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 Suffragettes
The aim of this lesson is to analyse previous perceptions of women and their role at home and in the family (the Angel on the House).
Students scrutinise how women were treated in Victorian Britain with discrimination from society as well as the law and give their own analysis and judgements using sources from the time.
They can do this through discussion or through an extended writing task, with help given if required.
There are examples of how women were treated and a case study of a wife in an abusive marriage.
The lesson includes written sources and video evidence.
The plenary requires the students to show their new knowledge and comprehension of life for women at the time.
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.
World War I
The aim of this lesson is to evaluate just how efficient and effective the new weapons of the Twentieth Century were.
Students have two objectives; to rate the effectiveness and killing power of the weapons used during the war and to explain how well equipped the soldiers were in the trenches, particularly the British Tommy.
The lesson begins with discussing the type of weapons used and for students to recognise the continuity and change of many of these pre, post and during World War 1.
The historian Dan Snow is quoted as saying the British soldier went into World War I ‘as the best prepared soldier on the planet.’
The lesson subsequently unfolds to explain and evaluate the new weapons used and the advantages (or not) they gave each side.
The plenary requires students to link the effectiveness of the weapons to images and to explain how and why this is the case.
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 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.
The aim of this test is to find out how much the students know about history.
The results will give you a baseline from which you can build upon. Once they begin to study history, they will begin to show progress in all areas, particularly in the amount of detail required in answers.
The test focuses on chronology, cause and consequence, change and continuity, historical enquiry, interpretation and significance.
This is a particularly useful assessment for a history department and as a starting point and ideally for Year 7.
Most students sadly will not have studied a lot of history at their primary schools (apart from the odd day to study the Victorians or World War 2) as literary, numeracy and SATS still dominate primary school curriculum planning.
The resource comes in Word and PowerPoint formats which can be amended and changed to suit.
The British Empire
The aims of the lesson are to decide who were the main beneficiaries of British rule in India.
The opening slides introduce the views of modern historians to those at the time such as Cecil Rhodes, with a video link setting the scene for British rule in India and a thinking quilt to challenge students.
Throughout, students are encouraged to gather and analyse the evidence to make their own judgements and conclusions.
There are some beneficial aspects to British rule shown such as the building of railways, the provision of education and the introduction of law and order in the country. A focus on Mumbai’s railway station facade and its network cites the legacy of Empire as well.
But at the same time a lack of sympathy for traditional customs and religious beliefs, an inadequacy of Indian officials in Government and the promotion of British wealth and power above all else will give students a lot of conflictory evidence.
In the plenary, students will rate how beneficial an Empress Queen Victoria actually was for bringing India under direct British control.
The lesson comes with retrieval practice activities, 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 lessons are fully adaptable in PowerPoint format and can be changed to suit.
The British Empire
This lesson aims to question whether Britain was in India for the right reasons.
The subject matter is the East India Company and a study of how it slowly took over the country of India taking with it a precious diamond and making a fortune out of its trade. There are some great video links used here from the BBC and Dan Snow which help bring reasoning and clarity.
Students are asked if we should return the Koh-i-Noor diamond to India, the jewel in the British crown, after analysing some important evidence.
Students are also given key words to help them with their arguments as to whether the diamond should be returned to India or not.
The final activity focuses on the legacy of the East India Company and who benefitted from their rule before the company’s eventual collapse.
The lesson comes with retrieval practice activities, suggested teaching and learning strategies and are linked to the latest historical interpretations, video clips and debate.
The lesson is enquiry based with a key question of who benefitted from the Empire 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.
Rise of Dictators
The aim of this lesson is for students to assess and judge the character and legacy of Stalin.
The lesson begins by discovering what the students already know about Russia today or about Stalin.
They will also analyse some video footage, complete a true or false quiz and then use this information to prioritise some significant facts about his early life.
The main task will involve students evaluating how evil Stalin was, by giving him a rating out of 10 for a number of his policies during his rule of the Soviet Union.
This can be followed up by an extended writing exercise, using prompts and key literacy words to help.
