams, but do not push their grades into the higher brackets as they focus on content rather than the individual’s impact and importance, particularly over time.
There are 36 individuals listed, Students can use them in class (I use them as starters and plenaries) or to take home and use for their own personal revision programme.
I also display them in the classroom (enlarged) and use when teaching this unit of study.
The resource comes in PowerPoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.
AQA GCSE 9-1 Germany 1890-1945: Democracy and Dictatorship
This 33 page Revision Guide is broken down into 3 main sections: Germany 1890-1918, the Weimar Republic 1918-1933, Nazi Dictatorship 1933-1945
This Revision Guide includes practice exam questions and gives examples and tips on how to answer each.
It will enable all learners to achieve the higher grades with clear guidance on how to achieve them. The questions target the main questions in the exam from interpretations and source analysis, cause and consequence, change and continuity, significance and evaluation.
The Guide also gives the students some useful mnemonics to remember some of the key details such as the Treaty of Versailles, problems in the Weimar, recover under Stresemann and Hitler’s consolidation of power for example.
The information is also broken down into an easy to use format to aid the students. The Guide can be used for revision, interleaving, home learning as well as class teaching. For home learning, each student taking GCSE History in my school has a copy assigned to them on the google drive and it is used frequently when using google classroom assignments, such as homework and revision for assessments.
This Guide has been designed to be engaging, detailed and easy to follow and can be edited and changed to suit, It comes in both Word and PDF format.
Any reviews on this resource would be much appreciated. Please email me for a free copy of any of my resources worth £3.00 if you do.
I have also made similar revision resources for AQA GCSE 9-1 include Britain: Health and the People c.1000 to the present day, Elizabethan England c,1568-1603, Conflict and Tension and Power and the People.
The Tudors: England 1485-1603
The aim of this lesson is to assess the strengths and weaknesses of Elizabeth’s government.
Students will analyse a number of key institutions of Government ranging from Parliament, the Royal Court and the Privy Council on a national level to Justices of the Peace, Sheriffs and Lord Lieutenants on a local level.
There are a number of slides within this PowerPoint and it is therefore recommended to deliver it over two lessons.
Students will also learn details of conflicts Elizabeth had with Parliament and her Privy Council, the factions which developed in her reign and how she was able to overcome these through her diplomacy and strength of character.
A 20 question quiz concludes the lesson as well as some exam question practice if required with some guidance and a mark scheme provided.
There is an enquiry question posed at the start of the lesson and revisited throughout to show the progress of learning throughout the lesson and subsequent unit of work.
The lesson comes in PowerPoint format and can be changed and adapted to suit.
The lesson is differentiated and includes suggested teaching strategies.
World War II
The aim of this lesson is to challenge the Government’s claim that during World War Two, a Blitz spirit of togetherness emerged across the country in defiance of the bombing of Britain’s cities.
This lesson takes students on a journey through archive video footage, government announcements and source information to determine if there was indeed a Blitz Spirit during the war.
Students are given details of what the Blitz entailed using some contextual evidence and a thinking quilt.
They then have to analyse and evaluate a variety of sources and statistics before they conclude and justify which sources best suit the driving question of the lesson.
The plenary is a take on the television programme, ‘Would I lie to you?’ and the idea is to again challenge assumptions.
The lesson is enquiry based with a key question using a lightbulb posed at the start of the lesson and revisited at the end to show the progress of learning.
The resource includes retrieval practice activities, suggested teaching strategies and differentiated materials.
It comes in PowerPoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.
American Civil Rights
This lesson starts with the Bob Dylan song ‘The death of Emmett Till’.
The question is posed as to why Emmett’s mother had an open top casket at his funeral?
Students are given sources to piece together the story before they find out what happened to him (the story is differentiated according to ability).
Embedded video footage of his short life from the time reinforces their learning.
Students then have a choice of answering some differentiated questions or completing an extended piece of writing.
The plenary questions the impact of his death upon the Civil Rights Movement and help is given on how students can justify their reasons.
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, differentiated materials and comes in Powerpoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.
The Tudors
The aim of this lesson is to analyse the character and motives of Henry VII when he became King.
The lesson focuses on some crucial and important decision making for Henry VII upon his accession to the throne.
He has six decisions to make and students plot these on a grid giving their own judgements before finding out and evaluating how ruthless Henry was in charge.
The lesson hinges upon whether he was a Gangster or not (judged on the criteria at the beginning of the lesson) in an extended and differentiated written answer with a checklist for guidance.
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.
American Civil RIghts
The events and actions surrounding the Little Rock Nine are now infamous in history.
This lesson gives the background to the beginning of the desegregation of American Schools with the Brown vs Board of Education case of 1954.
Yet Orval Faubus, the Governor of Arkansas found this difficult to accept and unleased a tidal wave of protest from his actions in Little Rock, shown in this lesson through video footage and images from the time.
The students are given the context to the events of 1957 and have to decide what is being shouted at Elizbeth Eckford before they predict the actions of Eisenhower.
Ultimately they have to evaluate the impact of the Little Rock Nine and how they influenced American society today.
They are required to justify their opinions at the end with scaffolding given if required.
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, differentiated materials and comes in Powerpoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change
AQA GCSE 9-1 Elizabethan England, 1568-1603
The overarching aim of this and the subsequent bundle of nine lessons is to question and explore how Elizabeth asserted her authority and control in the second half of her reign.
