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What do we know about the early life of Queen Cleopatra VII of Egypt?
This lesson was designed for GCSE students as an introduction to Cleopatra and the likely features of her early life/ childhood.
The lesson covers both her likely experiences but also the reasons for the lack of evidence available to us when examining her formative years. Scholarship from Weigall and Tydesley is included in various places with students asked to make inferences about her earliest experiences from the text.
Challenge questions are included throughout to encourage deeper thinking and both worksheets are included as slides within the .ppt file in the appropriate places ready to be printed out. All instructions are clear to both students and staff and it is a very straightforward, yet informative, lesson to teach.
A progress check activity in the middle of the lesson is included and the plenary at the end is more creative/cross-curricular in its focus.
There are multiple opportunities throughout for students to consider how her earliest experiences may have shaped her future actions as queen, without necessary prior knowledge of the events of her reign required.
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Who was Cleopatra and how much can we actually know about her?
The lesson begins with students making inferences about Cleopatra based on a single representation of her from Hollywood. This helps us to pick apart the generic view of Cleopatra as a seductress/ tragic queen as the lesson progresses.
There is a wealth of different secondary history within this lesson. It uses excerpts from Roller, Morgan and Weigall to introduce what she was like as a person (as far as we can know).
The second part of the lesson focuses on the limitations of the ‘primary’ sources from the ancient world we have available to us. There is a comprehension task included with a literacy focus and some challenge questions for HA learners.
The final part of the lesson then moves onto what Cleopatra’s world looked like geographically and some of the potential pitfalls that would befall her thanks to her father’s ‘up and down’ relationship with Rome, the growing superpower of the time vs Egypt, which was on the decline.
The end of the lesson very much sets the teacher up to teach lessons on the events of her life and ensures that students have a sound understanding of what she was probably like vs how she has traditionally been portrayed (both in the ancient world and in the ‘modern’ media).
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How did the Romans feel about 'foreigners'?
This lesson uses a range of primary and secondary sources to examine how Romans really felt about foreigners.
The lesson starts with a look at definitions of ‘foreigner’ to us today vs what ‘foreign’ meant to the Romans and discussion can ensue about potential reasons behind this difference.
Students are then provided with a worksheet (as a slide in the .ppt file ready to be printed out) where students examine evidence from the following sources:
Juvenal
Livy
Watts (secondary)
Cicero
Tacitus
Athenaeus
Ulpian
Beard (secondary)
Students have to infer from passages of the authors’ own writing (all included) what the Romans believed about foreigners living in their city, but also examine Romans’ own identity as ‘foreigners’ themselves from the beginning of the city’s foundation.
The progress check invites students to define Roman attitudes to ‘the other’ halfway through the lesson, but then revisit this answer at the end to see if their views have changed (they should be more nuanced by the end of the lesson).
There are a series of questions at the end of the lesson designed to allow students to exhibit their understanding. HA students are challenged by being asked to consider how Romans perceived foreign rulers, using Cleopatra as an example.
An SMSC plenary centring around whether the Romans are that much different than modern society (in terms of distrust of foreigners) using Brexit and Immigration controls as a parallel, rounds off the lesson.
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How did Cleopatra expand the Ptolemaic Empire? (+Intro to OCR Ancient History GCSE questions)
The lesson starts with a creative drawing competition starter activity familiarising students with what Alexandria would have looked like. Students are then presented with a timeline of events from Cleopatra’s life and asked to outline the 5 most significant events and explain their reasoning. This allows students with little prior knowledge of Cleopatra understand the significance of her life in a short activity.
The focus of the lesson then moves onto lands she managed to secure from mark Antony and students are encouraged to come up with a memorable acronym to help them remember which lands she gained. Students are then introduced to the Donations of Alexandria and have to analyse its significance in relation to the first lands she managed to secure from Antony.
Students are then given an extract from Plutarch’s ‘Life of Mark Antony’ and given two 5 mark OCR Ancient History GCSE questions to think about. Sentence starters are included to help them structure their work. After they have had a go they can look at the two model answers provided and use these to improve their own.
Students finally are asked in the plenary to consider how she managed to be successful in expanding Egypt’s influence when her predecessors had failed in this regard.
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Who were the Achaemenid (Persian) Kings?
And how well did each one rule the Persian Empire?
This lesson has been designed as an ‘opening’ or ‘overview’ lesson for OCR Ancient History GCSE students, embarking on their study of the Persian Empire/ Achaemenid kings (Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius and Xerxes).
