Wolsey Academy operates as a non-profit, with every penny we make going to one of our charity partners or into the Ipswich Initiative, funding good works across the town and county. Search for Wolsey Academy to see our website for more details and to purchase resources at a discount.
Wolsey Academy operates as a non-profit, with every penny we make going to one of our charity partners or into the Ipswich Initiative, funding good works across the town and county. Search for Wolsey Academy to see our website for more details and to purchase resources at a discount.
This lesson explores the Shang and Zhou Dynasties of ancient China, highlighting their cultural, technological, and governance advancements. Students will investigate significant contributions such as bronze work and oracle bones from the Shang, and the Zhou’s Mandate of Heaven. Activities include video analysis, timeline sorting, and narrative writing exercises focused on oracle bone ceremonies. The lesson aims to enhance understanding of these dynasties’ lasting legacies in Chinese history.
Taken from a series of 7 lessons on history of Ancient China. They provide an excellent and engaging introduction to ancient China and provide a great foundation for understanding how this vital nation has shaped our world.
Each lesson is designed to cover a range of historical and exam skills to build up students knowledge and exam skills ready for any exam board, external and internal. They are also a huge amount of fun to teach!
Those lessons are:
Shang & Zhou Dynasties
Qin Shi Huang (The First Emperor)
Confucianism
Kublai Khan
Silk Roads
The Forbidden City
Zheng He & The Treasure Fleets
Wolsey Academy operates as a non-profit, with every penny we make going to one of our charity partners or into the Ipswich Initiative, funding good works across the town and county. Search for Wolsey Academy to see our website for more details and to purchase resources at a discount.
Use code ‘WOLSEY’ for 10% off at the Wolsey Academy Web Store
Please help us, help you, help them. Thank you.
Hope it helps.
W
This lesson examines the attack on Pearl Harbour on 7th December 1941, which prompted the United States to enter World War II. Students will learn about the causes, events, and consequences of the attack. Activities include brainstorming prior knowledge, video analysis, categorising causes and consequences, guided reading, and writing PEEKA paragraphs. The lesson concludes with a reflection on the impact of the attack on American public opinion and the course of the war.
Lesson Content and Activities:
Introduction:
Discuss what students already know about the attack on Pearl Harbour.
Write down ideas and swap with peers to create a comprehensive spider diagram.
What Was It?
Provide an overview of the attack, including key details about the surprise military strike by the Japanese Navy Air Service.
Video Analysis:
Watch clips from the Imperial War Museum and other sources to gather additional information on the causes and consequences of the attack.
Add notes to the spider diagram.
Why Did Japan Attack? What Were the Consequences?
Break down the causes and consequences into three categories: political, economic, and military.
Define each category and discuss examples.
Causes and Consequences of the Attack:
Complete a worksheet by colour coding the causes and consequences according to their categories.
Draw icons to help remember each factor.
Write a summary of the events of the day.
Guided Reading Task:
Give each paragraph a subheading and write down three key facts for each.
Why is it Known as ‘A Day that Will Live in Infamy’?
Watch and listen to President Franklin Roosevelt’s speech given the day after the attack.
Discuss the key points and the USA’s response.
Writing Task:
Write two paragraphs explaining the consequences of the attack on Pearl Harbour using the PEEKA paragraph structure.
Plan the answer using the PEEKA grid and guidance sheet.
Class Discussion:
Share and discuss the written paragraphs.
Reflect on the immediate and long-term impacts of the attack on Pearl Harbour.
Resources:
Spider diagram template
Video links on the attack
Worksheet for categorising causes and consequences
Guided reading text
PEEKA paragraph guidelines and planning sheet
Made during the 2020 lockdown for remote learning it is a pretty comprehensive resource (if I may say so) that covers the whole topic and includes:
18 tailor made teacher videos
18 factsheets on the 18 key topics
18 literacy/essay writing challenges* (1 per key topic)
5 Google Quizzes (and printable versions)
1 Stretch and Challenge Project
It took a very long time to produce and I am very happy to now be able to share it I would suggest setting it as an ongoing revision or homework task, the teacher videos mean that it can be used for self study also.
