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.
The Tudors
The aim of this lesson is to assess if Henry broke with Rome for love.
Henry VIII is on the TV show ‘Take me out’ with Paddy McGuiness.
He is looking for love and has some questions for some eligible ladies.
The students of course have to interview the ladies first (as Paddy always does) and then feedback to the class.
Henry, complete with speaking voice, discusses his options and the reasons for his choices. At the same time he explains the consequences of his actions as the students fill in a grid.
This is a fun, engaging lesson, but with the serious and challenging concept of the break with Rome at the fore.
At the end of the lesson, students have to write an extended paragraph using key words to explaining the reasons for Henry becoming the Supreme Head of the Church.
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.
The Norman Conquest
This lesson aims to question the qualities of William the Conqueror as the new leader of England.
Students will learn and discover that to many of the English, he was a foreigner and a usurper, who spoke French and only favoured his friends.
Therefore this lesson focuses on his policies towards those who opposed his rule and the ‘harrying of the north.’
Students have to analyse the threat level posed by many of these rebels (by colour coding thermometers next to each rebellion) as well as evaluating how much control he was able to exert over them, by making judgements using a control ‘o’ meter.
There are accompanying worksheets and video links to reinforce the learning.
The resource is differentiated and gives suggested teaching strategies.
It comes in PowerPoint format which can be amended and changed to suit.
The English Civil War
The aim of this lesson is for the students to decide whether Charles I was guilty or not guilty at his own trial of ‘subverting the fundamental laws and liberties of the nation and with maliciously making war on the parliament and people of England.’
The lesson starts by questioning the types of hat the judge should wear followed by a series of biased images depicting Charles at his trial, of which students have to analyse and explain why.
Students then examine and evaluate information about Charles’s actions to come up with a guilty or not guilty verdict. If found guilty then they will have to sign his death warrant!
There is some sentence scaffolding and argument words provided if help is required.
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, suggested teaching strategies and differentiated materials, and comes in PowerPoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.
This bundle follows the Key Stage 3 National Curriculum - challenges for Britain, Europe and the wider world, 1901 to the present day with a focus on the conflicts of the Second World War.
The aims of this bundle are to know and understand significant aspects of World War II on a global scale and how Britain has influenced and been influenced by this conflict.
In the first 12 lessons, students will learn and understand key historical skills throughout such as continuity and change in the role and use of propaganda in World War II, the causes and consequences of the policy of appeasement, breaking the Enigma Code or the evacuation of children, the similarities and differences of life on the Home Front, the significance of Winston Churchill and VE Day and interpretations about whether there really was a Blitz spirit.
In lessons 13 to 23 students will learn and understand key historical skills throughout such as change and continuity in the types of warfare used, the causes and consequences of the evacuation of Dunkirk and the similarities and differences of Hitler’s invasion of Russia as compared to Napoleon. They will also learn about the significance of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan, refugees in World War 2 as well as interpretations as to whether Sir Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris should be considered a war hero or not.
I have created and used these lessons to challenge and engage students, but also to show how much fun learning about this part of history really is.
The lessons are as follows:
L1 Causes of World War II
L2 Appeasement
L3 Winston Churchill
L4 The Home Front - preparations
L5 The Home Front - propaganda
L6 The Home Front - rationing
L7 The Home Front - women (free lesson)
L8 Evacuation of children
L9 The Blitz
L10 The Enigma Code
L11 Prisoners of war (free lesson)
L12 VE Day
L13 Overview of World War 2 (free lesson)
L14 Invasion of Poland
L15 Evacuation of Dunkirk
L16 The Battle of Britain (free lesson)
L17 The Battle of the Atlantic
L18 Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union
L19 Sir Arthur Bomber Harris
L20 D-Day landings
L21 The attack of Pearl Harbour
L22 Dropping the of Atomic Bombs on Japan
L23 Refugees in World War 2
Unfortunately due to TES restricting bundles to 20 resources, the free lessons of 7, 11, and 16 will need to be downloaded separately.
