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 English Civil War
The aim of this lesson is to evaluate the reign of Charles II who was determined to stamp his authority and bring back some sense of ‘normality’ to the country.
Students will be given the context of his return with a Head and Tails activity and an excellent video, in which they will have to justify his cautious return.
As well as reassessing how his brought back ‘partying’ to the country, some source scholarship requires students to summarise paragraphs and create images and headings to show and clarify understanding.
Students will also have to put themselves in the shoes of Charles to sort out some of his problems in the restoration.
A ‘talk like an expert’ activity for the plenary will show off their new found knowledge and skills from the lesson.
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.
Superpower Relations and the Cold War, 1941-91
The aim of this lesson is to assess then impact of consequences of the Bay of Pigs invasion during the Cold War.
Students begin by analysing Castro’s personality in a literacy task, with key word indicators to help.
They then have to decide, or not as the case may be, as to whether it was crystal clear if Castro was leaning towards the USA or the Soviet Union.
The main task is to find out what happened at the Bay of Pigs, using video evidence and then evaluate the consequences of the invasion in the development of Cold War relations.
There is some GCSE exam practice to finish on the importance of the invasion with help and a scaffold included, as well as a model answer for reference.
.The lesson is enquiry based with a key question using a lightbulb posed at the start of the lesson and revisited throughout this and subsequent lessons to show the progress of learning.
The lessons in this bundle are therefore linked together to build up a picture of how diplomacy, propaganda and spying led two Superpowers with opposing political ideologies to create tensions, rivalries and distrust as well as subsequently forming mutual understanding and cooperation over the time period in question.
The resource includes retrieval practice, suggested teaching strategies, differentiated material and GCSE question practice.
It comes in PowerPoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.
Superpower relations and the Cold War, 1941-91
This lesson aims to explore the reasons why the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and the effect it had on Détente and international relations.
Students are given a quick Geography lesson before deciphering some text mapping to work out the events leading up to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
They are also required to complete some questions relating to the Carter Doctrine as a consequence of the invasion.
There is a colour coding activity to complete on the impact of the invasion as well as a true or false quiz on the deterioration of international relations.
The plenary uses statistics to get the students thinking about the human as well as the financial cost of the war.
There is some GCSE question practice to complete, with help given and a student friendly markscheme if required.
The lesson is enquiry based with a key question using a lightbulb posed at the start of the lesson and revisited throughout this and subsequent lessons to show the progress of learning.
The lessons in this bundle are therefore linked together to build up a picture of how diplomacy, propaganda and spying led two Superpowers with opposing political ideologies to create tensions, rivalries and distrust as well as subsequently forming mutual understanding and cooperation over the time period in question.
The resource includes retrieval practice, suggested teaching strategies, differentiated material and GCSE question practice.
It comes in PowerPoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.
AQA A Level 1C The Tudors: England 1485-1603
The aim of this lesson is to evaluate the significance of the economy to Henry VII.
Students will focus on both trade, exploration, agriculture and industry and give Henry an efficiency rating at the end as they judge how well he used them to establish his control.
They begin by analysing how agriculture was being affected by a population increase and the growing use of enclosures.
Students also assess how important industry was during the Tudor period and how exploration and trade increased with new technologies and pioneering individuals.
They also analyse how trade agreements and Henry’s need to raise revenue impacted upon the economy as a whole.
Some exam question practice can then be completed, together with a writing frame, some help and hints given and a markscheme if required.
There is an enquiry question posed and revisited 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.
The British Empire
This lesson aims to find out whether we should be proud or ashamed of gaining an Empire and how the indigenous peoples we conquered ‘benefitted’ under British rule.
This lesson will best be delivered over 2 lessons . The opening slides give some context to the debate and define what an Empire is and which countries Britain owned by 1900.
Through video and source analysis, the students have to explain their choice of being proud or ashamed or both and as the lesson progresses justify whether they are sticking to their decisions.
Analysis focuses on Victorian propaganda, the recent views of British Prime Ministers as well as how museums refuse to engage about how they have obtained their imperial artefacts.
The second part of the lesson examines a number of countries acquired by Britain and focuses on the ‘benefits of Empire’. Students then make their final decisions at the end before drawing conclusions on the legacy of the British Empire.
