Wolsey Academy operates as a non-profit, with every penny we make going to one of our charity partners or into the Ipswich Initiative, funding good works across the town and county. Search for Wolsey Academy to see our website for more details and to purchase resources at a discount.
Wolsey Academy operates as a non-profit, with every penny we make going to one of our charity partners or into the Ipswich Initiative, funding good works across the town and county. Search for Wolsey Academy to see our website for more details and to purchase resources at a discount.
Perfect for History Club sessions – or active and creative lessons - at primary or secondary level. Includes information and video about the topics and a fun practical activity (which can often take more than one session to complete). All sessions include a weekly advertising poster for display boards, websites and screens around the school. Also included is a loyalty card for students to claim rewards after attending enough lessons.
Designed by Wolsey Academy and tried and tested with secondary students in the UK.
Topics are as follows:
Ancient Egypt – Drama Production
Battle of Trafalgar 1805 – Arts and Craft.
Guy Fawkes, 1605 – Gunpowder Hunt.
Charles Lindbergh, 1927 – Design & Fly a Plane.
Pirates – Make a Movie.
Thanksgiving – Fancy Dress and Card Design
Benjamin Franklin – Make and fly a Kite.
Tudor Christmas – Card Making.
Battle of Atlantic – Code Breaking Game
Medieval Coat of Arms – Research and Heraldry Making.
Brunel – Bridge Building
Darwin –Voyage of the Beagle, Art Competition.
D-Day – Landing Craft Construction and Testing
World Cup History – Kit Designs
Battle of Quebec – Crane Construction
Angkor Wat – Sunrise Drawings
Historical Fashion – Clothing Designs
Henry Ford – Assembly Line Competition
Roman Army – Shield Design and Battle Tactics Role Play
Local History: Ipswich Town Football Club – Badge Design.
This lesson on Sparta & the Peloponnesian War from the Wolsey Academy series on the Ancient Greeks is fully resourced and ready to teach, with engaging and inclusive activities. Students participate in a script reading and role play, comparing Athens and Sparta, followed by adding their insights to a Venn diagram that visually represents the differences and similarities between the two city-states. They then work in pairs on a script improvement task, expanding on the conversation with additional historical details using fact sheets for support. The lesson concludes with a reading comprehension exercise, with scaffolded questions to ensure all students can engage with and understand the content.
The others lessons in the series are as follows:
The Minoans - Students will re-enact a Minoan bull-leaping event by writing and performing the commentary for a mythical bull-leaping competition, bringing this ancient tradition to life.
The Mycenaeans & The Trojan War - Students will create their own version of the Trojan Horse, constructing and presenting how they would use it to infiltrate an enemy city.
Homer and Greek Literature - In this lesson, students will work in groups to storyboard key scenes from The Iliad or The Odyssey and present their adaptations to the class.
Olympia & The Olympic Games - Students will write and produce a mock newspaper report on the Ancient Olympic Games, discussing the sports, competitors, and the religious significance of the event.
Greek Gods & Delphi - Students will engage in a Gods and Myths role-playing activity, where they act as various Greek gods debating their importance in front of the class.
Athenian Democracy - This lesson includes a mock Athenian assembly where students participate in a democratic vote on a key issue, experiencing the decision-making process of ancient Athens.
The Persian Wars - Students will work together to create a battle strategy for either the Greeks or Persians, then simulate the famous battles using maps and counters to analyse the outcomes.
Sparta & The Peloponnesian War - Students will debate the strengths and weaknesses of Sparta versus Athens in a classroom debate, acting as representatives from each city-state.
The Athenian Golden Age - Students will set up a museum showcase in which they create displays on different aspects of the Golden Age, including philosophy, architecture, and science, and then present their work to their peers.
Alexander the Great - Students will create a timeline of Alexanders major battles and conquests, illustrating his route across Asia and presenting key moments in his empire-building journey.
All of these lessons are available at the Wolsey Academy website or here on TES/TPT. See the voucher code inside each lesson for more information on how to secure a discount.
We hope it helps.