This bundle includes retrieval practice activities, suggested teaching strategies and differentiated materials.
All lessons come in PowerPoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.
I have created a set of resources for ‘the causes and events of the civil wars throughout Britain’ which comes under the development of Church, state and society in Britain 1509-1745 in the National Curriculum.
These lessons are also useful if you are studying this period at GCSE (such as AQA 9-1 GCSE Power and the People and OCR Explaining the Modern World)
Each lesson comes with suggested teaching and learning strategies and are linked to the latest historical interpretations and debate from the BBC and other sources.
The lessons are fully adaptable in Powerpoint format and can be changed to suit. I have included a couple of free lessons to give an idea of what is being offered.
The lessons are broken down into the following:
L1 Who was James I?
L2 The Gunpowder Plot
L3 Who was Charles I
L4 The Causes of the English Civil War (free resource)
L5 Cavaliers and Roundheads
L6 How did the two sides fight?
L7 The execution of Charles I
L8 Who was Oliver Cromwell
L9 Witches and Witchcraft (free resource)
L10 Charles II and the Restoration
L11 The Glorious Revolution
Additional lessons:
L12 Causes of the Great Fire of London
L13 Consequences of the Great Fire of London
( + Key Word History Display included)
Any reviews would be greatly appreciated.
World War I
The aim of this lesson is to understand how Germany was punished after World War 1 and how harsh its terms were to many Germans.
The first part of the lesson looks at how the map of Europe changed.
Students then have to think why the Big Three had different ideas on how to treat Germany.
Through various images and video footage students can see what they decided and have to justify why they came to these decisions.
The terms of the Treaty are discussed and then shown how to be remembered using a chatterbox (a template is included).
The final part analyses and evaluates a number of sources on the Treaty and their meanings.
A recap plenary at the end of the lesson uses a spinning wheel which can be used in a competitive challenge.
This lesson is enquiry based with a key question using a lightbulb posed at the start of the lesson and revisited throughout the lesson and this unit of study 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.
This lesson is split into two parts; the first part explains the triangular trade and the various goods and transactions that occurred in the slave trade.
Students are required to find this out through documentary and video evidence before plotting it on a table. A mini plenary checks their understanding and uses a ‘what if’ question to challenge their thinking.
The second part analyses the story of Olaudah Equiano and how his life was before and after he was captured.
However the students are challenged to question his version of events and how there is conflicting evidence in his account.
The final part of this lesson analyses how the slaves were captured by whom, prioritising which were the most common forms of capture and using sources of evidence to extract further information.
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
This lesson aims to explain how black people in America voiced their protests against their lack of Civil Rights in the 1950s and early 1960’s.
Students are introduced to the various forms of protest they used which they have to research and ultimately decide how effective each form of protest was, from music to sits ins, to marches and changing the law for example.
There are quite a few links to video footage at the time to reinforce the learning.
Students use the key words at the end of the lesson to summarise their new found knowledge.
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 Britain: Health and the People c1000 to present
The aim of this lesson is to make the factor question (4) more accessible to students.
A question that we think is an easy one for them to answer in fact causes the students the most difficulty.
I find students begin to panic and forget everything they have learnt over the course; many answers become scrambled into meaningless waffle or into a few sentences on some individual stories.
Sadly I begin ask myself where are all the individuals we have learnt about over the whole unit of work and their breakthroughs and impact on medicine?
This lesson can be delivered over two as there is quite a lot of information to get through.
A ‘model’ answer is given to them, only for it to be dissected and the ‘waffle’ identified and highlighted.
Some key assessment tips and advice from the exam board to their markers is shared to show students how to create a model answer reaching the higher boundary grades.
Students can be properly assessed using recent specimen questions which come complete with an up to date mark scheme from the exam board and my own student friendly mark scheme to peer or self assess in class, where they are shown how they can improve.
Further activities include revision on how to categorise the factors and topics which could possible come up in forthcoming exams.
It is inevitable that this question will undoubtedly become more demanding and specific as the course embeds itself.