The target audience was mostly for international school settings so I have tried to use accessible language where possible and each topic comes with a set of keywords to develop vocab skills.
If you spot any mistakes please contact me via the website above and if you think it has come in useful I would love to see your reviews on the TES (makes me feel a bit better!)
Hope it helps!
As a man with a great beard once (sort of) said: Teachers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains.
*The essay writing questions are loosely based on Edexcel IGCSE style questions but the approach taken is quite generic so will suit all exam boards/national systems.
Russia and its discontents
The 1905 Revolution
The Russian Dumas
Russia and the First World War
Rasputin
The February Revolution 1917
The Provisional Government
The Bolsheviks
The Bolsheviks Come to Power
The Bolsheviks & The Constituent Assembly
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
The Russian Civil War 1918 - 1921
Why did the Reds win the Civil War?
War Communism
Impact of War Communism
Kronstadt Naval Mutiny 1921
New Economic Policy (NEP)
Lenin’s Legacy
WolseyAcademy.com, a non-profit resource provider, directs all profits to various charities, including refugee support, youth sports, educational programs, and carbon capture, achieving a carbon-negative status. Explore our site for resources and free history role-playing games loved by students. Thank you for your dedication to teaching and for supporting our mission.
The History of India
This is one lesson from a series of 11 on the History of India.
Each lesson includes as a minimum:
• A context slide for teacher talk/intro
• A reading comprehension task
• A sorting/categorising activity of factors/causes.
• A writing task with support and guidance.
All resources are included within the same PowerPoint for ease of organisation. They have proved very effective with our High School classes.
The 11 lessons are as follows:
The Mughals (free)
The East India Company
The Battle of Plessey (free)
The Tiger of Mysore
The Mahratta
Revision & Feedback lesson for unit at half way point
Trucial States, UAE & Oman
The First War of Indian Independence (1857)
Amritsar Massacre & Indian Independence Movement
India, Gandhi and the Second World War
Bengal Famine 1947 (free)
Indian Independence and Partition
Wolsey Academy, a non-profit resource provider, directs all profits to various charities, including refugee support, youth sports, educational programs, and carbon capture, achieving a carbon-negative status. Explore our site for resources and free history role-playing games loved by students. Thank you for your dedication to teaching and for supporting our mission.
Hope it helps.
This is one lesson from a completely fully resourced and integrated series of 17 lessons on the Russian Revolution. It was designed for GCSE History but has also been used very effectively at KS3 level.
Each lesson contains as a minimum:
• Recap from previous lesson
• Keyword flashcards (in a unique ‘Pokémon card style’ template!)
• Writing skill challenges building up to fully developed PEEKA paragraphs (these increase in complexity as you move through the lessons)
• Text with comprehension questions
• A ‘reverse engineer’ essay question task.
• A model paragraph with a ‘how can you improve?’ task
• Stretch questions.
• Video links.
The 17 lessons are as follows:
Russia and its discontents (free)
1905 Revolution (free)
The First World War (free)
Rasputin
February Revolution
Mod-Module Revision Tasks and Knowledge Check
Provisional Government
October Revolution
Bolsheviks & Constituent Assembly
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War – Why did the Reds win?
Russian Civil War – War Communism
Russian Civil War – Kronstadt Naval Mutiny
Russian Civil War – New Economic Policy
Russian Civil War – Lenin’s Legacy
End of unit – all revision cards, revision tasks, assessment questions, models and criteria.
Hope they help.
Wolsey Academy, a non-profit resource provider, directs all profits to various charities, including refugee support, youth sports, educational programs, and carbon capture, achieving a carbon-negative status. Explore our site for resources and free history role-playing games loved by students. Thank you for your dedication to teaching and for supporting our mission.
