S E Hartsmith History

As we all know, this time of year is so important for getting Year 11 engaged in their revision for their GCSEs. One part of this is ensuring they know and can recall key content, and retrieval practice is fundamental to this. During my lessons last week, the film Avengers: Endgame came up frequently to say the least! So I thought utilising this 'hype' would be one way of getting students to recall key knowledge. The idea of the task is pretty straight-forward, but there's six sets of three questions and each set they need to answer all of to 'gain an Infinity Stone' (yes, I even bothered to check which colour each stone represented!) Their aim is to collect all six Infinity Stones, to fill the Infinity Gauntlet, and wield their amazing knowledge on that particular topic. I'm hoping it gets Year 11 (and also Year 10 and 12 for their mock exams) interested through a relevant pop-culture reference! Linked here is the blank template, when I get around to populat...

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 ...

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 ...