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.
The Holocaust
This lesson directly tackles the overriding enquiry question throughout this sequence of lessons, namely who was to blame for the holocaust?
They will continue to map out their ideas (which can be plotted in different colours or dates to show the progress of their learning and centred around a lightbulb) and build up a picture of how difficult it is to blame a single individual or event for this catastrophe.
The lesson focuses on Police Battalion 101 who were ‘instructed’ by their Commander, Major Trapp to execute Jews in Poland and send many others to the extermination camps.
Two historians have conducted extensive research in this area and either concluded they were willing executioners or just ordinary men, victims of an extraordinary situation.
It is up to the students to make up their own minds by tracking one of the battalion’s first ‘actions’ against 1800 Polish Jews living in the village of Jozefow.
There are accompanying worksheets and grids to colour code as well as excellent links to video footage and differentiated tasks to help students of all abilities.
Other figures to blame in the lesson debate include Adolf Eichmann, the organiser of the transportation of the Jews as well as the German public, train drivers, Camp Commandants or foreign governments who failed to respond. Students have to prioritise their responsibility list in the plenary.
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.
World War II
The aim of this lesson is to understand how the Allies won the Battle of the Atlantic, a phrase coined by Winston Churchill during the war.
Churchill himself felt this was one of the most serious threats facing the Allies and therefore during the lesson, students have to evaluate and explain how serious the threat was, before analysing the different ways the Allies subsequently reduced the threat of the U boats.
Students learn why the Atlantic was so vital to Britain and how the U boat wolf packs impacted on supplies and rationing in Britain. There is various video footage to use from the BBC, as well as the boasts of Uncle Albert from Only Fools and Horses.
A find and fix activity for the plenary checks student understanding of the lesson and allow them to discuss what they have learnt.
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.
The British Empire
The aim of this lesson is to discover how tough it was to colonise the New World for British settlers and why America fought for its independence from Britain.
The lesson begins with the Pilgrim Fathers and students discuss the reasons why they and many families began to settle in the New World.
Further analysis requires students to judge how tough it was to set up in America and the impact they made on the local communities they came into contact with. Having made their judgements, students can engage in an extended writing task with key words and a writing frame to use if required.
The second part the lesson analyses the reasons why the colonists became so angry with Britain and claiming no taxation without representation. Students are then required to give reasons as to why a war ensued and the significance of George Washington of the Declaration of Independence.
A true or false plenary focuses on the legacy of Britain’s Empire in America and its links to today.
The lesson comes with suggested teaching and learning strategies, differentiated materials and is linked to the latest historical interpretations, video clips and debate.
The lesson is enquiry based with a key question posed at the start of the lesson and revisited at the end to show the progress of learning.
The lesson is fully adaptable in PowerPoint format and can be changed to suit.
AQA A Level 1C The Tudors: England 1485-1603
The aim of this lesson is to introduce the A Level course to students.
Students are given an overview of the course content, as well as the requirements for the exam questions.
The lesson recaps on previous knowledge of the Tudors before introducing Henry VII and questioning which will be his main priorities on becoming King in 1485.
Students are also introduced to the Tudor timeline and begin to conceptualise how the Tudors and Henry VII came to power and how legitimate and secure his hold on the crown was.
There is also an introduction to Tudor society to set the scene for the course and students learn how society, agriculture, industry, the Church were organised.
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.
AQA A Level 1C The Tudors: England 1485-1603
The aim of this lesson is to evaluate the success of Henry’s foreign policy after Wolsey from 1529-1547.
Students recap events leading up to the Battle of Pavia ands Charles V’s dominance in Europe.
They are introduced to Henry’s policy of defence during the divorce and his quest for further military glory afterwards.
They then analyse his policy towards France, Spain, Ireland, Scotland and the Holy Roman Empire and evaluate how successful Henry was in his pursuit of glory. They must be able to justify this with examples and details.
There is some exam practice to complete together with a writing frame, prompts and a markscheme to use if required.