Journey through the remarkable life of Marie Curie, the trailblazing physicist and chemist whose research on radioactivity won her Nobel Prizes in both Physics and Chemistry. This lesson highlights her significant discoveries of polonium and radium, her development of mobile X-ray units during World War I, and her founding of the Curie Institutes in Paris and Warsaw. Students will engage in activities that help them understand the various factors that influenced her success, including economic constraints, societal barriers, and her own indomitable spirit. Curie’s story is not just about scientific achievement but also about overcoming adversity and making lasting contributions to medicine and science.
Overview: Study the pivotal Battle of Bannockburn, where Robert the Bruce’s Scottish forces secured independence from England.
• Activities:
o Relay Activity: Students work in teams to relay and recreate the battle’s events using diagrams with specific icons.
o Guided Reading: Engage in a detailed guided reading activity, extracting key facts about the battle’s tactics and consequences.
o Storyboard Activity: Develop a storyboard for a video game, focusing on the battle’s environment, key figures, and major conflicts.
o Recap Quiz: Review key details about the battle, including leaders, tactics, and outcomes through a structured quiz.
Exploring the vibrant culture of the Venetian Carnival, this lesson examines the historical and social significance of Venetian masks and how they influenced social interactions and cultural norms in Venice.
Activities:
Discussion on the function of masks in breaking down social barriers during the Carnival.
Analysis of different types of Venetian masks and their cultural implications.
Creative activity to design a mask based on the themes discussed.
For more great history resources, bundles at a huge discount, and to play our free history RPGs, please visit Wolsey Academy’s main website.
This is one lesson from a completely fully resourced and integrated series of 17 lessons on the Russian Revolution. It was designed for GCSE History but has also been used very effectively at KS3 level.
Each lesson contains as a minimum:
• Recap from previous lesson
• Keyword flashcards (in a unique ‘Pokémon card style’ template!)
• Writing skill challenges building up to fully developed PEEKA paragraphs (these increase in complexity as you move through the lessons)
• Text with comprehension questions
• A ‘reverse engineer’ essay question task.
• A model paragraph with a ‘how can you improve?’ task
• Stretch questions.
• Video links.
The 17 lessons are as follows:
Russia and its discontents (free)
1905 Revolution (free)
The First World War (free)
Rasputin
February Revolution
Mid-Module Revision Tasks and Knowledge Check
Provisional Government
October Revolution
Bolsheviks & Constituent Assembly
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War – Why did the Reds win?
Russian Civil War – War Communism
Russian Civil War – Kronstadt Naval Mutiny
Russian Civil War – New Economic Policy
Russian Civil War – Lenin’s Legacy
End of unit – all revision cards, revision tasks, assessment questions, models and criteria.
Hope they help.
Wolsey Academy, a non-profit resource provider, directs all profits to various charities, including refugee support, youth sports, educational programs, and carbon capture, achieving a carbon-negative status. Explore our site for resources and free history role-playing games loved by students. Thank you for your dedication to teaching and for supporting our mission.
#BetterTeachingBetterPlanet
A Russian Revolution Revision Guide and a pack of 63 keywords.
Everything you need to revise for any GCSE Russian Revolution exam.
Wolsey Academy, a non-profit resource provider, directs all profits to various charities, including refugee support, youth sports, educational programs, and carbon capture, achieving a carbon-negative status. Explore our site for resources and free history role-playing games loved by students. Thank you for your dedication to teaching and for supporting our mission.
24 fully resourced lessons on Nazi Germany from 1919 to 1945. Each lesson is structured with starters, main activities, plenaries and keyword flash cards for revision. Combined the lessons cover a range of skills, including source analysis, essay writing, group work and debate. Designed while teaching IGCSE Edexcel – However, all lessons are appropriate for any module on German History and the development of the Nazis.
The lessons are as follows:
The Origins of the Weimar Republic
The Weimar Constitution
Early Challenges to Weimar
Other Challenges to Weimar
Hyperinflation Crisis 1923
Stresemann and Weimar Recovery
Weimar International Relations
Early Development of the Nazi Party
The Munich Putsch
Nazi Party Rebuilds
The Great Depression & The Nazis
Hitler’s Appeal
Hitler becomes Chancellor
Creation of a Dictatorship
Nazi Methods of Control
Nazi Germany & The Youth
Nazi Germany & Women
Nazi Germany & Religion
Nazi Germany & Persecution of Minorities
Nazi Germany & The Economy
Nazi Germany & The Final Solution (Holocaust)
Nazi Germany & The Home Front
Nazi Germany & Opposition to Hitler
93 Flash Cards and Revision Activities
Wolsey Academy is a non-profit that sends every penny it makes to one of the charities we support (see our website for details). We aim to make teacher’s and student’s lives easier and more fulfilling by providing well-resourced and ‘ready to teach’ off the shelf lessons.