#BetterTeachingBetterPlanet
Explore the vibrant cultures and civilizations of Pre-Columbian South America in this series of lessons. From the Maya to the Aztecs, learn about their religions, art, and technology. In the final lessons, discover the impact of Columbus and the Conquistadors, and their role in shaping the history of the Americas.
Lessons include:
The Mayans
The Aztecs
The Incas
The Mound Builders (North America)
The Nazca Lines
Machu Picchu
Easter Island
Christoper Columbus
Cortes & The Conquistadors
In each lesson, students will as a minimum complete tasks such as…
Study the context of the topic
Sort a timeline of the events into the correct order.
Watch a video and answer questions on the content.
Study real (and some fictional) quotes from the people involved and discuss what they reveal about the past.
Categorise factors that led to, or shaped, the past.
Prioritize those factors during group work.
Agree on a grading matrix for answering a written question.
Read an example answer and look for what went well and even better if.
Try writing your own answer to the topic question.
This is a lesson in a large series of American History lessons created by Wolsey Academy. Each lesson has been taught to high-school students successfully for a number of years.
Wolsey Academy, a non-profit resource provider, directs all profits to various charities, including refugee support, youth sports, educational programs, and carbon capture, achieving a carbon-negative status. Explore our site for resources and free history role-playing games loved by students. Thank you for your dedication to teaching and for supporting our mission.
#BetterTeachingBetterPlanet
We hope it helps.
1 Lesson from a series of 28 lessons on UAE Social Studies (History). Each lesson contained keywords and a wide range of activities, with a focus on developing skills that students can use in their regular lessons too. A key focus is obviously on Historical skills, but also Geographic, Business as well as general skills of research, debate and presentation. Several lessons have been inspired by lectures given at the NYU Abu Dhabi by experts in their fields.
The lessons begin with the formation of the Arabian landmass and end with the Arabs on Mars! Fairly comprehensive history. All lessons have been made with cultural sensitivities in mind.
The lessons are:
Historical Overview of the UAE
Jebel Faya
The Magan People
Bronze Age Trade
Wadi Suq and Umm Al Na
The Iron Age
Pre-Islamic Arabia
The Prophet Muhammad and the arrival of Islam
Battle of Dibba 632CE
Mecca and Medina
Khalid ibn al-Walid
The Portuguese and the Persian Gulf
The Islamic Era & Hormuz
Bedouin Traditions
Pirate Coast & Trucial States
The Pearl Trade
Diary of a Dhow Driver
Qasr Al Hosn
Emirati Homes and Architecture
Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan
Founding of the UAE 1971
Famous Emiratis
Famous Ex-Pats
UAE The Global Crossroads
The Dubai Miracle
Sovereign Wealth Funds
UAE Space Program
Wolsey Academy, a non-profit resource provider, directs all profits to various charities, including refugee support, youth sports, educational programs, and carbon capture, achieving a carbon-negative status. Explore our site for resources and free history role-playing games loved by students. Thank you for your dedication to teaching and for supporting our mission.
A Bundle of 15 lessons on the origins of the Cold War.
Each lesson comes with a range of activities, keyword cards and assessments. Focus on developing analytical and writing skills.
Wolsey Academy, a non-profit resource provider, directs all profits to various charities, including refugee support, youth sports, educational programs, and carbon capture, achieving a carbon-negative status. Explore our site for resources and free history role-playing games loved by students. Thank you for your dedication to teaching and for supporting our mission.
A series of 10 lessons used recently to teach middle and high school classes. There is a great range of activities and the students really engaged with the subject. Each lesson is fully resourced and ready to teach from the box. Each includes options for adaption up or down depending on class level. Each lesson builds up students’ skills ready for an assessment in lesson 10, but also develops soft skills of group work, presentation, research and problem-solving.
