Outstanding Lessons, Smart Tasks, lesson ideas
The reasons why Labour won the General Election of 1945.
If Churchill’s popularity rating rarely dropped below 80% during the Second World War, why then was there a landslide victory…
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Kristallnacht: Did the press allow itself to be taken in by Nazi propaganda?
This lesson starts by creating tension between what students have read in preparation for the lesson and a contemporary newspaper….
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LESSON IDEA: Why have there been so many different theories as to why Stalin carried out the Terror?
Varied and active lesson in which students: generate a list of relevant questions; prioritise their own reasons; role-play the arguments…
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Hitler Youth AS/A2 task
This smart task uses one of the most frequently misunderstood Hitler Youth posters. By taking students through a step-by-step deconstruction…
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AS SMART TASK Vietnam; why was Rolling Thunder ultimately unsuccessful?
When by the end of 1965 US pilots had flown over 24,000 sortie missions and wiped out 355 of North…
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Why was Anne Boleyn executed? Which of these seems most plausible?
In this short task students work out for themselves the key inter-related reasons why Anne Boleyn was executed. Using the…
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SMART TASK: How significant was the Montgomery Bus Boycott in the history of Civil Rights?
Quick ranking activity for GCSE/AS students Students are asked to consider the relative significance of 11 possible arguments that have…
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LESSON IDEA: Edward IV was more successful as a king in his second reign than his first’. How far do you agree with this view?’
Activities 1. Introductory. Brainstorm Edward’s achievements and failures. 2. Provide students with cards for them to place on a spectrum…
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Why did Bolshevism survive in Russia between 1917 and 1924? SMART TASK AS-A2
This task asks students to investigate the perplexing question as to why the Bolshevik regime was able to survive from…
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Italian foreign policy-outstanding lesson
At what point did Mussolini seem to side more with Germany than with Britain or France? Students arrive at the…
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‘Gladstone’s conversion to Home Rule was a calculated political act’. Assess the validity of this claim
Start by posing the question as a puzzle to be solved. Why would Gladstone convert so suddenly to Home Rule…
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Who started the Korean War? Smart Task
In this short starter smart task students are given two contradictory accounts of the start of the Korean War, both…
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Was Hitler totally responsible for the Second World War?
This smart task looks deceptively simple, and should serve as a useful introduction, leading on to some sophisticated analysis exploring…
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AS/A2 SMART TASK Threats to Henry VII, a living graph
Students create event cards for homework by way of preparation for creating a multi strand living graph showing the degree…
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The Marshall Plan: How should we interpret it? Just how philanthropic was it?
The activities in this very varied lesson ask students to raise questions, place sources on a continuum, add analysis to…
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AS/A2 SMART TASK Did the ending of the Second World War make the Cold War inevitable?
In order for students to form their own view on this challenging question they read, discuss, sort and then place…
Read MoreThe rise of Stalin: 4 smart tasks
Included here are 4 distinct smart tasks which could be used in various combinations at AS and A2 level. They…
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