PowerPoint that seeks to show some of the main events surrounding D-Day, including Operation Fortitude. Starts with a quote, class seek to work out relevance. Refresh and recap of other big events for Britain. Horrible History clip on WW2 is very effective in showing the trajectory of WW2 and the importance of D-Day. Has a clip of Saving Private Ryan, watch before you show as it could be hard for some to watch. Finishes with written Plenary.

A focus on Matte and Baileys, Stone Keeps and concentric castles with a view to assessing their pros and cons and creation of student made castles.

I used this resource with year 8s to introduce the 'Interpretation' question. You will need to do a lesson on the Blitz before using this resource to get the most out of it. This is a very useful exercise. It introduces a new key GCSE exam skill interpretations (Edexcel), while also grounding it in a significant historical event. Contents: 2 PowerPoints and a Word document with sources and interpretations for use. Plan: Pre-teach the Blitz for 1 lesson (not attached) During the second lesson, drip in the skills attached in PowerPoint labeled assessment-prep-sample. This lesson will require some printing of simplified interpretations to enable students interact with sources. The key idea of the prep is that students begin to combine the 'facts' about the Blitz with two 'Interpretations' of the Blitz. By the end of this lesson students should be able to show evidence that there was, and wasn't, a 'Blitz Spirit', what the differences are in interpretations, why the interpretations are different and form a judgement as to how far they agree with a respective viewpoint. During the third lesson, use the 'Blitz-Spirit assessment' PowerPoint and word document. Timings are attached. I took near to 50 minutes to explain, manage and execute this assessment. Depending on the type of students you have and exposure they have had to this skill, I'd recommend you do a prep assessment on the 'Big Question' with an alternative lesson. I did this and it helped me greatly I believe. I'd recommend an easy topic that has two clear interpretations that can be easily made into a lesson, eg should Bomber Command have a memorial, was Dunkirk a success, etc Plenty of easy differentiation can be adapted to this, such as highlighting the key ideas, principals, or changing the language to make it more difficult, including or removing the writing frame. It would be advisable to also download any attached clips from Youtube that you find useful if the internet is inconsistent in your school.

This lesson is aimed at a 50 mins to a 1 hour lesson. It introduces the common reasons why war between Spain and England occurred in 1585. This lesson is aimed at the middle, with an element allowing the lower learner gain a reason and stretch the higher learners to engage in difficult material. All students will be able to provide three reasons why the war occurred, and with team work can gain a different insight/explanation as to why the believe it happened. In essence, by completing all the tasks they are answering a 12 mark GCSE edexcel question of ‘Why did England and Spain go to war, 1585?’ I would follow on this lesson with homework of revising for an assessment on answering this question in the next lesson, though if you have more time, you could build that into this lesson. *Top tip: Organise the groups before the lesson into the powerpoint, differentiating accordingly. Number the students in each group, eg 1-philip, 2, religion… so they all know what their ‘master topic’ is. Cuts down on time needed to explain the task. *Top tip: Use the colour code carding to create formative questioning throughout all your lessons. Simply print out a sheet with the four colours, cut, laminate and attach together with a treasury tag. Many thanks, and reviews welcome!

This lesson and support document requires students to categorise, integrate and analyse 6 pieces of information about Hitler's rise to power. Various tasks and highly focused on student cooperation and justification. Attached are some useful clips from Horrible History and also a short summary of Hitler&'s rise to power. Written plenary is in a format similar to a justification answer at GCSE level. Comments for improvement more than welcome

Covers many of the common themes touched on in Modern and Early Modern History