Evaluating websites in history at KS3-5: 3 pieces of top advice

Students are too trusting of what they read on the Internet. Most striking, they implicitly trust Google to verify sources for them--whatever Google lists first must be a good source. As we know, many are there because they paid to be there as shown by...

What can you do at KS3 to make your history curriculum more representative?

In a recent article for the Historical Association ( HA news- Autumn 2020) Jake Subryan Richards offers his advice: " For teachers it is at KS3 where there is most flexibility. Stress the interconnections between Britain and the wider world, supported by the Runnymede Trust's Our...

Indian Mutiny/rebellion of 1857

This lesson is aimed at Y9/GCSE students. It addresses three principal aspects of history teaching:

How to be thoughtful and discriminating when selecting evidence that is relevant to answering two different questions on the same topic.
How to explore the different aspects of historical explanations,...

British Empire – How can we infer so much about the empire from a study of just one map and the person who created it?

This session starts by looking at the information to be gleaned from a well-known 1886 map of the empire and ends with them writing an evaluative expert caption to accompany a textbook image which refers explicitly to the provenance Objectives

Students understand how the Empire was...

Richard I: Lionheart or loser should we keep his statue – SMART TASK

This short task puts pupils in the role of spin doctors who have to ‘big up’ the reputation of Richard the Lionheart. There is a lobby of people who feel that his statue outside the Houses of Parliament should be replaced with a more suitable...

Rotten apple or …. How should we portray Dyer’s motivation in the Amritsar massacre?

This enquiry asks students to look critically at the depiction of the massacre in the film Gandhi as a way into trying to determine the motivation of Dyer. Students are provided with an initial set of influence cards which they have to group and classify...

How should Germany be treated at the Paris peace conference? KS3 or KS4 task

This short but engaging task precedes any detailed analysis of the terms of the treaty itself. It has four distinct elements: prediction; analysis of a rarely seen German poster; attaching significance; and refining ideas based on most recent scholarship.

Step 1

Firstly, students have to...

So you think your pupils know about Witchcraft in early modern Britain.

1. Were witches burned in English-speaking countries? A. No, they were hanged not burned, because witchcraft was a felony. This was also true in North America. 2. Were millions of witches put to death? A. No, the real number was nearer 50,000 across the whole era and whole...

What can we tell about the Ancient Greeks from a study of their Olympics? KQ5 part 1

We thought we would offer you a range of different cameos showing how the history of the Olympics could be imaginatively integrated into your current teaching.

The teaching activities below have all be tried and tested in schools and have been judged outstanding by...

Teaching the British Empire KS3

In a recent article for the Telegraph, journalist and writer Jeremy Paxman made the following case for teaching the history of the British Empire: [It] explains so much about who we are now… Imperial history explains both why Britain has a seat on the UN Security...

How far did life really change when William the Conqueror became king after the Battle of Hastings? SMART TASK KS3

Pupils have to design a set of stamps to show the 5 biggest changes introduced by William the Conqueror after Hastings, but first they need to place ideas on a spectrum ranging from massive change, through little change to continuity.

Starter

In small groups of three pupils...

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...

Why were so many witches hanged in the 16th and 17th centuries?

Can we beat the textbook explanation?

The inspiration for this lesson came from the talented history department at Court Moor school and in particular the outstanding history subject leader Claire Conley-Harper. Originally it was a short thinking skills activity on raising historical questions which then grew...

How ‘Bloody’ was Mary Tudor?

At the heart of the lesson is a courtroom trial. Pupils have to acquit Mary Tudor of the charge of being 'Bloody'. They look together at the reasons why she was thought to be 'bloody' and then work in groups to analyse the evidence in...

Why did sons kill fathers in the English Civil War? The Verneys enquiry

Pupils in this Year 8 class had already looked at background causes of the English Civil War and had a clear grasp of the narrative of events 1625-42. They had looked at the different ways in which historians had tried to explain the causes, so...