It has also been used however as a stand alone lesson, for example as a lesson in a thematic unit on different empires throughout history.
The starter introduces students to the geography of the Persian Empire in relation to Europe and the rest of the world - giving students some context.
The main bulk of the lesson is based around an activity involving four A5 cards. Each A5 card has details about each king. Students identify positives and negatives of each king from the cards and then evaluate the relative success of each one in relation to the others. The information cars are included as slides within the PowerPoint, ready to be printed.
Students are then advised how to apply the knowledge they have gained to the June 2019 summer exam essay question through the use of visuals, followed by an effective plenary involving students judging their own progress (with your support) using ‘post-it’ notes.
This lesson is designed to last an hour, unless you elect for students to attempt the exam question, in which case it will run to nearer two.
The resources are very accessible are designed with the research behind ‘dual-coding’ in mind. The resources do not shy away from some ambitious vocabulary though and teachers may find spending some lesson time unpicking some of this vocabulary useful.
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How did Volero Publilius become Tribune of the Plebs and what reforms did he enact in 471 BC?
This lesson is designed with OCR Ancient History 9-1 GCSE spec in mind. Although it fits snugly into any study of the Roman Republic and plays a pivotal role in the ‘Conflict of the Orders’; the struggle between the Patricians and the Plebeians in Ancient Rome as the plebs struggled to secure more rights, freedoms and controls from their Patrician counterparts.
The lesson begins by studying a cartoon and trying to draw inferences about the story from it, after briefly looking at lictors and their job (since lictors play as big role in the first part of the story of Publilius’ ascencion to tribune of the Plebs). There is then a ‘gap fill’ exercise sheet to be printed off aimed at nailing key vocabulary.
Brief audio files (edited and adapted from the free Ancient Rome Podcast The Partial Historians are included along with relevant questions for students to answer based on these audio clips (each roughly 5 minutes in length).
It is important to note that the podcast is free and is available to download at https://partialhistorians.com/category/podcast/from-the-founding-of-the-city/
But the audio files are included for ease of use and obviously no copywright infringement is intended. I have found these podcasts really enjoyable and an invaluable resource as a teacher of this unit given the lack of available CPD and cannot recommend them highly enough :) I have also tried to point my students in their direction as a revision resource.
There is then a brief discussion about the reliability of Dionysius and Livy’s accounts of Volero Publilius’ reforms and then a comprehension sheet which can be printed off (included within the relevant point in the lesson) which has a 6 mark exam question as a challenge at the end.
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Why did Alexander set fire to Persepolis?
This lesson was designed with the OCR Ancient History 9-1 GCSE spec in mind.
The starter of the lesson offers 5 interpretations of Alexander’s motives for invading Persia, and 5 different characters. Students have to match the interpretation to the character. The point of this exercise is for students to realise there are a wealth of interpretations for Alexander’s motives at every stage of his journey.
The focus then turns to our sources. A passage from Plutarch is presented and students are directed to annotate it while discussing it’s implications.
Similarly, A passage from Arrian is then presented where students do the same.
Both passages, when compared to each other, show different motives for Alexander setting fire to Persepolis, based on their own bias/sources/moral point of view.
A discussion of that these implications then ensues, followed by a directed 20 mark exam question complete with sentence starters.
A model conclusion is then included to allow students to a) see before they begin answering to know what direction in which to take their essay, and b) to use to improve their own answers/conclusions in self-assessment.
The final plenary centres around the fact that Diodorus remains mostly silent on what, to the other authors at least, seems a turning point in Alexander’s Persian campaign.
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The Roman Regal period: How much can we really know?
This lesson has been created with the OCR Ancient History GCSE 9-1 spec in mind, but provides suitable challenge for any A Level students needing to confront the reliability of Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus as historical sources.
The lesson really tries to use scholarship in an accessible way. Summaries of journal articles are given to students initially in bite-sized formats. Students are questioned on these before completing some straightfoward comprehension questions to solidify their learning (on a sheet included as a slide within the .pptx file).
Students are then presented with summarised information sourced from another journal and academic book which looks at Dionysius’ and Livy’s motives for writing and key learning is then available for note-taking.
Students are then given a print out of an empty table where they fill in information about the two authors as the teacher goes through the information on the screen, with students having to guess whether the information belongs in their Livy table or their Dionysius table (teacher led - it’s made obvious on the screen at each point!). Students can then check their tables against a completed one on the screen at the end.