A homework task is to design an Empire plate (photographic examples given) to celebrate Empire day from 1902.
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 challenge the view that Mary’s foreign policy was a disaster.
Students are given the context to Europe at Mary’s accession to the throne and how she was brought into the Habsburg-Valois conflict as a result of her marriage to Philip II of Spain.
There are some differentiated questions to answer using some extended comprehension, as well a discussion on the pros and cons of her foreign policy.
This is a case study of the capture of Calais from a recent BBC magazine article which sets up an extract practice question to answer, complete with a detailed markscheme to help if required.
The plenary challenges what students have learnt in the lesson and some assumptions made by historians.
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.
Edexcel GCSE 9-1, Superpower relations and the Cold War, 1941-91
This 22 page Revision Guide is tailored to the above Edexcel specification for GCSE 9-1.
It is broken down into 4 main sections: Origins of the Cold War, Increasing tensions, Détente and the end of the Cold War.
I have been inspired to write this Revision Guide on account of the students I teach struggling with the course content of this unit and applying the skills in how to answer the GCSE questions.
This Revision Guide therefore includes 21 GCSE practice exam questions and gives examples on how to answer each, using model answers.
This guide will enable all learners to achieve the higher grades with clear guidance on how to achieve them.
The questions target consequence, significance and analytical narrative with a focus on analysing events and finding connections that explain the way in which the events unfolded.
The information is also broken down into an easy to use format to aid the students.
The guide can be used for revision, interleaving, home learning as well as class teaching. For home learning, each student taking GCSE History has a copy assigned to them on a google drive and it is used frequently when using google classroom assignments such as revision for assessments.
This Revision Guide has been designed to be engaging, detailed and easy to follow and can be edited and changed to suit in Microsoft Word and PDF format.
Any reviews on this resource would be much appreciated. Please email me for a free copy of any of my resources worth up to £3.50 if you do.
I have created these set of resources for ‘Britain as the first industrial nation and its impact on society’ which comes under the ideas, political power, industry and empire: Britain 1745-1901 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)
Pupils will learn the significance and impact of the changes in Britain as a result of the new inventions and be able to understand the causes and consequences of these.
They will learn key historical terms such as migration, entrepreneur, industrialised and patent as well as being able to see the change and continuity of transport.
They will be given sources to analyse such as the evidence of child labour in the coal mines as well as the lives of Victorian women and make historical inferences from them.
Furthermore they will be able to write structured accounts and narratives of the changes as a result of Factory Reforms as well as answering GCSE style questions using structured thinking quilts.
Each lesson comes with suggested teaching and learning strategies and are linked to the latest historical interpretations and ideas used by current history teachers.
The lessons are fully adaptable in Powerpoint format and can be changed to suit. I have included a free lesson to give an idea of what is being offered.
I strongly recommend using GCSE style questions from the exam board and markschemes to assess the pupils at the end of this unit, which are always available on line.
The 12 lessons are broken down into the following:
L1 An introduction to the Industrial Revolution in Britain
L2 Why were people on the move?
L3 What were the industrial towns like?
L4 Transport in the Industrial Revolution
L5 Richard Arkwright – a case study (free resource)
L6 Factories and working conditions
L7 Coal mining
L8 Reform of working conditions
L9 Victorian crime and punishment
L10 Victorian prisons
L11 The Metropolitan Police Force
L12 Jack the Ripper
Any reviews would be gratefully received.
This is the complete bundle in a series of lessons I have created for AQA GCSE 9-1 Britain: Health and the People, c.1000-present.
I have taught this course for more than 20 years now and have decided to completely overhaul my lessons to bring them up to date with the latest teaching and learning ideas I have picked up and with a focus on the new 9-1 GCSE.
Furthermore I have dispensed with learning objectives to focus on specific enquiry based questions which address skills required for the GCSE questions.
As well as focusing on GCSE exam practice questions, the lessons are all differentiated and are tailored to enable the students to achieve the highest grades. They are also fully resourced and contain easy to print worksheets.
The lessons will allow students to demonstrate (AO1) knowledge and understanding of the key features and characteristics of the periods studied from the impact of Hippocrates and Galen on medieval medicine to the new ideas of the Renaissance, the laissez-faire approach of preceding Governments through to modern day Government and the nanny state.
