During this lesson students work their way through a fantastically precise and detailed set of background notes before completing a 33 piece evidence sort. Students are asked to arrange the evidence firstly into industrial and agricultural, and then into successes and failures. This is a brilliant lesson which suits many learners’ needs and in particular which appeals to high-end learners. I hope your students get as much from this set of activities as mine do. If you watch the short video clip attached you can see some of my students putting this knowledge to good use.

This is one of my absolute favourite lessons. Students read through the background knowledge/notes before working their ways through a 21 piece evidence sort to answer the question ‘Who killed Kirov?’ Students then place the card sort information into piles which suggest Stalin was guilty of the murder and evidence that suggests he was not, before arriving at an opinion abotu why the 1st December Law and the subsequent purges and period of Yezhovschina occured. My students truly love this lesson and I really hope yours do too!

This is a great full lesson. Students begin with a starter activity which teaches them the basic steps to the Charleston before progressing through a very detailed and comprehensive set of notes covering the changes in the period in music, women, sports, architecture, religion, leisure and cinema. Students are then allocated a character card (flapper, housewife, young black American, Italian immigrant, gangster, businessman, Klansman, farmer) and complete a scaffolded worksheet explaining how there character would feel about the changes. They are then paired together to hold a discussion with another character in a meaningful way in order to reveal the different attitudes in the period. My students love this topic and I really hope yours do as well.

These two sided front sheets look great when attached to student work. Moreover, they save teacher time and increase the level of precise feedback received by students. They have been designed specifically for the IB History course. I hope your students find them as useful as mine do.

I am very proud of the precision and amount of detail in this lesson and its designed to be engaging and to ensure students make measurable progress. The class begin by exploring an odd one out exercise for the starter activity and this draws their attention to early Chinese views of westerners. This then leads into an extremely detailed set of notes (which I created when teaching in China) before students attempt a 30 piece hexagonal card sort which is colour-coded into factors. The class then make links and explain the Key Question before finishing with a fun ‘Just-a-Minute’ plenary in order to test their understanding and knowledge gained. I hope you enjoy this lesson as much as my students do.

This is a very clear and structured approach to ensuring student success in the History IA. The PPT talks students through how to tackle each section of the IA and rubric breaks it down so they know what to aim for in each section. I hope your students find these items as useful as mine.

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.

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 loved taking part in these STEAM activities which have been designed for Key Stage 2 students. The activities are in Power Point form and instructions are given step by step so the class teacher and students can successfully recreate five different inventions (I have also listed a ‘what you will need’ slide for each activity). I have also put a link in to an example of each activity (You Tube) to show students how the finished activities should look). You can click the links to see what each STEAM activity looks like on completion. Sebastian Lenormand’s parachute (made out of black bin liner) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGobZeXR5OE&list=PLgzcyyWkDljnR_SCk9QRVfPwokv9o8T0a&index=7&t=0s Lawrence de Mole’s tank (with working rubber bank gun!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJl6-KUKPvc&list=PLgzcyyWkDljnR_SCk9QRVfPwokv9o8T0a&index=24&t=0s Henry Ford’s Model T motor vehicle (propelled by balloon power!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4WMD1fjeDY&list=PLgzcyyWkDljnR_SCk9QRVfPwokv9o8T0a&index=25&t=0s Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s bridges (made from uncooked spaghetti) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baGpVKMGQy4&list=PLgzcyyWkDljnR_SCk9QRVfPwokv9o8T0a&index=22&t=0s And Robert Goddard’s rocket https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpLAOjZA0zw&list=PLgzcyyWkDljnR_SCk9QRVfPwokv9o8T0a&index=9&t=0s All of the activities are fun for students and designed to generate thinking about how significant these inventions are and how they work. Each activity works towards a collaborative element where students test their inventions or participate in a race or game. I really enjoyed creating this series of STEAM lessons and my students loved them more than any other classes that year. I hope you find them helpful with your students too. These lessons are naturally a bit messy but bring out the very best in students and help them develop a love and appreciation of the past.

This is a terrific first lesson if teaching a unit on Russia from the turn of the Nineteenth Century until the Revolution. Students are introduced to the lesson with a ‘what’s behind the squares PPT’ which reveals a Social Revolutionary poster displaying Russian society as a wedding cake. They are then given a detailed 8 page set of notes broken down into population, cities, geography, rule and government and so forth and are asked to research and present 8 physical items that explain what life was like for different groups for their main task. They are given some examples (such as Faberge eggs or rubles buried under peasant homes or Cossack knouts/whips to guide them). I have also included a plenary (Dingbats) with some of the key terms students come across in this lesson to test comprehension at the end of their presentations. I hope your students enjoy this lesson as much as mine do. It is designed for secondary aged students who can use detailed information as well as their own research to present their findings. Any questions please let me know and I’m always happy to help.

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.

I couldn’t find a book on Germany 1918-45 which suited my high ability IGCSE students so I wrote one myself. This is my 233-page PDF which covers all of the key parts of the CIE specification and which includes comprehension questions and activities at the end of each chapter. I give it to students to supplement the course. It also includes detailed revision menus. If you prefer you can find it on Amazon in published form but am selling it here also in case anyone prefers a digicopy they can print. Wishing you a great day, Daniel

Get students to glue this sheet in. It explains graduated criteria for five skills (interpretation, significance, causation, change and continuity, and consequence). Each has criteria for Mastery, Secure, Developing, Emerging, and Beginner grades. I always ask students to highlight their grade on returned assessments and then do the same in another colour to note what they need to do to improve.

I couldn’t find a book on China 1900-89 which suited my high ability IGCSE students so I wrote one myself. This is my 200-page PDF which covers all of the key parts of the EdExcel specification and which includes comprehension questions and activities at the end of each chapter. I give it to students to supplement the course. It also includes detailed revision menus.