The plenary task asks students to come to a decision on who they believe is the most reliable author when it comes to learning about Rome’s earliest history, given all the limitations, biases and the political context constraining each author.
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Romulus and Tullus Hostlius: How do their kingships compare?
I have created this lesson due to the lack of resources available to secondary teachers above and beyond the standard trope of "Romulus was celebrated because he founded Rome and established the city among its neighbours’ and Tullus Hostilius was a bad king because he focused far too much on war and neglected religion’ This view is expounded by nearly all freely available information on the Roman kings online and in secondary text books.
This has arguably come about because Livy is the ‘go-to’ source for a history of the Roman regal period. This is fine but often other resources take his moral stances and opinions as fact. It is well known in academia (as the lesson points out using scholarship in an accessible way) that Livy uses the first four Roman kings as a vehicle for his messages regarding proper decorum from Rome’s public officials. He claims there are lessons to be learnt from History and shapes his narrative to do this.
This lesson therefore seeks to dig into the similarities between Romulus and Tullus, both war-like and easily compared, and to challenge the notion that Tullus’ kingship should be seen in the negative light in which school-level resources tend to (all too easily) paint him. It introduces the opinions of Dionysius of Halicarnassus and of Cicero in order to draw out the nuance in the ways Romans themselves interpreted Tullus’ reign in light of Romulus’ achievements.
There is suitable challenge in this lesson as you might imagine but I have also been careful to provide plenty of support in the way of glossaries of key terms and key questions teachers should be posing at each point within the lesson.
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Early History of Rome: Knowledge Organisers (Dual-Coded)
Attached are Ten separate (dual-coded) knowledge organisers that convey the key information students need to know for the following topics:
Aeneas - The first Roman?
Romulus & Remus
Romulus - 1st King of Rome
Numa Pompilius- 2nd King of Rome
Tullus Hostilius - 3rd King of Rome
Ancus Marcius - 4th King of Rome
Lucius Tarquinius Priscus - 5th King of Rome
Servius Tullius - 6th King of Rome
Tarquinius Superbus - 7th King of Rome
The Wars of Independence
Information on our key sources for this period (Livy & Dionysius of Halicarnassus) is also relayed where relevant.
Each file is portrait-orientated and can be printed off in A4 or A5. They can be used in conjunction with teacher exposition (and can be annotated) or they can be used as a revision aid for the OCR Ancient History 9-1 GCSE ‘Foundations of Rome’ unit.
My students absolutely love them. They streamline the GCSE content and they are presented in a way designed to eliminate ‘noise’. They were painstaking to produce and have proved inavlauble in my teaching of the GCSE :)
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Cambyses Ancient History OCR GCSE Dual Coded Graphic Organisers
These Graphic Organisers are ideal for Ancient History 9-1 GCSE. Quality resources for the GCSE seem scarce and this is me trying to rectify that a bit.
My students really appreciate these. The organisers give enough ‘knowledge’ or ‘information’ for students to get a good grade at GCSE - a 4/5/6 depending on how much information they can retain.
We print these out A5 size and stick them in the middle of our books and as I am teaching students will annotate these sheets according to how much extra information they need to get above a 4/5/6.
The visuals are a huge help and icons and schemas are repeated as and when appropriate across the organisers which makes pupils feel secure and build a mental image of all the content - something I had found challenging to help them create before using these. The GOs really help tell the ‘story’ of Cambyses’ reign as king of Persia
Topics included:
Early Cambyses and Succession
Background to Cambyses’ invasion of Egypt
Cambyses conquest of Egypt
Cambyses positives as ruler of Egypt
Cambyses’ negatives and 'madness as ruler of Egypt
Cambyses’ military failures after conquering Egypt (Carthage, Ammonia, Ethiopia)
Smerdis’ the usurper and death of Cambyses
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Cyrus the Great (dual coded) Graphic Organisers: Ancient History GCSE
These Graphic Organisers are ideal for Ancient History 9-1 GCSE. Quality resources for the GCSE seem scarce and this is me trying to rectify that a bit.
My students really appreciate these. The organisers give enough ‘knowledge’ or ‘information’ for students to get a good grade at GCSE - a 4/5/6 depending on how much information they can retain.
We print these out A5 size and stick them in the middle of our books and as I am teaching students will annotate these sheets according to how much extra information they need to get above a 4/5/6.