6 lessons on the French Revolution
Each lesson comes with a range of activities and a focus, some build up essay writing skills, others focus on debates, others are more creative tasks. All resources included at the end of each PowerPoint, designed to be as ‘pick up and play’ or ‘pick up and modify’ as possible to help you out.
The Enlightenment
Causes of the Revolution
Tennis Court Oath & The Bastille
Constitution and the Republic
The Terror
Napoleon’s Rise To Power
Wolsey Academy is a non-profit, with every penny we make going to one of our listed good causes. For more information, and more great History, English, Geography, Business and ICT resources, please visit Wolsey Academy
Hope it helps.
W
Russian Revolution –
This is a completely fully resourced and integrated series of 17 lessons on the Russian Revolution. It was designed for junior/seniors but has also been used very effectively lower down the school.
Each lesson contains as a minimum:
• Recap from the previous lesson
• Keyword flashcards (in a unique ‘Pokémon card style’ template!)
• Writing skill challenges building up to fully developed PEEKA paragraphs (these increase in complexity as you move through the lessons)
• Text with comprehension questions
• A ‘reverse engineer’ essay question task.
• A model paragraph with a ‘how can you improve?’ task
• Stretch questions.
• Video links.
The 17 lessons are as follows:
Russia and its discontents (free)
1905 Revolution (free)
The First World War (free)
Rasputin
February Revolution
Mid-Module Revision Tasks and Knowledge Check
Provisional Government
October Revolution
Bolsheviks & Constituent Assembly
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War – Why did the Reds win?
Russian Civil War – War Communism
Russian Civil War – Kronstadt Naval Mutiny
Russian Civil War – New Economic Policy
Russian Civil War – Lenin’s Legacy
End of unit – all revision cards, revision tasks, assessment questions, models and criteria.
Hope they help.
Wolsey Academy, a non-profit resource provider, directs all profits to various charities, including refugee support, youth sports, educational programs, and carbon capture, achieving a carbon-negative status. Explore our site for resources and free history role-playing games loved by students. Thank you for your dedication to teaching and for supporting our mission.
#BetterTeachingBetterPlanet
Second part (15 lessons) of the larger bundle of all China lessons. Covers the CCP, Mao’s influence and then Deng’s capitalist reforms. Each lesson comes with all the resources you need to teach it ‘out of the box’ including activities, worksheets, recap tasks, stretch and differentiated questions where appropriate – and each lesson comes with keywords and a revision slide and a writing homework exercise.
The 28 lessons of the complete bundle (Part 1 and 2) are as follows:
Part 1:
China Intro
Causes of the Boxer Rebellion
Boxer Rebellion Events & Consequences
1911 Revolution
May 4th Movement
Sun Yat-Sen
Recap Lesson
United Front
Northern Expedition
Recap lesson
Part 2:
Causes of the Long March
Consequences of the Long March
Second Sino-Japanese War
Chinese Civil War
Why was the CCP victorious in the Civil War?
CCP’s Agricultural Reforms
The Great Famine
The Great Leap Forward
Women in Mao’s China
Political Control in Mao’s China
USSR & China
Causes of the Cultural Revolution
Key Features of the Cultural Revolution
Consequences of the Cultural Revolution
The Sino-Soviet Split
The Gang of Four
Deng Xiaoping’s Reforms
Tiananmen Square
BONUS: China and the Opium Wars
BONUS: Guided Reading - Japan’s Invasion of China 1937
These lessons have been taught successfully for many years at a top international school and are very easily editable for your own students (they’d also work very easily without any editing!)
Wolsey Academy is a non-profit that looks to share and sell excellent teaching materials. Every penny we make goes to one of the charity partners listed on our website – from carbon capture (we take in more carbon each year than we put out!) to local youth sports to housing refugees – we aim to be a positive influence in the world.
Better Teaching, Better Planet.
Check out our mission and our other resources at our website, just search ‘Wolsey Academy’ to find us!
