S E Hartsmith History

The other day I posted on Twitter a Germany (Democracy to Dictatorship 1890-1945- AQA) set of exam question starters I was working on. Now I (think) I'm finished with them I thought I'd share them on here. The layout and wonderful idea came from @MrsJHistory who had made them for Elizabeth I. I loved the format and decided to make one for Germany.   The rationale is: To be a quick 'starter' activity- approximately 5 minute task The idea is to refresh their knowledge in a short space of time This should increase their confidence with a 'low-stakes' task, where most of what they need to answer the question is there for them (the key facts) Reinforces ' BUG' the question  with students Can be used the next lesson after content has been learnt, a starter whilst studying a different topic to aid recall from a while ago (I teach Germany at the start of year 10, so will use with my year 11s as we look at Power and the People in September), or even...

Having been on maternity leave for a year, I've amassed lots of great ideas I want to try out in my teaching from Twitter, Teach Meet South Historians as well as my own thoughts. However I thought I needed to narrow them down with the aim of successfully implementing a few as the new term begins. Here are five ideas I am going to try from September. 1. Extracts from historians At the @TMSouthHistory Teach Meet back in June, @AndrewSweet4 discussed the importance of using works by historians in lessons for all age groups. A point that stuck with me is how can we expect students to write and speak like historians if they are not familiar with historical writing. It is therefore really important that they read what experts have to say on the subject they are studying.  To achieve this in lessons, I've started to collate a PowerPoint that has quotes by well-known historians such as Dan Jones, Mary Beard and Suzannah Lipscomb which link to topics we study. This does mean that ...

September 2018's edition of BBC History Magazine presented the results of the '100 Women Who Changed The World' poll. Here's the link to the list of 100, along with expert opinions and public reactions:  https://www.historyextra.com/100-women/ I am in the process of sorting out the displays for my classroom, to make it feel like mine again after returning from maternity leave, and thought this was a great thing to turn into a display for students to learn from, and also discuss the poll itself. Using @missgeog92  's idea of the 'Hello, my name is...' badges, I put together the display. Linked below are both the PowerPoint and PDF version of the display (The font in 'Submarine Beach'- you won't need to download if you use the PDF, but can download or change the font on the ppt). 100 Women PDF 100 Women PPT (Please excuse the rough edge on the board- need to order border roll on 1st September!)

Last Saturday (23rd June 2018) I took the hour drive from Wiltshire down to Poole High School for the first ever @TMSouthHistory teach meet, masterminded by @Jmosley_history . I was really excited to be able to attend a teach meet for historians that was much more local than most, which usually seem to be London or further North. On Twitter it was clear that a lot of time and effort had gone in to building up #TMSouthHistorians, so was looking forward to hearing some great ideas, and even doing a short presentation myself ( 5 a day revision linked here ). I took my trusty bullet journal with me to note down the fab teaching and learning practice, and thought I’d write up just a few of them here. I have tried to link as many Twitter handles as I can to the wonderful ideas. Quick wins The day kicked off with 1 minute quick wins, where 10 ideas were shared. I spoke about Historical Guess Who, which I will upload resources to in another post. Just a few of these ideas were: Using r...

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 ...