This section of the website contains over 200 activities and resources that I know, from my own experience and that of other teachers, to be highly effective in improving students’ historical knowledge and understanding and their understanding of how to study history effectively. The particular hallmark of many of these resources is activity – a degree of physical movement or other close mental engagement (e.g. decision-making activities which require students to ‘think from the inside’ of historical situations) kind of involvement – and it’s the resulting depth of engagement that is a crucial part of each resource’s effectiveness.

What do I mean by effectiveness?

These resources deliver, if used as intended, enhanced concentration and more incisive thinking on the part of students, deeper knowledge and understanding of the relevant topic, a greater stimulus to effective reading and writing and much enhanced memory of what’s been studied. These are strong claims but decades of experience leave me in no doubt that that these outcomes are the direct result of the nature of these specific approaches to teaching and that they are more effective than ‘delivery’ models of teaching. Therefore don’t be misled by references to ‘props’ of various kinds into thinking the main aim of the resources is enjoyment – I’ve used such ‘props’ because they help to deepen students’ knowledge and understanding.

The different types of activities, e.g. Decision Making activities, Living Graphs, Structured Role-Plays and others, are discussed in more detail in:

the Teaching Techniques section of the site [ HERE … ]

but several general points about the resources are important to make here:

1. Activities are most effective when they are designed to resolve specific problems that students have with a topic and are not just designed to teach about a topic in general. The most critical part of planning is to identify specific misconceptions students may have about a topic or concept or to identify the aspects of the topic that students regularly struggle with and construct lessons and activities to overcome those ‘learning problems’. The activities on this site therefore have very clear objectives and were created because they were central to students’ learning and were never bolt-on activities or end of unit treats.

2. This emphasis on planning around students’ learning problems emphasises the importance of being constantly responsive to students’ needs in terms of styles of teaching.  The prime aim of this website is to help teachers broaden their range of teaching techniques so they can respond more effectively to the learning needs of students.

3. One consequence of this emphasis on building activities and resources around students’ learning problems is that the site does not provide ‘quick-fix’ solutions for a lesson starting in 20 minutes. All the activities need thoughtful preparation, thinking through the detail of the activities, especially if they involve a degree of physical movement by students. This can feel, as a new teacher, to be a risky approach to teaching but good planning reduces risk substantially and, if we never take risks by trying new methods, we restrict ourselves to a very limited range of teaching techniques.

4. It’s also worth me anticipating one reaction to some of the most adventurous and demanding teaching activities on the site i.e. the reaction that ‘I can’t teach like that all the time!’ Be reassured, fact nobody can teach like that all the time. I used such major activities at intervals, interspersed amongst ‘standard’ teaching which consisted of me talking, explaining, asking questions, students reading, answering, writing.

5. It’s also worth noting that the teacher is never a bystander in the activities but is still directing and leading, frequently vocal, always in charge, including of the most important stage of an activity – the explicit debriefing about what’s been learned at the end of the session. I did as much or more talking during a structured role-play as I did in a more standard lesson format, probably more so, so none of these activities ‘downgrade’ the teacher’s role at all. If anything, they highlight the importance of the teacher, the most important resource in the classroom, far more effective and influential than any PowerPoint of computerised teaching aid.

6. From the very beginnings of this site in 2004 I hoped teachers would see the activities as a stimulus to their own creativity so that they went on to devise their own activities and resources, using the material on the site as a model or springboard. I do hope that continues with each new generation of teachers!

And if you don’t know what a tabard is (they feature in a lot of the activities) here’s a photo and there's more information HERE …

Key Stage 2	Age 7-11	HERE …
Key Stage 3	Age 11-14	HERE …
GCSE	Age 14-16	HERE …
A Level	Age 16-18	HERE …
By historical period, theme and generic technique	i.e. all resouces	HERE …