A comprehensive revision workbook for the IGCSE History (Edexcel) China: Conflict, Crisis and Change 1900 – 19189 course.
It includes:
• 26 fact sheets covering all topics.
• 26 writing tasks (1 for each topic with graduated difficulty)
• 99 keywords to support vocabulary and understanding
• 5 Online quizzes (1 for each sub topic)
Writing tasks are as follows:
• 3 keyword match ups
• 3 Cloze activities
• 3 PEE model and sort activities
• 8 PEEKA paragraphs model and write activity
• 9 6 mark questions with PEEKA writing stems
This has been used at an International School in the UAE with great effect and hugely popular with parents and home tutors.
Hope it helps.
Topics are as follows (each with its own writing task, keywords and access to an online quiz).
China, an introduction
The Boxer Rebellion, 1900
The Self-Strengthening Movement, 1902 – 1911
The 1911 Revolution
Warlords & The May 4th Movement
Sun Yat-sen & the GMD
United Front & Northern Expedition
Shanghai Massacre 1927
The Long March 1934
War with Japan 1937 – 45
Civil War 1946 – 49
Why did the CCP win?
CCP & Agriculture
CCP & Industry
CCP & Women
CCP & politics
CCP & USSR
Motives for the Cultural Revolution
Cultural Revolution Key Features
Cult of Mao
Cultural Revolution Consequences
China splits with the USSR
Gang of Four
Deng’s economic reforms
Deng’s political reforms
Tiananmen Square, 1989.
WolseyAcademy.com, a non-profit resource provider, directs all profits to various charities, including refugee support, youth sports, educational programs, and carbon capture, achieving a carbon-negative status. Explore our site for resources and free history role-playing games loved by students. Thank you for your dedication to teaching and for supporting our mission.
This lesson explores the factors contributing to Hitler’s growing appeal from 1930 to 1933, including the impact of the Great Depression, propaganda, and the role of the SA. Activities include watching a TED-Ed video, answering related questions, and completing worksheets on Nazi propaganda tactics. Students will also analyse Hitler’s promises and the effectiveness of his methods in gaining support. Through discussions and writing exercises, they will understand how the Nazis capitalised on economic distress and political instability.–
This is one lesson in a series of 24 on Nazi Germany, designed and successfully taught to an IGCSE cohort who achieved record grades. Each lesson is designed to cover a range of historical and exam skills to build up students knowledge and exam skills ready for the exam.
Those lessons are:
The origins of the Republic 1919
The Weimar Constitution
Early Challenges to Weimar
Challenges from the Left and Right
Hyperinflation 1923
Recovery of the Republic
Weimar International Relations
Early Development of the Nazi Party
Munich Putsch
Nazi Party Rebuilds
Great Depression & The Nazis
Hitler’s Appeal
Hitler Becomes Chancellor
Creation of a Dictatorship
Nazi Germany & Methods of Control
Nazi Germany & Youth
Nazi Germany & Women
Nazi Germany & Religion
Nazi Germany & Jewish Persecution 1933-39
Nazi Germany & The Economy
The Holocaust & The Final solution
Nazi Germany & The Home Front
Nazi Germany & Opposition to Hitler
Nazi Germany Flash Cards
Wolsey Academy operates as a non-profit, with every penny we make going to one of our charity partners or into the Ipswich Initiative, funding good works across the town and county. Search for Wolsey Academy to see our website for more details.
Please help us, help you, help them. Thank you.
Hope it helps.
W
Covers a range of topics and company case studies.
Each lesson begins with an introduction to the case study context, before moving on to the theory to be learned and then ends with an example style questions where students need to combine elements from the two.
Skills covered include (but are not limited to…):
Break Even Points
Market Share
Distribution Methods
Market Segments
Location Factors
Tax and Government Policy
Inflation
Patents
Outsourcing
Finance Options
Unions
Types of Businesses
Business Growth
Microfinance
Entrepreneurial Characteristics
Index Funds
Private Equity
Commodity Markets
Globalisation
Companies covered include (but are not limited to…):
Microsoft
Activision
IKEA
Netflix
Apple
American Airlines
IndiGo Airlines
Blackrock
Purdue Pharma
SpaceX
Jamie’s Italian
ARM
Adidas
Iveric Bio
Wolsey Academy, a non-profit resource provider, directs all profits to various charities, including refugee support, youth sports, educational programs, and carbon capture, achieving a carbon-negative status. Explore our site for resources and free history role-playing games loved by students. Thank you for your dedication to teaching and for supporting our mission.
