Keystage history
6 top history ideas to cover in your Great Fire topic
Many of you will be starting your Great Fire topic this term. Naturally you will want this to be exciting…
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Thinking words in primary history: my top 10
Those of you who have used a lot of the lessons on the site will know only too well that…
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Teaching historical significance at Key Stage 3
When there is so much history to study how do students know what is significant? Is everything on the National…
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Cromwell a reputation deserved. KS3 Smart Task
This short task focuses on an entry from a website used by lots of people today, mainly in Ireland, to…
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Industrial Britain KS3 Smart Task on the changes brought about by industrialisation
This task helps pupils to develop an overview of the changes ushered in by industrialisation. The aim is to get…
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Early Modern Britain 1500-1750 Smart Task: Editor’s Pencil
A quick overview activity in which pupils have to spot and correct 20 deliberate mistakes. Pupils are given an activity with…
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Which modern Olympic Games am I? Short KS3 Smart Task
This engaging smart task on the Olympics in the 20th century focuses pupils’ attention on significant individual games as a…
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Grades 1-9 flightpath in history; or so you thought
I’m sure you has pretty limited expectations of what exemplication of grade 1-9 flightpath might look like . So its…
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Keeping up-to-date with your teaching of the Great Fire at KS1
If you get the chance, between the end of term and April, to visit the Museum of London’s exhibition Fire!…
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Industrial Revolution KS3 Smart Task: The Mystery of the Blackburn Cemetery
Why not start your class investigation into life during the Industrial Revolution with a mystery? Based on a recent discovery…
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KS3 & 4 The Causes of World War One: The Blame Game
This smart task which can be used from Y9 or for GCSE can be used as a form of diagnostic…
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What OFSTED says about primary history: 3 things you need to know
OFSTED’s views on primary history are difficult to find. The last Lead Inspector for history offered these three opinions before…
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Top 5 features of expert history teaching at KS1
Top five features of expert teaching at KS1 The key is challenge. Only by you setting high expectations will you…
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What’s in the bag and who does it belong to? Great Fire Smart Task
An object-based problem-solving approach to learning about life during the Great Fire This Smart Task is just part of a…
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Using nursery rhymes to develop thinking skills in YR: Jack and Jill and the Queen of Hearts
This lesson was kindly provided by David Cowie and his team at Ringwood Infants C of E School. Their theme…
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20 Imaginative products at Key Stage 4
This part of the site offers an initial short list of the best twenty products I have seen in the…
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’50’ imaginative learning activities for history at Key Stage 3
Over the last 20 years I have seen some outstanding individual lessons. Usually the lesson was so good because expectations…
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Learning in primary and secondary history : The 4 Ps, Gingerbread men and other thoughts on active learning
I have always favoured actively learning in history, not least because it frees the teachers to talk to individuals about…
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Roles of learners in history at Key Stage 2
One of the best ways of exciting young children in history is to put them in role. Dorothy Heathcote’s approach,…
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20 creative products for history Key Stage 2
This section accompanies the ones on teaching and learning approaches. It offers you a few ideas you may not have…
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Vikings: What were they like?
