Which cartoon best explains the paradox of the Nazi Soviet pact?
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International Relations 1890-1945
Outstanding GCSE lessons on International Relations
Much of this content is familiar GCSE ground of course. What you will find here are new angles and approaches. You will see from the enquiry into the naval race, that popular topics are given a new twist; students are asked to question bland textbooks assertions. Do all historians really agree that the naval race was a major cause of the war? Clearly not!
When it comes to the peace treaties, students are given the opportunity to participate in different role plays. With the League of Nations crises, such as Abyssinia, they are placed in the role of newspaper editors trying to make sense of the significance of the events for the future of European peace. They also analyse some of the more unfamiliar political cartoons.
There are some really interesting parts to this topic, not least the Drift to War. But there are also some dull ones, the ones we love teaching! such as the structure of the League of Nations. Many students find that some of the post-war treaties and disputes of the 1920s put a strain on their ability and willingness to remember lots of precise detail so we need to try harder with these to make the Aaland Island dispute come alive.
Outstanding Lessons and Smart Tasks
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...
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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...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...
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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 Paris peace conference that led to the Treaty of Versailles. What makes this more fun is that students work in teams of 4. They have...
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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 the League. It was not a complete laughing stock as shown by the facts produced by Niall Ferguson on PowerPoint slide 2. Now ask students...
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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, Hampshire.
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Context
This lesson is taught at KS4, as part of the OCR Modern World syllabus. It is possible to teach this lesson at the end of...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. We don't want to cheat, and we certainly don't want to pay so let's do one of our own. This lesson really makes students think...
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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 of the League up to 1939 and in passing have alluded to its weaknesses, but have not carried out any formal analysis of the sort required...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 of the picture, often missing peripheral detail and occasionally ignoring the caption, punch line, date and author. This lesson uses a technique, known to most...
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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...
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Why are these accounts of the Battle of the Somme, written by the same person, so different? SMART TASK
This task, suitable for Y9 in KS3 or KS4, drives at the heart of source evaluation. Students explore two sources, authored by the same journalist, Philip Gibbs, but written 4 years apart. They are asked to spot, and then explain the difference in tone and...
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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...
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When Italy signed two peace treaties with Abyssinia just 7 years before, why then did Mussolini invade in 1935? Explanation builder
Students are given a short answer to this question that appeared as an answer on the Student Room website. It was not worth 9 marks. Students have to work out why not and then improve it. To help structure their work the first activity offers...
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Causes of World War One: problems of evidence. Why is it so difficult to work out who caused the First World War? Smart Task
This is a very short 5 minute warm-up activity to help students get a feel for the partisan sources that historians have to wrestle with when trying to work out the causes of the First World War.
Introduce the task by explaining that over 25,000 books...
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