How did we establish ourselves as a world power in the 19th Century? Who were Sir Francis Drake, Sir John Hawkins and Sir Walter Raleigh and who deserves a place in the seafaring hall of fame?
These questions and more are answered in this lesson as students analyse how new navigational techniques and the brilliance of these men established unbridled wealth and power for Elizabeth at a time of great danger with her excommunication from the Catholic Church.
Students learn through source and video footage and a play your cards right activity how new trading companies sprung up such as the Muscovy, the East India and Levant companies opening up English markets to good such as spices, tea, porcelain and silk.
A choice of two GCSE questions for exam practice are given at the end of the lesson where students can peer assess and understand how to answer the ‘importance’ question for 8 marks.
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.
Edexcel GCSE 9-1 Medicine Through Time, c1250-present
These key individual flashcards aim to get the students thinking of key people and their significance in medicine.
I always find students have revised thoroughly for exams, but do not push their grades into the higher brackets as they focus on content rather than the individual’s impact and importance, particularly over time.
These flashcards are great when addressing the 12 mark ‘explain why’ question, particularly when arguing over rapid change.
There are 33 individuals listed, including those for the Historic Environment; The British sector of the Western Front.
Students can use them in class (I use them as starters and plenaries) or to take home and use for their own personal revision programme.
I also display them in the classroom (enlarged) and use when teaching this unit of study.
The resource comes in Powerpoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.
World War II
The aim of the lesson is to question whether the America was justified in dropping two atomic bombs of Japan in 1945.
Students will give their initial thoughts and reasons why before evidence is presented before them.
Various modern interpretations suggest that Japan was about to unconditionally surrender and therefore the use of the atomic bomb was unnecessary.
Therefore students are given the context of the war in the Pacific with four scary facts - the Japanese refusal to surrender in battle, the treatment of prisoners of war, the role of Kamikaze pilots and the end of the war in Europe in April 1945.
There are some fabulous video links and visual images to analyse.
The final task requires students to categorise information into reasons why America decided to use its lethal weapons, including a show of power to Stalin and the Soviet Union.
The plenary uses a true or false quiz to check recall and understanding.
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.
AQA A Level 1C The Tudors: England 1485-1603
The aim of this lesson is to evaluate the reasons for the increasing problems Elizabethan society underwent towards the end of the 16th Century.
Students also have to evaluate the impact of these changes upon society as a whole, from a rising population, gentry class and continuing inflation.
They will also question if there was a crisis in the aristocracy, a case put forward by renowned historians such as Hugh Trevor Roper, as he argues their decline of importance coincides with a rise in influence of the gentry class.
Finally students will examine and decide if there were any differences in the patterns of trade in the Elizabethan era compared to previous Tudor times. Was England still dominated by agriculture and the cloth trade to Antwerp or were any changes happening to expand markets?
There is an enquiry question posed at the start of the lesson and revisited throughout to show the progress of learning throughout the lesson and subsequent unit of work.
The lesson comes in PowerPoint format and can be changed and adapted to suit.
The lesson is differentiated and includes suggested teaching strategies.
Rise of Dictators
The aim of this lesson is to decide if Robert Mugabe was a hero or a villain.
Students are introduced to his early life in a text mapping exercise which they have to decipher to understand his credentials for Presidency.
They are given information about Mugabe’s career from which they then have to give a number of ratings as to whether he was indeed a hero or villain.
Subsequent video footage gives the thoughts of people from Zimbabwe today as well as other commentators to help them in their comprehension of the task in hand.
An extended written piece, using a writing frame, will allow students to demonstrate their understanding and give a full evaluation of his rule.
A fragment exercise as well as a find and fix plenary recaps on what they have learnt in the lesson and reinforces their judgements of him.
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, differentiated materials and comes in Powerpoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.
The Industrial Revolution
The aim for writing this lesson is to challenge the traditional view that Jack the Ripper targeted prostitutes or sex workers in Victorian London.
Whilst much has been written about the Jack the Ripper and how clever he was to avoid detection, very little has been written about the lives of his victims.
Therefore with this in mind, students will learn how difficult it was for Victorian women to lead comfortable lives as marriage, children, work, alcoholism, the workhouse and poverty took its toll on them.
Students begin the lesson with an overview by learning what is known about Jack the Ripper, who he killed and how the police had little evidence or clues to go on. There is a video link and a true or false activity to complete this.
They will then have to use a number of images to decide how hard life was for Victorian women and the pressures they were under. A differentiated missing word activity can be completed to piece together many of these problems, based on the lives of the five women murdered.
A case study of Annie Chapman, the Ripper’s second victim, will centre around her privileged life before alcoholism took over, forcing her to separate from her husband and children as she moved from a village near Windsor Castle to the doss houses of Whitechapel.
Here, students have to colour code the main factors and problems which affected her life.
An extended writing task can then be completed, with a writing structure and key words given to help if required.
The plenary poses some differentiated questions from the learning completed in the lesson.
The resource comes in PowerPoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.
I have also included suggested teaching strategies to deliver the lesson and there are differentiated materials included.
A big thank you goes to Hallie Rubenhold, whose fabulous book ‘The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women killed by Jack the Ripper’ inspired me to write this lesson.