The lessons are as follows:
• Raiders or Settlers? Push and Pull Factors
• Viking Mythology & Top Trumps
• Women in the Viking Age
• Trade and Longboats
• Lindisfarne
• Edmund the Martyr
• Bluetooth, Forkbeard & Canute
• The Kyivan Rus
• The Viking Discovery of America
• Assessment
Use code ‘MAX25’ for 25% off all resources at the webstore, found at Wolsey Academy (Google us)
Wolsey Academy, a non-profit resource provider, directs all profits to various charities, including refugee support, youth sports, educational programs, and carbon capture, achieving a carbon-negative status. Explore our site for resources and free history role-playing games loved by students. Thank you for your dedication to teaching and for supporting our mission.
Hope it helps.
W
6 Lessons covering all aspects of the Russian Civil War with a range of activities that build up student’s knowledge and essay writing skills.
Wolsey Academy, a non-profit resource provider, directs all profits to various charities, including refugee support, youth sports, educational programs, and carbon capture, achieving a carbon-negative status. Explore our site for resources and free history role-playing games loved by students. Thank you for your dedication to teaching and for supporting our mission.
8 lessons, designed for A Level and IB
Wolsey Academy, a non-profit resource provider, directs all profits to various charities, including refugee support, youth sports, educational programs, and carbon capture, achieving a carbon-negative status. Explore our site for resources and free history role-playing games loved by students. Thank you for your dedication to teaching and for supporting our mission.
Industrial Revolution:
From a Scheme of Work on the Industrial Revolution. Target is KS3 but all assessments throughout are GCSE and use Edexcel criteria. Each lesson contains a lesson plan, quick start guide, printable resources, mini plenaries, challenge questions, mark schemes, writing frames, lots of differentiation, a nice mix of activity types and a lesson specific EAL activity sheet. There are 14 lessons in total, but each lesson has enough material to last 2 or 3 lessons for even high ability classes.
Most lessons include some high-level source analysis.
The lessons also include a link to a site hosting a self-marking End of Unit quiz and a revision guide which make for nice homework activities. The SOW has been used for several years (with continual updates and improvements) at a very successful History department in an outstanding school.
If used at KS3 it also acts as a grounding for any History of Medicine modules they might encounter at KS4 (hence the focus on public health and inventions).
The SOW covers the following topics:
Introduction to the Industrial Revolution (free)
Population Boom (free)
Factories
Coal Mining
Transport
Robert Stephenson
Industrial Revolution inventors
Child Labour
Public Health Problems
Public Health Solutions & Government Intervention
Source Question on the Big Stink
Luddites
British Empire
Source Question on Empire
Revision Guide & EAL activities.
WolseyAcademy.com, a non-profit resource provider, directs all profits to various charities, including refugee support, youth sports, educational programs, and carbon capture, achieving a carbon-negative status. Explore our site for resources and free history role-playing games loved by students. Thank you for your dedication to teaching and for supporting our mission.
Lesson on the causes of the American war of Independence. Aims to build students ability to categorise factors into headings and write an extended piece of analysis.
Lesson Includes:
Teacher video of the lesson (ideal for distance learning)
Recap activity of previous lesson on colonial America.
Teacher Talk Stimulus Context Slide
Research task with 7 factor info sheets in the resources section – support sheet for differentiation.
Categorisation task.
Three writing support slides with exemplar sentences and structure guide for all levels of learner.
Google quiz (self marking)
7 x flash cards for key factors
Part of a wider bundle of lessons on American History.
Wolsey Academy, a non-profit resource provider, directs all profits to various charities, including refugee support, youth sports, educational programs, and carbon capture, achieving a carbon-negative status. Explore our site for resources and free history role-playing games loved by students. Thank you for your dedication to teaching and for supporting our mission.
Hope it helps.
This is one lesson from a completely fully resourced and integrated series of 17 lessons on the Russian Revolution. It was designed for GCSE History but has also been used very effectively at KS3 level.
Each lesson contains as a minimum:
• Recap from previous lesson
• Keyword flashcards (in a unique ‘Pokémon card style’ template!)
• Writing skill challenges building up to fully developed PEEKA paragraphs (these increase in complexity as you move through the lessons)
• Text with comprehension questions
• A ‘reverse engineer’ essay question task.
