Going to the seaside – KQ2 – What did people do at the seaside 100 years ago?

From mime to movie. SMART TASK

This fun activity is carried out by children working on tables of six. Half the class work on one image, the other half on another interesting image. Each table is given an A4 colour picture either A or B. For...

Life in Tudor Times – KQ3 part 2 – Linking history with numeracy; a Tudor enquiry

More glass than wall? Is this a fair description of Hardwick Hall? And how do we find out?

This SMART task links history with numeracy asking pupils to apply numeracy techniques to a famous historical building. Pupils are shown a photograph of an early Tudor building,...

Ancient Egypt – KQ3 part 1 – The opening of Tutankhamun’s tomb

The opening of Tutankhamun's tomb: a brilliant reconstruction relay

The activity that forms the basis of this lesson is called reconstruction relay. It is GUARANTEED to enthuse even the most recalcitrant Y4 boy! Pupils have to travel down a tunnel of tables to see pictures of...

Grace Darling – KQ1 – Grace Darling: setting up the enquiry

This is the first lesson on an enquiry into Grace Darling: what she did, and why she was famous. The kernel of the lesson is a slow reveal activity which works really well on an Interactive White Board. The key image comes from the...

SMART TASK: A history puzzle – Opening up of the Western frontier by the railroads. A history mystery

This history puzzle focuses on a well-known painting, Across the Continent, but one which is actually more puzzling than might at first appear. The task starts simply and then becomes complex. Initially, all students have to do is to annotate a copy of the 1868 painting of...

SMART TASK: Medieval medicine. What can we work out from the picture?

A smart task based on an original idea from Lorna Hunter, of Swanmore Technology College. This deceptively simple example of a familiar technique takes students from the known to the unknown. They begin by annotating all they can see in the picture, available on the downloadable...

SMART TASK Key Stage 4: GCSE SHP Medicine: 18th century surgery

This quick activity asks students to explore the detail in Rowlandson’s cartoon called ‘Amputation’. They score one mark for each of the 10 labelled examples of relevant detail and 3 marks each for good inferences. If they can explain the purpose of the cartoon they...

Smart Task: How popular was the Vietnam war? What can we learn from just two photographs?

This simple starter uses just two contrasting photographs, one showing the popularity of Johnson’s policy towards Vietnam, the other opposition to it. How can we explain the difference? Students generate questions to ask about each source before being given the answers on the PowerPoint presentation. ...

Hoover’s rubbish: Roosevelt moves in

Students predict what pieces of departing Hoover's rubbish policies Roosevelt might be throwing out

This lesson on a fairly familiar theme approaches GCSE cartoon analysis in a different way. Instead of showing the students the cartoon they are to interpret, they are simply given an outline, without the detail and certainly without the text. Using their contextual knowledge students...

How well do these cartoons cover the causes of World War One?

In pairs, Y9/GCSE students visit 9 different cartoons posted around the wall. They have to work out: a. Which cause is being ‘covered’ in each cartoon - sometimes two. b. Which causes are NOT covered. They are given a textbook diagram explaining the causes in the form of an...

Court of King Cholera: Where am I in the picture?

This activity works in two ways; it activates pupils’ prior knowledge in a fun way and raises questions about conditions at the time the chosen image, A Court for King Cholera was produced, i.e. September 1852. Students work in pairs. They are each given a copy...

Puzzle corner 3: the strange case of the missing slave

Pupils will find that this example of a black slave, painted out of an eighteenth century painting of a tobacco lord’s family, makes an intriguing starter to any lesson on the slave trade. They will enjoy ‘finding’ him in the portrait, thanks to 21st century...

Puzzle corner: The strange case of the steel helmet

A short intriguing starter activity for pupils presents them with a puzzle to solve. In the First World War, why did head injuries increase when the metal helmet replaced the cloth cap as part of the British soldiers’ uniform? The answer is not obvious at first sight...

The Gunpowder Plot: Prove it using a gallery of images

This skilfully differentiated lesson places pupils in the role of detectives that have to find evidence to back up statements that have been made about the Gunpowder plot. They are given responsibility for a range of statements carefully matched to their learning needs. ...