A connect 4 interactive plenary activity will consolidate the learning of the lesson of Stalin’s life and his dictatorship of the Soviet Union.
The lesson is enquiry based with a key question using a lightbulb posed at the start of the lesson and revisited throughout this and lessons 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 A Level 1C The Tudors: England 1485-1603
The aim of this lesson is to assess the skills of Thomas Cromwell as Henry’s chief minister.
Students are given the context to Cromwell’s rise to power, before they have to rate and justify the various talents he displayed, particularly in securing the divorce for Henry.
They will also make comparisons with Cardinal Wolsey and judge their similarities and differences in office.
A noughts and crosses game gets the students thinking and recalling knowledge at the end of the lesson.
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 if Mary’s religious changes helped or hindered the return to Catholicism in England.
Students begin by recapping on Mary’s key people and her possible thought processes on a return to Roman Catholicism.
They will also learn her views on religion and discuss to what extent Mary was prepared to go to reassert the Pope’s authority over the Church.
Students are also given a number of scenarios from which they have to assess the consequences to possible actions taken by Mary and her government such as the repatriation of monastic lands.
The final learning task requires some decisions to be made over if Mary used a successful carrot or stick policy and the obstacles facing her for a full return to Rome.
There is some exam question practice to finish, complete with a writing frame and markscheme to help if required.
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
I have produced this bundle of resources on Henry VIII to help A level history students access the course and make some of the ideas, themes and concepts of the Tudors more accessible.
Henry VIII was a larger than life character who has left a long lasting legacy on our history
Therefore the enquiry question throughout this bundle of resources will be to question how strong and successful Henry was during his reign.
Students will learn how effectively Henry ruled England and how government evolved and the use of Parliament changed during his reign.
They will assess his character and personality and question and evaluate his decision making.
They will judge the significance of individuals in his reign such as Cardinal Wolsey, Sir Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell as well as economic development.
Students will look at his aims in foreign policy and question how successful he was in his pursuit of military glory under Wolsey and beyond or whether he just played third fiddle in Europe.
Finally they will learn about the political, social, economic and religious upheaval caused by his divorce and the break with Rome.
The lessons are as follows:
L1 Introduction
L2 Aims of Henry VIII
L3 Henry VIII and Government
L4 Catherine of Aragon
L5 Rise of Wolsey
L6 Interpretations of Wolsey
L7 Downfall of Wolsey
L8 King’s Great Matter
L9 Break with Rome
L10 Henry VIII & Humanism
L11 Rise of Cromwell
L12 Pilgrimage of Grace
L13 Dissolution of the Monasteries
L14 How Protestant was England by 1547?
L15 Foreign Policy under Wolsey
L16 Henry VIII Foreign Policy 1529-1547
L17 Henry VIII and Society
L18 Henry VIII and the Economy
The lessons include the two types of exam question used, with examples of how to tackle them, using model answers, helpful hints and tips, structuring and scaffolding as well as markschemes. However, please refer to the AQA website for further assessment materials as they are subject to copyright.
The lessons are also differentiated and fully resourced and allow students to reach the very top marks.
This is the second of four bundles I have created for the Tudors A Level history course.
If you have any questions about the lessons, please email me via my TES shop, or any other information about the course. I would also welcome any reviews, which would be gratefully appreciated.
World War II
The aim of this lesson is to decide if Winston Churchill deserves the title as the ‘Greatest Briton’?
When the BBC conducted a poll entitled ‘Who is the Greatest Briton?’ Winston Churchill came out on top, besting some strong competition.
This lesson therefore challenges this assumption and evaluates the four areas the BBC cites as his fortitude; for being the greatest British Gentleman, for inspiring the nation, for symbolising the spirit and strength of Britain and for his comforting speeches.
The evidence for this task is through radio broadcasts, video footage and source analysis (using a battery rating) from which students will conclude and either concur or not with the poll.
A splat the bubble plenary will test their new assumptions.
This lesson is ideal as preparation for GCSE if you are embedding source skills or teaching the interwar years or WWII at Key stage 4.
