Keystage history
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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Changes in surgery; late 19th century: a puzzle. Can students use all the contextual clues to work out when it was painted?
This lesson was kindly provided by Barbara Seymour who trialled it when she was Head of History at John Hunt…
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Who mattered most in medieval medicine? Who would you have on your textbook front cover from 1500?
One way of getting students to think about change and continuity in medieval times is to show them textbooks that…
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How did John Snow make the breakthrough with cholera?
This lesson focuses on problem-solving. Instead of simply telling students how clever John Snow was, or showing them a video…
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The impact of the theory of the four humours on medicine: the case of the three tadpoles!
This lesson was conceived, taught and evaluated by Simon Harrison, when he was an Advanced Skills Teacher, Swanmore Technology College…
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Who deserves to be remembered as the inventor of vaccination: Jenner or Jesty?
During this enquiry students work in two teams one using textbooks and websites to put forward the traditional claim that…
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SMART TASK: Overview of Irish history; a question of perspectives.
This smart task looks at iconic moments in Irish history and then challenges students to think how well each event…
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SMART TASK Key Stage 4: How should we remember the Easter Rising?
Recap This is the concluding lesson on the Easter Rising. If you want a good recap so that students hit…
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SMART TASK Key Stage 4: Why was Rohm murdered?
If Ernst Rohm was one of Hitler’s closest allies, as you can see in this photo, why then did he…
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Treaty of Versailles: could it possibly be to blame for the Weimar Republic’s defeat nearly 14 years later?
This SMART task revolves around 6 slides on one PowerPoint presentation. It comes as a penultimate activity prior to students…
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SMART TASK: Weighing up the evidence for who caused the Reichstag Fire
This task follows a more open-ended investigation of written sources on the Reichstag Fire. Most of you will already do…
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SMART TASK Key Stage 4: Working out what the election posters tell us about Who Voted Nazi
This simple task engages students in thinking for themselves why people voted for Hitler in the 1930s. It uses the…
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SMART TASK Key Stage 4: Germany 1920-23; problems facing Weimar
This activity was designed for more able students working towards a Modern World History GCSE in Year 10. It leads…
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Was Leni Riefenstahl’s ‘Triumph of the Will’ a Documentary or Propaganda?
This Y10 lesson provides a very good balance between thought and activity. Having discussed the differences between a propaganda film…
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What were the main threats facing the Weimar Republic?
Students often fail to look carefully at ALL parts of a cartoon, photograph or poster. To help them to take…
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How much did the Gestapo really control people’s lives in Hitler’s Germany?
This enquiry-based lesson acquaints students with a live political controversy using an excerpt from ‘The Nazis: a warning from history’ video to…
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Did all Germans benefit equally from life under the Nazi regime 1933-45?
This GCSE lesson , which could also work at AS level, uses two principal activities, known as ‘market place’ and…
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SMART TASK: A Suffragette procession: comparing the evidence
Whether you are studying the OCR unit, AQA or Edexcel you should find this activity helpful. The activity builds on…
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Why did some women get the vote in 1918? How do YOU see it?
This lesson provides an excellent example of active learning, combining thinking skills and work on interpretations. Students start with one…
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How far did the Liberal government of 1906-14 improve the health of children?
This highly relevant lesson offers a major contribution to the Every Child Matters agenda on staying healthy, as well as…
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How serious was the German naval threat before the First World War?
This lesson launches an enquiry in which students work in teams to arrive at their own answer to this question. …
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How have cartoonists portrayed the Liberals Old Age Pensions reforms?
This lesson takes a familiar cartoon but gives it an original twist. Instead of seeing the cartoon all at once,…
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Reasons for reliability. How reliable a witness would Charles Booth make in an investigation into living conditions at the end of the 19th century ?
This lesson focuses on encouraging students to evaluate the testimony of just one man, Charles Booth. It opens with an…
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Should the statue to Haig be taken down from Whitehall?
This active lesson asks students to work in teams to weigh up the arguments for and against the proposal of…
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Downfall of the Tsar
This lesson, taught to a group of poorly motivated Y10 students followed a description of events leading to the February…
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Lenin the Final Verdict
This lesson makes students active participators in the debate over Lenin’s contribution to the Russian Revolution. It comes at the…
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Interpreting a political cartoon of Stalin
This lesson revolves around a cartoon annotation and inference activity leading to a detailed and authoritative caption. It concludes the…
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Why did the Reds win the Russian Civil War? A history mystery to explain why the reds were able to SLUG it out
This lesson encourages students to take their understanding of the events of the Russian Civil War to a new level…
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SMART TASK Key Stage 4 – Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis
With the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile crisis in the news, it is worth spending time reviewing Kennedy’s reputation….
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New Deal or No Deal? How has the New Deal been criticised?
This lesson is an active one in which students co-operate in order to put the best case they can against…
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Why was there a boom in the US economy in the 1920s?
This lesson was designed for Y10 students on the C/D borderline who were underachieving and were falling down on the…
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Roosevelt and the 1936 election: can you write his manifesto?
It is the year 1936 and Roosevelt wants to be re-elected. Students work in groups to create his campaign manifesto…
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Recommended Resources
The main headings focus on the historical background to Bloody Sunday and are organized as below. Division & Peace Ireland’s…
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SMART TASK Russian take-over of Eastern Europe, 1946-9: Interpreting a political cartoon.
This simple activity encourages students to look at all the clues the cartoon provides, one at a time. As they…
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SMART TASK Key Stage 4 Deciphering a Cold War cartoon, using the slow reveal technique.
The interactive PowerPoint presentation of the famous Stalin’ The Birdwatcher’ cartoon encourages students to add layers of meaning as more…
Read MoreSMART TASK Key Stage 4: The Cuban Missile Crisis. Who was the real winner, Kennedy or Khrushchev?
Coming at the end of a study of the Cuban Missile crisis, students have to consider the ways in which…
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Who was more responsible for increasing Cold War tension between 1945 and 1949, the USA or the USSR?
This lesson challenges students to prepare a court case against both countries. The case against the USA will be made…
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Why did the US lose the war in Vietnam? A piece of cake?
In this lesson students focus on moving their understanding of the reasons for US defeat from simply listing and grouping,…
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SMART TASK: Who said what at Versailles? A fun competitive team game with a serious purpose
This simple activity asks students to think who would be the most likely person to make this statement at the…
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SMART TASK: At what stage would you say it was obvious that the League of Nations would fail to keep peace?
This short task and associated homework asks students to beat the textbook. First they are reminded of the record of…
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Could the Treaty of Versailles be justified at the time?
This lesson was taught by Claire Conley-Harper and her excellent team of history teachers at Court Moor School in Fleet,…
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Was it the Manchurian or the Abyssinian crisis that spelled the end of the League of Nations?
There is a website that offers GCSE students this essay but at a cost. It is fairly accurately called www.cheat.com….
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Why did the League of Nations fail?
It’s a piece of cake (F.A.I.L.U.R.E. is not an option) Students have already studied the major episodes in the history…
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Invasion of the Rhineland 1936 – a study in political cartoon analysis
All too often when the students see political cartoons in textbooks they focus on an oval shape in the centre…
Read MoreOutstanding Lessons: Key Stage 4
There is probably more material already on the web for GCSE history teaching at KS4 than for any other key…
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Forward planning in history at Key Stage 4
There are probably four separate strands that you need to weave into your forward planning. To start with there will…
Read MoreHow might history targets be shared with students at Key Stage 4?
Target setting has now become a central feature of teachers’ professional life. With the advent of some pretty robust data…
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