We hope they help,
#betterteachingbetterplanet
Fully resourced and ready to teach.
One lesson of about 20 in the Wolsey Academy First World War series, tried and tested over several years - recently given face lift to make it that much more engaging and relevant to today’s students.
Features a team summary task, mini-plenary, video links, evidence analysis task, Max Hastings scholarship task, research task of other unofficial truces in conflict, creative task with instructions.
Hope it helps,
And Merry Christmas :)
W.
Wolsey Academy, a non-profit resource provider, directs all profits to various charities, including refugee support, youth sports, educational programs, and carbon capture, achieving a carbon-negative status. Explore our site for resources and free history role-playing games loved by students. Thank you for your dedication to teaching and for supporting our mission.
A series of 6 lessons on Ancient Baghdad. An excellent case study in the importance of the this city and region during the Islamic Golden Age. Each lesson is designed to cover a range of historical and exam skills to build up students knowledge and exam skills ready for any exam board.
Those lessons are:
Baghdad – The City
Baghdad – The Silk Roads
Baghdad – Queen Al Khayzuran
Baghdad – 1001 Arabian Nights
Baghdad – The House of Wisdom
Baghdad – The Siege of Baghdad 1258
Wolsey Academy operates as a non-profit, with every penny we make going to one of our charity partners or into the Ipswich Initiative, funding good works across the town and county. Search for Wolsey Academy to see our website for more details and to purchase resources at a discount.
Use code ‘WOLSEY’ for 10% off at the Wolsey Academy Web Store
Please help us, help you, help them. Thank you.
Hope it helps.
W
Overview: This lesson covers innovations in video game consoles from 1961 onwards. It has a relay activity followed by a written paragraph with peer assessments. Complete with differentiation sheets, plenaries, starters, lesson plan and pedagogy justifications.
Cardinal’s Corner: Do not be deceived.
This is an incredibly rich and well written book. Yes, it is about video games. But that does not in any way detract from its quality as a piece of writing. The author, David Sheff, is famed for having done one of the last interviews with John Lennon and his articles have appeared in all sorts of publications. It is essentially a history of one of the most culturally important companies of the late twentieth (and early twenty first) century. Nintendo as a company is over a hundred years old and the stories goes right back to its early days in Kyoto as a maker of card games (I’ve actually been lucky enough to visit their original office when on vacation).
I got this book free with a computer game magazine when I was in high school. I read it all in about a week – not bad for a 13 year old kid. When I came to re-read it as an adult I found it equally as fascinating and if pushed I would say this was probably my favourite book of all time. It is oozing with anecdotes and provides a depth of historical contexts – from how the Nintendo company survived the second world war to a Cold War legal battle with the Soviet Union over the video game rights to Tetris.
A fascinating read – and one that be found on pdf here.
Video games are a hugely important part of our recent culture, they’re something that all our pupils are familiar with and they provide a hugely important learning tool. Even commercial games are uniquely powerful at teaching children. I was once astonished in one of my worst Year 9 classes when a child started talking with some confidence about the work of Leonardo De Vinci and asked, entirely unprompted, “Wasn’t he important during the Renaissance?”. Of course, what had he been playing? Assassins Creed. That same game series incidentally hires historical consultants to get as an accurate picture of the past, in the same way that Hollywood movies do. One of the Assassin Creed games features an accurate model of Colonial Boston – based on maps and drawings of the times – in which the player explores and meets key characters, like Benjamin Franklin. I also, perhaps flippantly, swear that is a good grounding in Civilization 2 that got me my GCSE in History and an unhealthy obsession with Sim City that let me cruise to top grades in GCSE Geography. Games are not to be dismissed as learning tools.
Indeed, my hunch is that in the near future games will do most of the teaching for us. Keep checking back at Wolsey Academy’s Learning Worlds page to see how that’s coming along.
Hope it helps.