It 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 and 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 assess Reagan’s new approach to the Soviet Union and the reasons for a Second Cold War.
Students learn about the precarious nature of the life span of some of the Soviet leaders as well Reagan’s background before he became President. They then have to emoji rate and judge his Presidency as to how tough a stance he takes using a number of statements.
There are also some statement options to judge correctly as well as a differentiated questioning task.
Some GCSE question practice on the importance of Reagan’s Presidency can be completed at the end of the lesson, with help given using a scaffold 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 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 asserted her authority and control in the second half of her reign.
What was it like to be poor in Elizabethan England and how did the Elizabethans deal with poverty?
Moreover how did attitudes change and why was there a rise in the building of Almshouses by the end of the Sixteenth Century?
These are the key questions focused upon in this lesson as students learn about the causes and consequences of being poor.
Two GCSE practice questions are undertaken by students as they acquire skills in answering an interpretation and write an account question using the information in the lesson.
Furthermore they can peer assess their work and note where and how they can improve.
They will also by the end of the lesson recognise the significance of the new Elizabethan Poor Law and how the impact of poverty varied across the country which is needed to be able to obtain the more complex reasoning answers demanded in the AQA GCSE markschemes.
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.
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.
The Tudors
The aim of this lesson is to analyse the character and motives of Henry VII when he became King.
The lesson focuses on some crucial and important decision making for Henry VII upon his accession to the throne.
He has six decisions to make and students plot these on a grid giving their own judgements before finding out and evaluating how ruthless Henry was in charge.
The lesson hinges upon whether he was a Gangster or not (judged on the criteria at the beginning of the lesson) in an extended and differentiated written answer with a checklist for guidance.
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 Industrial Revolution
This lesson aims to examine and assess factory conditions during the Industrial Revolution.
The poor conditions and punishments are explored through the eyes of a pauper apprentice, whose story tells us the harsh discipline, rules and punishments for factory workers.
Students have a chance to complete a diary entry and evaluate if life was bad for everyone including using causation equations in the plenary.
The lesson alludes to factory owners like Robert Owen who built quality houses, schools, shops with cheap goods and parks for his workers (although factory reform and reformers is dealt with in another lesson).
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 aim of this lesson is to decide who rules in Medieval England - the Crown or the people?
As the lesson unfolds the overriding question becomes more challenging; in the short term the Peasants’ Revolt ultimately failed but the consequences in the longer term for the people were much more positive.
The scene is set with each student taking on the role on a peasant and spokesperson for their village. They complete a grid sheet throughout the first part of this lesson to clarify their significance in the village.
As the demands of the King become ever more unacceptable, they have to make choices, using a quiz to choose the correct actions to take, gaining or losing points in the process. This can be completed as a class or independently.
The second part of the lesson examines what happened to Wat Tyler – piecing together evidence from the King’s supporters at the time.
Ultimately they will write a narrative account of the Peasants’ Revolt using differentiated tasks which give guidance and help if required.
They continue to plot the power struggle between the king, the church, the barons and the people on a graph in a sequence of lessons.
This lesson includes:
Fun, engaging and challenging tasks
Links to video footage
Printable worksheets
Differentiated tasks
Suggested teaching strategies
Homework ideas
PowerPoint format, which can be changed to suit
World War II
The aim of this lesson is to question whether the breaking of the Enigma Code led to Britain winning the Second World War.
Having watched the ‘Imitation Game’, I was fascinated to learn more about the story of Alan Turing and the injustice he received at the hands of the British Government.
I was therefore inspired to write this lesson for my department especially after his contribution to the war effort and his brilliance of mind.
The first task naturally is for students to crack the code and find out what they will be learning about in the lesson.
They will also learn about the significance of Bletchley Park and how the code for the Enigma Machine was deciphered by Turing and his team in Hut 8, using a missing word activity.
A thinking quilt will also test and challenge their understanding of his early life, his work during the war as well as his legacy.
There are some excellent video links using the bbc website and an exert from the film above.
The plenary will finally test their understanding of the lesson, using a true and false quiz as well as images to link to the key ideas of 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.
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.