This lesson gives the topic on the Vikings a really active start. Pupils are placed in role as Saxon spies…
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Ancient Greece: Short task on using Greek pots
What can I do with just one Greek pot in the resource cupboard? Collaborative and creative storyboarding At the core…
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Squeezing the sources dry: how to make the most of source work in GCSE history
The downloadable six page document on answering source-based GCSE questions: matching learning strategies to question type, summarises the best advice…
Read MoreExpert Advice: Key Stage 3 and 4 – Using the 4 Bs
Using the 4 Bs to encourage independence You recognise the problem. No sooner have you set a piece of open-ended…
Read MoreFit for purpose teaching Strategies at Key Stage 3
Personalising learning by establishing what students already know about a topic, before beginning teaching. Case study: Comparing students’ initial perceptions…
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Imaginative learning activities at Key Stage 2
This section accompanies the ones on teaching and learning approaches. It offers you a few ideas you may not have…
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Expert Advice: Key Stage 1 – Mary Anning
She sells sea shells: planning a topic on Mary Anning, Dinosaur hunter, using the Anholt’s Stone girl, Bone girl “Would you…
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Expert Advice: Key Stage 1 – Planning for a cross-curricular topic on Going to the Seaside
This advice is for KS1 teachers planning a cross-curricular topic and focuses on how to integrate history, geography, literacy and…
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Why on earth did the Mary Rose, pride of the Tudor fleet, sink so quickly under the nose of Henry VIII himself? Home study option SMART TASK
A tightly structured series of activities on the reasons why the Mary Rose mysteriously sank which incorporates: a. A history…
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Teaching GCSE History: Terrorism and the Iraq war
This section is included mainly to help teaching of the new OCR’s History Modern World unit entitled A New Age…
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Why was the Metropolitan Police Force set up in 1829? Smart Tasks
This activity forms the central spine of a lesson on the reasons for setting up the Metropolitan Police Force in…
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Crime and Punishment starter: Smuggling – SMART TASK
This simple smart task uses the rather unusual source of a famous Kipling poem to ascertain what students already know…
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GCSE history : Medicine and World War One resource
This PowerPoint presentation , linked to clips from the film Battle of the Somme, is a must for those of…
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New A level resources for teaching Thatcherism
The BBC has recently archived 17 programmes, news items and documents which illustrate Thatcher’s image transformation from suburban housewife to…
Read MoreRelevance in A level history
I’m sure many of you have felt exasperated, from time to time, with students who answer questions about the extent…
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Past beyond Living Memory: Key Stage 1
Lessons and shorter activities. Please note that these lessons and smart tasks have accompanying resources to download and that most of…
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Raising attainment in history at Key Stage 1
Experience of working with highly effective subject leaders over eighteen years has enabled me to distil SEVEN key factors that…
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Self-evaluation for history at Key Stage 1 and 2
For Primary history subject leaders it is very important to get a clear sense of perspective on self-evaluation. I f…
Read MorePolicy and vision for history at Key Stage 1
There is much debate about the value of a history policy, not least how long it should be!! A couple…
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Poaching: Need or Greed? A 3 minute starter SMART TASK KS4
Throughout history, people have had different views of poachers. Were they: a. Starving labourers, snaring game to keep body and…
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GCSE SHP Crime and Punishment: How and why did Victorian prisons change in the first half of Victoria’s reign
Introduction The Chief Examiner’s report for OCR made the following point: “A number of reports have identified 19C prison reform…
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Would you have liked to have been a highwayman? Why would you have stopped?
In this lesson students have to persuade others to become a highwayman and then have to work out why they…
Read MorePosting punishments in periods: an active approach to creating overviews in crime and punishment
This lesson draws on, and extends, an idea developed by Ian Dawson at Trinity and All Saints College. Students work…
Read MoreHow effective was the Metropolitan police force and how would we find out?
This enquiry-led activity focuses on students considering the possible evidence base, as well as knowing how to evaluate existing evidence…
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Attitudes of the US government to the native Americans: milking an image for meaning
The simple PowerPoint presents students with an image which has six separate panels for them to investigate. Only by exploring…
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Why did the Indians lose control of the Great Plains? I want that for my essay SMART TASK KS4
Students work in pairs to answer a GCSE question. They have cards of relevant information to sort through to help…
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Mountain Men – Myth and Reality SMART TASK KS4
Having looked at the role of Indian trappers who had been supplying skins to British, French and Spanish traders on…
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Phases of Native American life on the Plains 1840-1890: What patterns can YOU see?
This lesson comes at the end of work the students have done on the Native Americans and their interaction with…
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Manifest destiny: beat the textbook/expert caption
Students find this a fun lesson in which they not only consolidate their knowledge of the people who crossed the…
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How can we explain the rise and boom in the cattle industry?
This enquiry starts with students posing 7 expert historical questions, stimulated by a graph. They then set about investigating their…
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