This is one of my favourite lessons. Students read through a very detailed set of notes focusing on the roles of Gorbachev, Reagan, economics, Solidarity and people power. Students then test their understanding of their newly acquired knowledge through a game of Jenga (attach the cards to a block - students place them into factors using the colour coordinated bricks. This activity can also be done as a more traditional card sort). Students then complete the lesson with a word search to promote key terms and literacy. I really hope your students enjoy this as much as mine do. It is pitched at very able 16-18 year old students.

In this lesson students are issued an exceptionally detailed pack of information and are required to create evidence based storyboard using the template provided which causes them to focus on the five key reasons. A plenary is also included which asks for them to develop two of these points using ‘on the other hand.’ I hope you enjoy this lesson as much as my students do.

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.

My students love this activity. 180+ questions based on the following categories: The Qing Dynasty Warlords Mao’s rise to power The Great Leap Forward The Cultural Revolution Daily Life It takes a little while to cut out the cards and the board and works best once laminated but your students will love this revision activity. The questions are designed to boost subject knowledge and focus on precise historical detail which in turn helps student examination performance. I hope your classes enjoy this activity as much as my IGCSE and IB classes always 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 lesson will introduce your students to Weimar Germany fantastically well. Students complete a maths challenge in the starter PPT to introduce them to some of the financial difficulties Germany was facing. After this the class work through a set of exceptionally detailed notes before completing a funneling activity designed to help them discriminate between evidence to form a judgement to help them answer the Key Question. The lesson concludes with a class vote PPT plenary. I hope your students get as much out of this lesson as much as mine do.

This is a powerful lesson which really gives students pause for thought. The class start with a what’s behind the squares activity which reveals a female Soviet sniper and which is designed to stimulate discussion about the nature of war. The class then read through an incredibly detailed set of notes before beginning a design-a-memorial task for which they are expected to include precise historical detail. The lesson concludes with a powerful piece of source analysis which invites further informed comment on the nature of fighting on the Eastern Front. I hope your students get as much out of this lesson as mine do.

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

In this powerful lesson students begin with a what’s behind the squares activity designed to get them questioning why an Olympic polo player might have been bloodied. They then work through a very detailed set of notes before completing a 48 piece hexagonal card sort which is colour coded into causes, events, and consequences. This activity is designed to ensure students can identify links and causation as well as encouraging them to select the most compelling piece of evidence. This then leads to a piece of extended written work. Students complete this lesson with a source matrix on a famous Vicky Weisz cartoon from the Daily Mirror to draw out their findings. I hope your students enjoy it as much as mine.

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

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.

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

In this lesson students begin by identifying what’s behind the squares in the starter activity which leads to source analysis which is designed to introduce the Key Question - What were the motives of the Big Three at Versailles? The class then explore a detailed set of notes before being issued a character card. The class then hotseat in role using the masks provided before concluding with a ‘Have I got News for You?’ style plenary in which they have to fill in the gaps to show comprehension. I hope your students gain as much from this lesson as mine do.

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

I designed this lesson when I taught History in Shanghai and so have used that city as a case study but it works really well in a unit on C21st China. In this lesson students complete an odd one out activity designed to hook them into the topic. They then work through detailed background notes and sources before attempting to complete a range of questions. The lesson concludes with a fun formative assessment task (‘Last Historian Standing’) to test them on the subject knowledge they will have acquired during this lesson. I hope you students get just as much from this lesson as mine do.

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

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

My students love this lesson. I created it for a local history unit when I worked in Shanghai but now use it as part of my unit on C20th China. The class begin with an odd one out activity designed to get them thinking about the period. They then work through a detailed set of notes before being divided up into high society and seedy underbelly. Students create a collage of their aspect of society using the card sort and take part in a freeze frame activity. The lesson concludes with a fun game of Dingbats to test subject knowledge.

I really enjoy teaching this lesson but it makes a content-heavy subject very easily understood. Students begin by breaking down a source using the OPVL method (origin, purpose, value, limitations) before proceeding to work through an extremely detailed set of notes. The class then use this information to create their own cults of personality before attempting a mix and match memory card game to test their comprehension. The lesson concludes with an exit ticket plenary. I hope your students enjoy this lesson as much as mine do.