The visuals are a huge help and icons and schemas are repeated as and when appropriate across the organisers which makes pupils feel secure and build a mental image of all the content - something I had found challenging to help them create before using these. The GOs really help tell the ‘story’ of Cyrus the Great’s reign
Topics included:
Cyrus’ birth and early life
Cyrus’ conquest of Astyages and the Medes / Media
Cyrus’ conquest of Croesus and the Lydians / Lydia
Cyrus’ conquest of Nabonidus and the Babylonians / Babylon
The importance of the Nabonidus Chronicle, Cyrus Cylinder and Herodotus as sources
The foundation of Cyrus’ city at Pasargadae
Cyrus’ death at the hands of Queen Tomyris and the Massegatae
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Xerxes Graphic Organisers (Dual Coded) Ancient History GCSE
These Graphic Organisers are ideal for Ancient History 9-1 GCSE. Quality resources for the GCSE seem scarce and this is me trying to rectify that a bit.
My students really appreciate these. The organisers give enough ‘knowledge’ or ‘information’ for students to get a good grade at GCSE - a 4/5/6 depending on how much information they can retain.
We print these out A5 size and stick them in the middle of our books and as I am teaching students will annotate these sheets according to how much extra information they need to get above a 4/5/6.
The visuals are a huge help and icons and schemas are repeated as and when appropriate across the organisers which makes pupils feel secure and build a mental image of all the content - something I had found challenging to help them create before using these. The GOs really help tell the ‘story’ of Xerxes’ reign as king of Persia.
Topics included:
Accession of Xerxes to the Persian throne
Xerxes’ preparations for his invasion of Greece
Xerxes’ invasion of Greece
The Battle of Thermopylae
The sack of Athens
Battle of Salamis
Battle of Eurymedon
End of Persian forays westward
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Darius I Graphic Organisers (Dual Coded): Ancient History GCSE
These Graphic Organisers are ideal for Ancient History 9-1 GCSE. Quality resources for the GCSE seem scarce and this is me trying to rectify that a bit.
My students really appreciate these. The organisers give enough ‘knowledge’ or ‘information’ for students to get a good grade at GCSE - a 4/5/6 depending on how much information they can retain.
We print these out A5 size and stick them in the middle of our books and as I am teaching students will annotate these sheets according to how much extra information they need to get above a 4/5/6.
The visuals are a huge help and icons and schemas are repeated as and when appropriate across the organisers which makes pupils feel secure and build a mental image of all the content - something I had found challenging to help them create before using these. The GOs really help tell the ‘story’ of Darius the Great’s reign as king of Persia.
Topics included:
Accession of Darius
Behistun (Bisitun) Inscription
Darius’ reorganisation of the Persian Empire
The foundation of Darius’ city at Persepolis
Darius’ initial expansion attempts from 517 BCE
The backstory and causes of the Ionian Revolt
The events of the Ionian Revolt 499 BCE
The aftermath and consequences of the Ionian Revolt
Darius’ final invasion of Greece and death
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Why was Ancus Marcius such a good king of Rome?
This lesson is designed to be a succinct and clear 1 hour lesson that provides enough detail for the Ancient History OCR 9-1 GCSE Foundations of Rome Unit.
It goes through how Ancus was appointed and why, what Livy says about him in his History of Rome, and his religious, military and building reforms / projects.
The lesson is punctuated by pertinent questions which students can either verbally respond to or write out short explanations. these help to embed the knowledge and I’ve found them pretty useful for AfL.
My students liked these kind of lessons because they’re completely dual coded and as a result it massively reduces cognitive load, allowing pupils to easily access what is otherwise quite complex information.
The lesson contains various useful embedded video clips (hence the large file size) - the first ones recap Romulus, Numa and Tullus’ reforms as kings of Rome - since it is difficult to understand the significance of Ancus without looking at the actions of his predecessors. There is also a short entertaining video clip detailing the extent to which we can trust Livy as a source.
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The seven kings of Rome: the full story
This booklet is written in such a way that it can act as a teacher’s guide to the main events during the reigns of each king of Rome, or as a student guide. My students found it super useful because it brings what they have learnt about the kings together into an easy to understand, clear narrative.
This is really useful for students to read both before and after they have studied each king individually, as it helps provide context for more detailed work and a useful summary to help embed learning.
As a firm believer that story telling can aid knowledge retention, I created this for my students so that even the weakest can have a mental picture of all seven kings and their successes and failures.