They will study (AO2) second-order concepts such as change and continuity in the development of ideas about disease as well as the causes and consequences of medical treatment throughout the ages
The analysis and evaluation of sources (AO3) are used in for example, surgery, Public Health and the introduction of the NHS whilst substantiated judgements are made (AO4) on the discovery and development of penicillin, the development of the welfare state and the influence of the seven factors in medicine.
The lessons are as follows:
L1 An introduction to the course
L2 Hippocrates and Galen
L3 The influence of the Christian Church
L4 Islamic Medicine (free resource)
L5 Doctors and surgeons in the Middle Ages
L6 Public Health in the Medieval towns
L7 The Black Death and the Plague
L8 Renaissance Medicine
L9 Medicine in the 17th and 18th Century (free resource)
L10 John Hunter
L11 Edward Jenner and smallpox
L12 Surgery in the 19th Century
L13 Florence Nightingale and hospitals
L14 Pasteur, Koch and Tyndall
L15 Public Health in the 19th Century
L16 Liberal Reforms
L17 Medicine and war (free resource)
L18 Magic Bullets and the Pharmaceutical Industry
L19 Penicillin
L20 The NHS
L21 How to answer the factor question
Please note that setting a full mock examination in class after completing each unit is strongly recommended (L1-7, L8-15 and L16-21).
All the examination resources and markschemes are subject to copyright but can easily be found on the AQA website.
Unfortunately TES restrict bundles to 20 lessons and therefore please download Lesson 17 separately, which is a free resource.
Britain: Health and the People, c1000 to present
The aim of the lesson is for students to understand why penicillin was seen as a wonder drug and how it was discovered and then developed during World War 2
Students first of all learn about the role played by Alexander Fleming in the story of penicillin from his chance discovery and the acclaim that eventually followed.
The lesson therefore leads the students inadvertently to celebrate his attributes and significance.
The second part of the lesson devotes itself to the parts played by Howard Florey and Ernst Chain in the development of penicillin during World War 2.
Questions and sources are used to analyse why they were unhappy with Fleming and how they had tremendous problems initially producing enough to treat patients effectively.
Students have to now question their original assumptions and finally evaluate the most significant of the three in the story of penicillin.
There is also some source analysis for exam question practice.
The lesson is accompanied by video footage and other documentary evidence as it establishes the part played by factors such as individual genius, science and technology as well as chance.
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.
World War II
The aim of this lesson is to challenge the Government’s claim that during World War Two, a Blitz spirit of togetherness emerged across the country in defiance of the bombing of Britain’s cities.
This lesson takes students on a journey through archive video footage, government announcements and source information to determine if there was indeed a Blitz Spirit during the war.
Students are given details of what the Blitz entailed using some contextual evidence and a thinking quilt.
They then have to analyse and evaluate a variety of sources and statistics before they conclude and justify which sources best suit the driving question of the lesson.
The plenary is a take on the television programme, ‘Would I lie to you?’ and the idea is to again challenge assumptions.
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 includes retrieval practice activities, suggested teaching strategies and differentiated materials.
It 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.
The decision to be a Protestant country not surprisingly caused Elizabeth many problems from Catholics at home and abroad. The lesson therefore is in two parts.
The first section deals with the Catholic threats at home, mostly from rebellions surrounding Mary Queen of Scots. Students plot the rebellions on a graph deciding how significant they were before being posed some challenging questions.
The second part of the lesson focuses on the threats posed by Allen and Campion and the Jesuits.
After analysing the evidence they decide on the most important ingredients for their threat to Elizabeth (also focusing on short and long term problems) and place them on shelves (prioritising the most important) ready to go into a cauldron.
The final part of the lesson involves deciding how Elizabeth reacted to these threats and planning and completing a GCSE ‘write an account’ question.
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.
Edexcel GCSE 9-1 Medicine Through Time, c1250-present
These key individual flashcards aim to get the students thinking of key people and their significance in medicine.
I always find students have revised thoroughly for exams, but do not push their grades into the higher brackets as they focus on content rather than the individual’s impact and importance, particularly over time.
These flashcards are great when addressing the 12 mark ‘explain why’ question, particularly when arguing over rapid change.
There are 33 individuals listed, including those for the Historic Environment; The British sector of the Western Front.