• A model paragraph with a ‘how can you improve?’ task
• Stretch questions.
• Video links.
The 17 lessons are as follows:
Russia and its discontents (free)
1905 Revolution (free)
The First World War (free)
Rasputin
February Revolution
Mid-Module Revision Tasks and Knowledge Check
Provisional Government
October Revolution
Bolsheviks & Constituent Assembly
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War – Why did the Reds win?
Russian Civil War – War Communism
Russian Civil War – Kronstadt Naval Mutiny
Russian Civil War – New Economic Policy
Russian Civil War – Lenin’s Legacy
End of unit – all revision cards, revision tasks, assessment questions, models and criteria.
Hope they help.
Wolsey Academy, a non-profit resource provider, directs all profits to various charities, including refugee support, youth sports, educational programs, and carbon capture, achieving a carbon-negative status. Explore our site for resources and free history role-playing games loved by students. Thank you for your dedication to teaching and for supporting our mission.
#BetterTeachingBetterPlanet
The Cold War IGCSE Edexcel
One lesson from over forty on the Cold War, designed for the IGCSE Edexcel specification but instantly transferable to any other GCSE (or non-GCSE) curriculum.
It begins before the Second World War, with the origins of Communist thinking and the Russian Revolution and continues right through the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the USSR.
Each lesson comes with a range of activities, keyword cards and assessments. Focus on developing analytical and writing skills.
Wolsey Academy, a non-profit resource provider, directs all profits to various charities, including refugee support, youth sports, educational programs, and carbon capture, achieving a carbon-negative status. Explore our site for resources and free history role-playing games loved by students. Thank you for your dedication to teaching and for supporting our mission.
One lesson from the French Revolution & Napoleon SOW (10 lessons) we have been teaching for a while but recently jazzed up some cartoon illustrations and streamlined/added some activities.
Each lesson comes with a range of activities and a focus, some build up essay writing skills, others focus on debates, others are more creative tasks. All resources included at the end of each PowerPoint, designed to be as ‘pick up and play’ or ‘pick up and modify’ as possible to help you out.
Content wise you can see below, starts with the Enlightenment as context and then roams into Napoleon’s rise, his wars and eventually downfall at Waterloo. Have had excellent engagement with this SOW.
The lessons are as follows:
The Enlightenment
Causes of the Revolution
Tennis Court Oath & The Bastille
Constitution and the Republic
The Terror
Napoleon’s Rise To Power
Napoleon the General
Peninsular War & The Rifles
Battle of Waterloo 1815
Napoleonic Law and Legacy
Wolsey Academy, a non-profit resource provider, directs all profits to various charities, including refugee support, youth sports, educational programs, and carbon capture, achieving a carbon-negative status. Explore our site for resources and free history role-playing games loved by students. Thank you for your dedication to teaching and for supporting our mission.
Hope it helps.
W
The second set of 11 lessons of 22 lessons that together teach the entire Vietnam Conflict, 1945-1975.
Ideal for all specifications. Each lesson comes with a range of activities, flash cards for revision and assessments and checks throughout. Almost all include a written assessment with guidance and activities that ask students to consider a range of different historical interpretations of the events. All resources needed for the lesson are self-contained within the PowerPoint with printer friendly versions ready to go.
The lessons are as follows:
PART 2:
12. Vietcong Tactics
13. US Tactics
14. Khe Sanh, Tet & Hue
15. Nixon Doctrine & Vietnamization
16. Opposition to the War – Media & Atrocities
17. My Lai Massacre 1968
18. Opposition to the War – Students, Kent State and the Draft
19. Support for the War – Hard Hats
20. Peace and the Fall of Saigon 1975
21. Why did the US Fail?
22. 80 Flashcards
BONUS: Max Hastings Guided Reading Activity - Operation Rolling Thunder
(PART 1 - available also:)
Vietnam Overview and Timeline
Colonial Vietnam
General Giap
Dien Bien Phu 1954
Geneva Accords 1954
Domino Theory & McCarthyism
Ho Chi Minh
The Vietcong
Strategic Hamlet Program
Overthrow of Diem 1963
Gulf of Tonkin Incident 1964
BONUS: Max Hastings Guided Reading Activity - Operation Rolling Thunder
Wolsey Academy is a non-profit with every penny we make going to good causes, see our website, Wolsey Academy (Google us), for more information and to access free History games and lots more resources.