Parchment in the flames – the World Turned Upside Down

This lesson uses a familiar post-Civil War source in an unusually intelligent way to give Y8 pupils a good understanding of the need to interpret sources in their historical context. The featured pamphlet has been variously attributed and captioned with dates as far apart as...

Did the Great Fire really end the Great Plague of 1665?

In this one-lesson enquiry pupils look carefully at statistics and maps in order to challenge received opinion. To do so they must raise as well as answer questions and need to be mindful of flaws in the evidence they use. They conclude by reaching an...

Why did Peasant unrest boil over into revolt in 1381?

Reasons for the Peasants' Revolt

This lesson uses the analogy of raising the political temperature, and then boiling over, to explain the Peasants' Revolt. Pupils construct their own living graphs to build up their own temperature charts. Why, if life was so harsh for medieval peasants...

Gifted and talented in history at Key Stage 3

Provision for gifted and talented pupils has never been more in the spotlight than now. For all the work that has been going on for years, many schools are still at the early stages of identification, guidelines and general provision rather than very specific subject-based...

Starter activity on religious changes in the reign of Edward VI. SMART TASK KS3

A quick small group starter task in which pupils collaborate to show what meaning they can make from an image taken from Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. They use the PowerPoint jig-sawed slides to feedback, while you use the notes provided to take pupils from...

Teaching KS3 History: Medieval Britain

A wide range of lessons are showcased here for teaching Medieval Britain at KS3 because the medieval period is highly popular. All lessons have full resources to download. As many of you will have been teaching aspects of medieval British history for quite some time, I...

How significant was Magna Carta? SMART TASK KS3

Pupils have been commissioned to produce two brief podcasts for the British Library website aimed at a teenage audience. The first podcast is to last 100 seconds and must explain why Magna Carta is significant. The second is to last just 50 seconds and argue...

Learning at Key Stage 3

This section of the site has been designed to bring greater variety to learning and to work towards making pupils more independent learners. OFSTED's recent surveys of secondary history teaching, History in the Balance (July 2007) and History for All ( 2011) are clear enough....

Independence History at KS3 and GCSE

Independent Enquirers

Learners can develop as independent enquirers when they are provided with opportunities in history to:

explore for themselves events, issues or problems from different perspectives and consider the influence of circumstances, beliefs and feelings on decisions
make personal judgements about the relevance and value...

View of learners in history at Key Stage 3

With the increasing emphasis now being placed on the 'pupil voice', it is important that we make use of feedback from pupils to inform our teaching to improve their learning. Whether this relates to curriculum choices, or preferred learning styles, we need to know what...

Roles for Learners: Key Stage 3

In addition to thinking of imaginative and motivating activities for our lessons, it is often helpful to think about the roles give to pupils. Dorothy Heathcotes' excellent work on the Mantle of the Expert convinced me that pupils often do their best work when...

20 Imaginative products in history at Key Stage 3

Pupil's analogy diagram on the causes of World War Two. Czechoslovakia's head is being served on a plate to Hitler

This section is included to jog your memory about the range of outcomes that might be expected and to promote even more imaginative thinking. None of the ideas here claims to be in any way original , but they might stimulate some fresh ideas of your...

The learning process at Key Stage 3

Far from being 'just theory', understanding how children learn in history underpins all the decisions we make in our classrooms. It informs planning, differentiation, assessment, views on progression and, above all, what makes pupils want to learn. With the National Strategy now devoting considerable...

The Empire strikes back! SMART TASK KS3

Having previously investigated the criticism of empire, students now set about defending it. After studying a contemporary Indian view of Empire, which they critique in terms of usefulness, students explore a range of possible achievements of the empire, some using a structured sheet, others are...

Smart Task Puzzle Corner – Why did so many infants die when the death rate was falling?

Puzzle corner: SMART thinking skills task on why so many infants continued to die before their first birthday at a time when the death rate was falling rapidly.

This short activity works best as a starter or plenary and is particularly effective in encouraging able...