Made during the 2020 lockdown for remote learning it is a pretty comprehensive resource (if I may say so) that covers the whole topic and includes:
18 tailor made teacher videos
18 factsheets on the 18 key topics
18 literacy/essay writing challenges* (1 per key topic)
5 Google Quizzes (and printable versions)
1 Stretch and Challenge Project
It took a very long time to produce and I am very happy to now be able to share it I would suggest setting it as an ongoing revision or homework task, the teacher videos mean that it can be used for self study also.
The target audience was mostly for international school settings so I have tried to use accessible language where possible and each topic comes with a set of keywords to develop vocab skills.
If you spot any mistakes please contact me via the website above and if you think it has come in useful I would love to see your reviews on the TES (makes me feel a bit better!)
Hope it helps!
As a man with a great beard once (sort of) said: Teachers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains.
*The essay writing questions are loosely based on Edexcel IGCSE style questions but the approach taken is quite generic so will suit all exam boards/national systems.
Russia and its discontents
The 1905 Revolution
The Russian Dumas
Russia and the First World War
Rasputin
The February Revolution 1917
The Provisional Government
The Bolsheviks
The Bolsheviks Come to Power
The Bolsheviks & The Constituent Assembly
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
The Russian Civil War 1918 - 1921
Why did the Reds win the Civil War?
War Communism
Impact of War Communism
Kronstadt Naval Mutiny 1921
New Economic Policy (NEP)
Lenin’s Legacy
WolseyAcademy.com, a non-profit resource provider, directs all profits to various charities, including refugee support, youth sports, educational programs, and carbon capture, achieving a carbon-negative status. Explore our site for resources and free history role-playing games loved by students. Thank you for your dedication to teaching and for supporting our mission.
A series of 10 lessons used recently to teach middle and high school classes. There is a great range of activities and the students really engaged with the subject. Each lesson is fully resourced and ready to teach from the box. Each includes options for adaption up or down depending on class level. Each lesson builds up students’ skills ready for an assessment in lesson 10, but also develops soft skills of group work, presentation, research and problem-solving.
The lessons are as follows:
• Raiders or Settlers? Push and Pull Factors
• Viking Mythology & Top Trumps
• Women in the Viking Age
• Trade and Longboats
• Lindisfarne
• Edmund the Martyr
• Bluetooth, Forkbeard & Canute
• The Kyivan Rus
• The Viking Discovery of America
• Assessment
Use code ‘MAX25’ for 25% off all resources at the webstore, found at Wolsey Academy (Google us)
Wolsey Academy, a non-profit resource provider, directs all profits to various charities, including refugee support, youth sports, educational programs, and carbon capture, achieving a carbon-negative status. Explore our site for resources and free history role-playing games loved by students. Thank you for your dedication to teaching and for supporting our mission.
Hope it helps.
W
This series of lessons will explore the rich and diverse history of Ukraine, from the ancient civilization of Kievan Rus to the present day. Students will learn about the country’s cultural and political heritage, including its struggles for independence and democracy, and its contributions to art, literature, and science.
The 10 lessons are as follows:
The emergence of the Kievan Rus in the 9th century
The Mongol Invasion in the 12th century
The Union of Lublin in 1569
The Cossack Uprising in the 17th century
The Partitions of Poland in the late 18th century
The Ukrainian War of Independence in 1917-1921
The Holodomor Famine of 1932-1933
The Chernobyl Disaster of 1986
The Orange Revolution of 2004
The Euromaidan protests in 2013-2014
In each lesson, students will…
Study the context of the topic
Sort a timeline of the events into the correct order.
Watch a video and answer questions on the content.
Study historical perspectives of the topic.
A study of images and artifacts from the period and what they can teach us.
Sort factors into order of relevance and significance
Agree on a grading matrix for answering a written question.
Read an example answer and look for what went well and even better if.
Try writing your own answer to the topic question.
Tackle a stretch task to take your learning further
These lessons have been created by Wolsey Academy. Each lesson has been taught to high-school students successfully.
Wolsey Academy, a non-profit resource provider, directs all profits to various charities, including refugee support, youth sports, educational programs, and carbon capture, achieving a carbon-negative status. Explore our site for resources and free history role-playing games loved by students. Thank you for your dedication to teaching and for supporting our mission.
#BetterTeachingBetterPlanet
We hope it helps.
Slava Ukraïni!