This lesson is a 40-slide PowerPoint presentation with graduated lesson aims (all will/most will/some will) and begins with some images and quotations to illustrate why bus segregation was such an important issue. The lesson then includes a “What’s Behind the Squares?” Starter Activity, which reveals two images: one of Rosa Parks on a bus in Louisiana and a photograph of an injured Freedom Rider. The main activity consists of an 18-piece card sort, in which students are invited to identify strategies, challenges, and impacts of both events (they’re colour coordinated), and then divide these into similarities or differences. Both were non-violent and led to desegregation, but there are also some key differences in terms of participants, scale of impact, and how they are remembered. The lesson concludes by referring back to the lesson aims and asks students to write a three-paragraph piece of work addressing the Key Question. I hope your students find it as useful as mine always do. I haven’t included any YouTube links because the links often expire, but there are many terrific documentary clips you can use. You may also wish to play the Joan Baez song “We Shall Overcome” during the plenary.

This lesson begins with a Starter Activity in which students are invited to comment on an easy, medium or difficult question on a cartoon which sheds light on the position of Black Americans from slavery to the modern day. The lesson title and aims as well as graduated criteria (all will/most will/some will) are introduced and there are some teacher expo slides which explain the concept of significance. This invites students to explain their perspective on what makes someone or something important. The acronym GREAT is introduced (ground-breaking, remembered, importance at the time, affected the future, and turning point) and after a few intro slides on MLK himself, examples are given to aid discussion and understanding of these GREAT significance criteria as they relate specifically to Dr. King and his significance. This information is then used as the class begin their main activity (to make a digital, written, or visual model celebrating his importance.) The lesson concludes with a Design Your Own Question retrieval knowledge activity to check understanding. A consolidation homework task is included where students write an answer to the Key Question. I created this as a series of 3 lessons and its pitched at high achieving Key Stage 3 students for Martin Luther King Day. Because I am British the words are in UK-English. If you have any questions do let me know and I wish you a wonderful day. Dr. King is one of my heroes and I am proud that this lesson will impact on your students as well as mine.

This lesson begins with an Odd One Out starter activity designed to get students thinking about those who have given their lives for the Civil Rights movement. This activity then connects to the lesson title, and students are invited to read the graduated learning outcomes (all will/most will/some will). Following this, there is some background information provided for teacher exposition on Emmett. The main activity is then introduced: students work in small groups to sift through 12 pieces of evidence about his murder. As they do so, they write down their thoughts or inferences on the History mystery grid. There are 12 slides in which the teacher can run through each piece of evidence. By this point, students will have formulated a narrative of what happened and are invited to vote in the plenary. A written homework task is also included at the end of the PowerPoint. I hope your students get as much from this crucial history lesson as mine always do.

In this 44-slide PowerPoint presentation, the lesson commences with a “What’s Behind the Squares? - Starter Activity” introducing the class to the black power symbol given by Tommie Smith and John Carlos in the 200 meters final of the Mexico 1968 Olympics. Graduated lesson aims are provided, delineating objectives for all, most, and some students. Background information about the Black Panthers is presented to allow for teacher exposition. The main task entails a 24-piece hexagonal card sort where students categorize perceptions of the Panthers into positive and negative, making connections before assembling them into an essay map to guide extended written work on the Key Question. The lesson revisits its aims, concluding with students listening to Curtis Mayfield’s music about the Panthers before attempting a class vote based on the Key Question, weighing perspectives such as those of J. Edgar Hoover and Angela Davis. As interpretations may vary, this setup fosters robust debate. It is underscored that lessons about Civil Rights are crucially taught head-on but sensitively, with the hope that this resource facilitates such discussions in the classroom. The lesson is pitched at high achieving high school students and is written in UK English.

This lesson focuses on the historical skill of interpretation, and students are invited to consider two different opinions on Malcolm X: those of conservative analyst William F. Buckley (who calls him a “public menace”) and movie director Spike Lee (who calls him a “freedom fighter”). The lesson has graduated aims (all will/most will/some will), and students are quickly introduced to the Starter Activity. This activity involves two sources showing different opinions on Malcolm X: one is a mural in New York which shows him as a martyr, and the other is a letter written to the FBI complaining about him. They complete a Venn diagram on these two sources to begin conversations about why there should be such duality of opinions on this Civil Rights leader. Then, there is some background information on his early life to enable teacher exposition. The main task is then introduced, and the class divides 18 cards into positives and negatives to help them form an opinion. This then leads to written and verbal explanations before the class concludes with a voting plenary to answer the main question. All topics on Civil Rights must be taught sensitively and head-on, and I hope this resource helps you bring this important leader and his legacy to life in your classroom.

This 26-slide PowerPoint begins with a starter activity in which students listen to the folk song ‘The Fields of Athenry’ and fill in the blanks in a ‘Have I Got News For You’ style activity. They then discuss the meaning of the song. The lesson title and graduated aims (‘all will/most will/some will’) are then introduced. There are some background information slides about transportation to penal colonies for teacher exposition. This then leads to the main activity in which students pair up heads and tails cards in a card sort (the answers are provided so students can self or peer assess) before plotting them onto an emotional rollercoaster to determine the worst aspects of being convicted and sent to Botany Bay. The lesson aims are referred back to, and the lesson concludes with a plenary activity in which students are asked to use the knowledge and understanding they have acquired to create a dialogue between the characters in a famous painting by Ford Madox Brown (‘The Last of England’). This lesson was created with a desirable difficulty level for high-achieving Key Stage 4 students in high school settings and is written in UK English.