Historical 5 A Day

Hi there!
I'm a History teacher in Wiltshire, England. My twitter handle is @sehartsmith This weekend I attended the inaugural @TMSouthHistory teach meet in Poole. I was asked to present an idea for a 10 minute sharing is caring session, which I nervously agreed to, especially as I have been on maternity leave the past school year! I actually really enjoyed presenting, and people had really nice things to say about my Historical 5 a day revision. I thought I'd create this blog to share this, and hopefully continue as I return to work next week.


(photo from @MalCPD on Twitter)

Whilst on maternity leave, I decided to keep my 'professional self' in the loop and thought about creating a resource to aid GCSE revision (we teach AQA). I came up with the '5 a day', where students revise content under 5 areas:

• Key people and terminology
• Chronology
• Context
• Source analysis
• Plan your answer

 

An example of a 5 a day on the Elizabethan Golden Age


All topics for all modules follow the same format, and the idea is that students build their confidence and independence by using the 5 a day revision sheets. They rate their understanding and confidence of the topic at the bottom of the sheet too, which I can then look at and plan my teaching with it in mind.

We have them saved on the student drive so students can access them at any time to help their revision. Of course as a department we are also utilising them in lesson. The great thing we have found with the sheets is that they can really be used at any stage of a lesson: a starter to recap recent content; a task during the lesson when learning the knowledge; demonstrating understanding at end of topic. Furthermore, you can insert one from a topic you've already covered in year 10 for example, whilst studying a different module in year 11 to help with knowledge recall.

We use acronyms for source analysis: PICTURE and WWWPAF
People; Items; Captions; Things in background; Underlying opinion of artist; Remember what you know; Explain what is happening.
Who, What, When, Purpose, Audience, Format.

Here is an example from a student who filled this in on their copy of the PowerPoint. Hopefully this shows how it works in practice. 

 

Below are links to the four sets of 5 a day revision I have created. I hope they are of use to my fellow History teachers. 

Germany 1890-1945
Power and the People
Elizabethan England c.1586-1603
Conflict & Tension between East & West 1945-72

What do you think about the 5 a day revision? What do you like about it? How could I improve it? Will you be using it for your GCSE lessons? 
Let me know!