This document was created with OCR Ancient History 9-1 GCSE in mind (Foundations of Rome) but equally could be used by anyone needing a concise and engaging summary of the Roman Regal Period from Romulus through to Tarquinius Superbus.
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Gnaeus Genucius, Volero Publilius Uprising and Reforms
This lesson is part of a scheme of lessons I created to try and fill a gap in the OCR Ancient History GCSE available resources. I felt like this is quite a complex era in Roman history and the resources that exist are complicated too - leading to cognitive overload for many of my students.
This lesson is completely dual coded and my students loved it because it is clear and succinct. It starts by recapping Gnaeus Genucius’ murder which gives Volero Publilius the platform he needs for his uprising and reforms - this story is then told and analysed throughout, allowing connections to be made to the broader Conflict of the Orders between Plebeians and Patricians that was going on during the early years of the Roman Republic.
On each slide are pertinent questions posed to students that they can answer verbally or in writing and are great for AfL - there is also a 6 mark exam question at the end so that students can apply their knowledge in one of the more low stakes questions they will get on the paper.
Even if you aren’t teaching the OCR AH GCSE, I’d argue this is probably the clearest and easiest to understand overview of the Volero Publilius Uprising and his legislation that exists at the moment - it’s why I made it because there was hardly anything accessible out there for me and my students…
Thanks for taking a look!
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How did Servius Tullius become king of Rome and what did he do?
This lesson is designed to be a succinct and clear 1 hour lesson that provides enough detail for the Ancient History OCR 9-1 GCSE Foundations of Rome Unit.
It goes through how Servius became king and why, what Livy says about him in his History of Rome, and his various political reforms and building projects. Students are also introduced to what Dionysius of Halicarnassus says about Servius and there is a comparison to Livy’s opinion.
There is also a clear and detailed explanation of Servius’ murder and his family tree - a complicated issue but made as simple as possible here and easy for all students to access.
The lesson is punctuated by pertinent questions which students can either verbally respond to or write out short explanations. these help to embed the knowledge and I’ve found them pretty useful for AfL.
My students liked these kind of lessons because they’re completely dual coded and as a result it massively reduces cognitive load, allowing pupils to easily access what is otherwise quite complex information.
The lesson contains various useful embedded video clips (hence the large file size) - the first ones recap Romulus, Numa, Tullus, Ancus and Priscus’ reforms as kings of Rome - since it is difficult to understand the significance of Servius without looking at the actions of his predecessors. There is also a short entertaining video clip detailing the extent to which we can trust Livy as a source.
Bundle
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Foundations of Rome: Roman Kings Scheme (Dual Coded)
This scheme was designed to cover a large part of the Period Study (Foundations of Rome) for the OCR Ancient History 9-1 GCSE.
The reign of the kings can be complex and difficult to access for students. My students liked these lessons because they are all dual coded to reduce cognitive load - meaning they can be accessed by all.
Appropriate video clips are included throughout, as are pertinent AfL questions and summative exam questions so students can put their learning to the test and hone their exam skills.
Livy’s opinions (and Dionysius’) are examined throughout the lessons and the merits of each king are analysed in relation to all the others.
Thanks for taking a look! These massively helped my students - hopefully they can help yours too.
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Tarquinius Superbus - The disastrous final king of Rome
This lesson is designed to be a succinct and clear lesson that provides enough detail for the Ancient History OCR 9-1 GCSE Foundations of Rome Unit. Including the exam question at the AfL questions - this lesson would ideally run over two hours.
It goes through how Tarquinius Superbus became king and why, what Livy says about him in his History of Rome, and his various disastrous political tyranny and cronyism.
There is also a clear and detailed explanation of Tarquin’s exile and his family tree - complicated issues but made as simple as possible here and easy for all students to access.
The lesson is punctuated by pertinent questions which students can either verbally respond to or write out short explanations. these help to embed the knowledge and I’ve found them pretty useful for AfL.
My students liked these kind of lessons because they’re completely dual coded and as a result it massively reduces cognitive load, allowing pupils to easily access what is otherwise quite complex information.
The lesson contains various useful embedded video clips (hence the larger file size) - a short entertaining video clip detailing the extent to which we can trust Livy as a source and one summarising Tarquin’s reign. There is also a 10 mark OCR exam question at the end with a variety of model answers which students can analyse before attempting their own with the help of sentence starters.