Students can use them in class (I use them as starters and plenaries) or to take home and use for their own personal revision programme.
I also display them in the classroom (enlarged) and use when teaching this unit of study.
The resource comes in Powerpoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.
Conflict and Tension 1918-1939
What did Hitler want for Germany when he came to power and what were Hitler’s aims?
This lesson is a key component to understanding and analysing the causes of World War II.
Students are introduced to Hitler’s foreign policy and decide which were his six main aims for Germany.
They also have to link these aims back to the Treaty of Versailles and decide what Hitler’s intentions were from the start.
There is a chance to complete a literacy challenge at the end as well as answering a GCSE source question with some guidance given if required.
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, some retrieval practice, differentiated materials and comes in Powerpoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.
Britain: Health and the People c.1000-present
These key individual flashcards aim to get the students thinking of key people and their significance in medicine.
I always find students have revised thoroughly for exams, but do not push their grades into the higher brackets as they focus on content rather than the individual’s impact and importance, particularly over time.
There are 36 individuals listed, Students can use them in class (I use them as starters and plenaries) or to take home and use for their own personal revision programme.
I also display them in the classroom (enlarged) and use when teaching this unit of study.
The resource comes in PowerPoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.
Norman Conquest
The aim of this lesson is to understand how successful William was controlling England through his survey.
Students will learn how he needed to find out as much as he could about the Anglo-Saxon population.
They are encouraged at the start to answer a series of questions (a survey) of what they own; this is exactly what William did, but minus the enthusiasm shown in the class to list all their belongings!
Through a study of horrible history video footage and source analysis, students realise just how intrusive this new book was and they have to justify, whether in written form or orally, why people in medieval society began to resent it.
For homework they have a chance to find out about their own area and what it offered in 1086 with an exemplar given.
This is a fun, interactive and challenging lesson in which all the students can take part and make their own conclusions.
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 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 Tudors
The aim of this lesson to find out about the hidden messages in Elizabeth I’s portrait paintings.
Students learn about how Elizabeth manipulated her portraits and added symbols, each of which had a hidden meaning.
The introduction to the lesson looks at anachronisms and modern day symbols put into portraits to get the students thinking how pictures should not always be seen and taken at face value. Thus inference skills are high on the agenda in this lesson.
Students are then given information about each of her paintings and have to analyse and evaluate their meanings and various symbolic codes.
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.
World War I
The aim of the lesson is to understand why alliances and rivalries at the beginning of the Twentieth Century led to the outbreak of war.
This lesson sets out the long term causes of the First World War based on four underlying principles: Nationalism, Imperialism, Alliances and Militarism.
The lesson asks the students who and why were countries arguing with each other based on their geographical as well as their historic national rivalries.
Students then have to decide who could sit next to each other at a dinner party after they have justified their reasons for distrust and paranoia.
The alliances are plotted and colour coded on maps, culminating in a task prioritising and linking the reasons as to why the world was ready for war in 1914.
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 suggested teaching strategies and differentiated materials, and comes in Powerpoint format if there is a wish to adapt and change.
AQA A Level 1C The Tudors: England 1485-1603
The aim of this lesson is to assess the impact of humanism and the arts upon the reign of Henry VII.
Students begin with some source scholarship on the Renaissance before assessing the significance of three humanist scholars as well as the invention of the printing press.
They also begin to plan an exam practice question by evaluating the importance of education, drama, music and the arts upon England and giving each an impact percentage rating.
Some scaffolding, hints and tips as well as a generic markscheme enable students to answer the exam question in detail.
The plenary checks the understanding and how much they can remember of the lesson completing the sentences given.
There is an enquiry question posed and revisited 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 rate the power of the Church under Henry VII.
To understand the power of the Church, students have to learn how it pervaded throughout peoples’ lives. They also have to comprehend the structure of the Church, from the Pope in Rome, to the Archbishop of Canterbury, the bishops and their dioceses as well as the ordinary priests, monks and nuns.
Students will also undertake a research task in groups within the lesson to discover the influence of the Church in politics as well as the underlying corruption at its heart.
Some exam question practice focuses on this corruption and a grid assessing whether the Church was in need of reform will go some way to help students answer the question. Some scaffolding, help and tips as well as a generic markscheme come as standard
There is an enquiry question posed and revisited 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.