There is an enquiry question during 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.
Germany 1890-1945: Democracy and Dictatorship
The aim of this lesson is to judge whether the Munich Beer Hall Putsch was a success or a disaster for the Nazis
The start of the lesson focuses on what Hitler wanted and students have to decide why he instigated a Putsch in the first place in Bavaria.
With reference to text, source analysis and video clips, students then have to prioritise the short term consequences for Hitler and his followers and the main reasons why it failed.
The final part of the lesson focuses on what we now see as his success. Students again have to give reasons why he came out of this episode unscathed and to some extent even bolstered his reputation in the long term.
In the plenary, students have to relay what they have learnt in a summarising pyramid.
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.
Germany 1890-1945: Democracy and Dictatorship
This lesson is split into two parts.
The first part looks at the various racial groups within Germany who were targeted and excluded by the Nazis and the reasons behind this.
There is a case study of the Grefeneck Asylum where its inmates mysteriously disappeared; the students are given clues as to how to unravel the story about what happened there.
They subsequently learn of the T4 programme secretly enacted by the Nazis and the sheer scale and numbers involved.
The second part of the lesson focuses on anti-Semitism within Germany, the history and context behind it and how the Nazis used propaganda posters to get their vile message across.
Students have to analyse why the Jewish population was targeted and explain how this prejudice and discrimination manifested itself
There are some brilliant video links which explore these issues further and a plenary which attempts to change some student perceptions of Hitler’s own anti-Semitism.
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.
**Germany 1890-1945: Democracy and Dictatorship **
The aim of this lesson is to examine the role of the Churches in Nazi Germany and to decide how much control Hitler exerted over them.
The lesson starts by studying Christianity in Germany and explains why there was a conflict of interest with the State.
Nazi policies to both the Catholic and Protestant Churches are analysed as students have to interpret the threats they both posed to Hitler.
Furthermore students have to distinguish the differences between the Christian Churches and the new Nazi Reich Church.
There are some excellent links to video footage which explain why there was such a lack of opposition and a united front from the Churches, despite such fortitude and resolve from Cardinal Galen and Martin Niemoller.
A thinking quilt poses some enquiry and GCSE questions, which students have to answer by linking specific key words to them.
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
This lesson questions how far the African American community in America has come since the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The lesson starts with focusing on the inspirational actions of two American athletes during the Mexico Olympics of 1968.
The students are questioned on the symbolic nature of their protest and how their message had far reaching implications.
Seven case studies are investigated by the students from the achievements of Michael Johnson and Barak Obama to the tragic incidents surrounding Rodney King, James Byrd and George Floyd.
There is much accompanying video footage as well as differentiated tasks to enable students to make a judgement at the end.
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 lessons is to question and explore how Elizabeth tried to assert and establish her authority in the early years of her reign.
The lessons are therefore linked together to build up a picture of her difficulties in trying to overcome this.
This fourth lesson looks at the significance of marriage for Elizabeth and the subsequent problems it caused her throughout her reign.
There are retrieval practice activities to start the lesson including an odd one out task and ‘splatting’ the board to choose the correct answers.
Students are introduced to the criteria for why Elizabeth should marry and then check the criteria against the possible suitors, thus coming to a conclusion about the best candidate.
There is also a GCSE practice question to answer. There are sentence starters provided for differentiation and the lesson comes complete with fun activities and video footage.
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.
The Norman Conquest
This lesson has two aims; to discover if medieval towns were dangerous places to live and to question how dirty and unhygienic they actually were.
Students learn how Medieval towns grew up through Charters and Guilds and how shops and their names and surnames became intertwined. An exercise tests their ability to interpret shop signs.
They analyse a number of statements about the dangers facing townsfolk and evidence this on a road map (or dirt track) using danger symbols and accompanying road signs.
The second part of the lesson focuses on the filth and dirt of Medieval towns and questions how much the local authorities did.
Students evaluate how hygienic towns were, colour coding thermometers and rating each step taken by the local authorities (or not as the case may be).
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.