Help Tom to fight the Great Fire. Smart Task

This ICT based activity draws heavily on the superb new website created as a joint enterprise by the National Archives, National Portrait Gallery, Museum of London and London Fire Brigade Museum. It appears on the Learning Curve section of the National Archives site. The interactive...

Raising attainment at Key Stage 4

This section of the site contains four different types of advice. There is general advice, outlining factors that usually explain success at GCSE and a short paper entitled 'Smoking Out Underachievement'. Then there are five really interesting case studies of best practice. Each has...

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 lesson having familiarised themselves with key events of Mussolini’s foreign policy which is checked with a quick sequencing task which is turned into two living graphs...

How will your school commemorate the end of World War One in 2018?

This short advice sheet invites schools to consider how they will commemorate the centenary of armistice day and provides an illustrated PowerPoint presentation offering 8 attractive ideas to set you thinking. This supports two outstanding lessons that feature on the website: What do...

New theory on sinking of the Titanic

Left luggage activity on the Titanic using artefacts provided by a Southampton Museum

Those of you teaching the great KS1 topic on the sinking of the Titanic will be interested to know that the debate still goes. What we term a history mystery in the outstanding lesson, certainly is every bit a mystery. Now, 30 years of further...

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 from the examination boards all in one place. It gives you the sort of hints you should be passing on to your history students,...

Expert 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 enquiry work with you initially as facilitator, than the hands go up. Please Sir/Miss, “How do I start?” “I don’t get this.” etc.

One department I...

Fit 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 with their end-of-study study views of the First World War To build effectively on what students bring to the classroom, it is always useful to start a...

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 tried for a while, or at least not within the current topic. It is always a good idea to whet pupils' appetite for a topic...

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 like to go Dinosaur hunting? Well one young girl did when she wasn’t much older than you and became famous all over the world." The sample page...

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 ICT.

Start the topic with a brief discussion with the children about where they are going on their summer holidays this year or...

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 each in turn can the true meaning of the document be established. Groups of three or four work on each and either annotate their own...

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 simple but visually appealing medium of election posters. Students work in teams of three to see if they can be the first to find 6...

SMART TASK: A Suffragette procession: comparing the evidence

New GCSE British history source enquiry, suitable for SHP or Modern World. Whether you are studying the OCR unit, AQA or Edexcel you should find this activity helpful. The activity builds on an initial idea from the revised Edexcel Teacher’s Guide for the new SHP GCSE course. ...

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 and more of the cartoon is revealed. They then have to guess the date from the internal clues, before seeing a detailed animated version. Cartoon reproduced...

Vesalius’ claim to fame. Using the B.A.D formula to prepare for a BBC interview

The BBC is making a documentary on Renaissance medicine in which they have devoted two minutes to the work of Vesalius. Unfortunately, their Vesalius expert is ill and they thought it would be a neat idea to ask two well-informed students to stand in. Their...

Prehistoric Medicine: Getting your GCSE course off to a great start

This lesson was taught by Mike Herrity when Head of History at Wildern School, Hedge End, near Southampton. On an OFSTED inspection the lead inspector pronounced the lesson quite outstanding and was so convinced of the quality that she saw no more history lessons after...

Why was this World War One painting censored?

Students studying Britain during World War One, whether it be for AQA, OCR or Edexcel, need to know about censorship. This deceptively simple lesson asks penetrating questions which both engage and challenge. Students analyse one of Nevinson’s famous paintings, Paths of Glory, perhaps surprised that...

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, students see it in four separate parts, which in pairs they have to draw in turns. This helps them to focus on the details and...

Battalion 101. Why did they shoot? A history mystery

This lesson could be used as part of a Year 9 course or with the Germany module of Y10/11 SHP or Modern World. Students are confronted with moral issues and have to explain what prompted men to kill in the way they did- and the...

What can we learn about the Empire from a Christmas pudding?

This lesson starts with a simple fun activity, working competitively in teams to locate the source of ingredients for an Empire Christmas pudding using a world map to help. Pupils are then introduced to the changing nature of the empire in the inter-war years before...

What made runaway slaves successful?