Hitler’s propaganda: the cult of leader. Reading internal clues. KS3 & 4 Smart Task

The aim of this short task is to encourage students to look really closely at images for what is there, not what they think should be there. Students are asked to consider how they might expect Hitler to be portrayed on a propaganda poster. They are...

Why did Germany lose the Battle of Britain?

If Britain was only a few days away from defeat in August 1940 how on earth did she win the Battle of Britain a month later?

PLEASE NOTE - This lesson was aimed at Key Stage 3 but should be capable of being used with minimal...

Great starter on interpretations of Henry VIII- Key question 1 part 2

Working closely with academic authors, in this case Catherine Fletcher, always gives a fascinating insight into what historians want to write and publishers want to sell. This is fertile ground for exploring the question of interpretations with pupils at KS2 and KS3. With this simple...

How well do your pupils know Medieval Britain? A short diagnostic smart task called truth detector

Pupils are given 18 statement cards (provided as RS2) about the Middle Ages on Britain to place on the truth spectrum (provided as RS1), labelled ‘made up’ to ‘definitely true’, (which you will need to enlarge when you print to landscape). As they are deliberating...

Castle design. Would I lie to you? Fun smart task

This enjoyable session has serious intent: to question some careless assumptions about castle building that often creep into Y7 teaching about castles. The idea is that pupils start to seriously question just how quickly and dramatically things really did change. It works like this. 5 teams...

Was there really a Blitz spirit? Killer evidence. Smart Task

Historians to this day still argue as to whether there was a Blitz spirit or not. Much depends on the evidence they use. This ‘Killer evidence’ Smart Task enables you to discover which evidence the students think is most powerful for each side and which would...

Having lost his parliament, then his throne, why did Charles I have to lose his head?

This diamond-9 prioritising causes activity concludes pupils’ investigation of the reasons for the trial and execution of Charles I. Pupils are presented with 9 ideas which they have to rank so that the most important idea is at the top the to next important below, all...

Market place: Why I didn’t oppose Hitler.

To help pupils to understand why so few people opposed Hitler in the 1930s the use of this market place activity has proved to be really effective. Give every student a different role card and ask them to talk to every other member in the...

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 Curriculum significant? If not why is it there? Are there significant events that are not taught in schools, when other less significant events are? In...

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 find out about Cromwell’s time there. Pupils are asked to assess whether it is a reliable interpretation of Cromwell’s behaviour in Ireland in the early 1650s....

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 pupils to generalise from the particular, identifying which groups of people benefited and which suffered. By dating the cards (there are 32 cards: 7 from...

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 a summary of the changes that took place in Britain between 1500 and 1750. Unfortunately, the person who wrote it is bad at history. Using their...

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 prelude to drawing out weightier themes. Worksheet and answers in resources section below. A full lesson on What do the Olympic Games tell us about...

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 of 800 child skeletons in a cemetery in Blackburn, pupils are challenged to work out why almost the graves were for children. What seems to have...

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 assessment to see to what extent students can attribute blame for causing the First World War to as many as 6 countries. While the students...

’50’ imaginative learning activities for history at Key Stage 3

History mystery. Why did Ernest join up in 1914, aged just 15?

Over the last 20 years I have seen some outstanding individual lessons. Usually the lesson was so good because expectations were high, and the activities chosen were not only appropriate, they were also imaginative. It is impossible to be imaginative lesson-in, lesson-out in teaching. But...

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...

Explaining why there were so many casualties on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. SMART TASK

This task, suitable for KS3 Year 9 or KS4 students, presents them with something of a conundrum. When the Allies had far more men than the Germans and had fired millions of shells the previous week why was the first day of the Battle of...

Key stage 3 History teaching

Step 1

Starter

Can we beat the textbook explanation?

Reasons for the Peasants' Revolt

Independent Enquirers

If Britain was only a few days away from defeat in August 1940 how on earth did she win the Battle of Britain a month later?