Hope it helps.
W.
This series of lessons will explore the rich and diverse history of Ukraine, from the ancient civilization of Kievan Rus to the present day. Students will learn about the country’s cultural and political heritage, including its struggles for independence and democracy, and its contributions to art, literature, and science.
The 10 lessons are as follows:
The emergence of the Kievan Rus in the 9th century
The Mongol Invasion in the 12th century
The Union of Lublin in 1569
The Cossack Uprising in the 17th century
The Partitions of Poland in the late 18th century
The Ukrainian War of Independence in 1917-1921
The Holodomor Famine of 1932-1933
The Chernobyl Disaster of 1986
The Orange Revolution of 2004
The Euromaidan protests in 2013-2014
In each lesson, students will…
Study the context of the topic
Sort a timeline of the events into the correct order.
Watch a video and answer questions on the content.
Study historical perspectives of the topic.
A study of images and artifacts from the period and what they can teach us.
Sort factors into order of relevance and significance
Agree on a grading matrix for answering a written question.
Read an example answer and look for what went well and even better if.
Try writing your own answer to the topic question.
Tackle a stretch task to take your learning further
These lessons have been created by Wolsey Academy. Each lesson has been taught to high-school students successfully.
Wolsey Academy, a non-profit resource provider, directs all profits to various charities, including refugee support, youth sports, educational programs, and carbon capture, achieving a carbon-negative status. Explore our site for resources and free history role-playing games loved by students. Thank you for your dedication to teaching and for supporting our mission.
#BetterTeachingBetterPlanet
We hope it helps.
Slava Ukraïni!
This lesson is from the 10-lesson series below:
10 fully resourced lessons designed to cover in depth the first chapter of the Cambridge IGCSE History Modern World. Designed for both in person and virtual teaching. Each lesson includes:
• A Literacy/Numeracy/Think settler question
• A context slide to allow for some (valuable) direct instruction
• A range of resources which include the likes of categorisation tasks, source questions and writing activities with model answers (focus on flexible PEEKA paragraphs).
• An online recap quiz
• Each lesson also includes a scholarship and further reading page to really engage the higher-level students.
Lessons in the series:
WW1 Recap
The State of Germany in 1918
The German Revolution 1918
Paris Peace Conference 1919 – Motives Overview
Wilson’s 14 Points
David Lloyd George at Versailles
Terms of the Treaty – Germany
Reactions – Source work
The other treaties
Was it fair?
Also ideal for KS3 and other GCSE studies when considering the TofV – the Cambridge spec asks for a lot more depth on this topic that Edexcel seem to – so can easily be diluted a little for Edexcel, or used to push higher level classes.
WolseyAcademy.com, a non-profit resource provider, directs all profits to various charities, including refugee support, youth sports, educational programs, and carbon capture, achieving a carbon-negative status. Explore our site for resources and free history role-playing games loved by students. Thank you for your dedication to teaching and for supporting our mission.
From a series of 5 lessons taking KS3 through Central Asian History, highlighting many topics not covered by the traditional curriculum but which nonetheless are highly important to a developed and balanced appreciation of world history.
The five lessons are:
The Mongols
The Silk Roads
The Timurid Empire
The Ottomans
The Mughals
Wolsey Academy, a non-profit resource provider, directs all profits to various charities, including refugee support, youth sports, educational programs, and carbon capture, achieving a carbon-negative status. Explore our site for resources and free history role-playing games loved by students. Thank you for your dedication to teaching and for supporting our mission.