This short enquiry enables pupils to come up with their own ideas about runaway slaves working from first hand evidence of adverts for the slaves ‘ arrest'. They work in pairs to come up with possible reasons why some slaves were caught and not others...

Free at Last? How far had the Civil Rights Movement come by 1963?

How far have Afro-Americans come in their struggle for equality over the last 160 years? With many schools operating a 2-year Key Stage 3 curriculum, it is important to offer a few quick overviews of topics you’d love to teach in greater depth, but simply...

If life was so hard in Victorian cities, why did Wilf move his family there?

If life was so hard for families in the towns why did so many leave the countryside and move to the towns in Victorian times? - a history mystery Starting a lesson with an apparent contradiction is a good way of engaging pupils interest. This 'history...

The mystery of the empty Saxon grave

This highly engaging lesson places pupils in the role of detectives. After a short briefing they have to work out the significance of the various clues found in the bodiless ship burial. They then use their deductive power to work out which of 4 suspects...

Eric the evacuee

Extending the BBC website on Eric the evacuee

The BBC children’s history section has been in touch with the school asking for their help in extending their website section on Eric the evacuee. There is nothing wrong with it: indeed, it is very popular. That’s why...

The Ups and Downs of Mary Anning’s life

This lesson focuses on helping pupils to move beyond simple story telling and sequencing to thinking about the effect that each event in her life had on Mary. By encouraging pupils to think in terms of happy and sad events, you will help them build...

Florence Nightingale Lesson and sample planner

Fighting Fit. What did Florence do to improve the lives of the soldiers when she arrived in the Crimea? One example of a series of lessons for teaching Florence Nightingale as part of your KS1 history. A sample from the full planner in the medium term...

Assessment for learning in Primary history

Assessment for Learning is much vaunted and many faceted. If we break down what it means in its constituent parts, many of you will feel that you do most of that already, and you probably do. What the Primary Strategy is pushing is a more...

Long term planning for history at Key Stage 1

Superficially, Key Stage 1 seems the least complex history curriculum to plan because the burden of content to be covered seems manageable. Scratch beneath the short section that describes the demands of Key Stage 1 history and you'll find lurking some significant issues to be...

Thinking skills in history at Key Stage 1

There is nothing particularly radical about using a thinking skills approach to history at Key Stage 1, but there are certainly two main pitfalls that snare the unwary. The first lies in the area of metacognition, that part of the lesson where pupils think about...

Curriculum models for KS1 history

It seems a logical extension of the advice on long-term planning of the curriculum to offer you some models of what it might look like. As you know, the devil is in the detail. You won't see vast differences from a model produced say 20...

GCSE Modern World history: Using history of football to interest boys in Inter-war relations 1919-39

If you have ever found it difficult to motivate boys looking at the Inter-war years from 1919-39, why not try using football to tell the story. This quick activity, supported by a fully illustrated PowerPoint (with photos and video clips), uses football to mark out...

Marking the anniversary of the Wall Street Crash

To mark the 80th anniversary of the Wall St. Crash in 1929, the Guardian produced a simple guide to the crash told using 9 photographs. Could students do the same and then compare their commentary to the one on the Guardian site In...

What can we learn about medieval churches from the outside and inside?

This innovative lesson uses the gallery strategy in which pupils compare a range of fascinating colour images to discover what Doom paintings have in common. After annotating and captioning different individual scenes pupils compare their findings with text book summaries to see how much they...

What do we remember on Poppy Day / Remembrance Day?

This session revolves around a PowerPoint presentation which poses 6 significant questions, each designed to encourage pupils to think and to share their knowledge and understanding of this annual event.

Question 1

Who and what do we remember on Poppy Day? Show PowerPoint slide 2 which shows poppies...

Free History Teaching Samples

From mime to movie. SMART TASK

More glass than wall? Is this a fair description of Hardwick Hall? And how do we find out?

The opening of Tutankhamun's tomb: a brilliant reconstruction relay

This advice is for KS1 teachers planning a cross-curricular topic and focuses on how to integrate history, geography, literacy and ICT.

Extending the BBC website on Eric the evacuee

Question 1