I had a brain wave this morning. You know the kind you have and then think why hadn’t I thought of that before?!
It’s a simple idea really, but goes a long way to highlighting the amazing work being done and shared via twitter for those of you that don’t make use of it for CPD.
For me, Twitter has had a huge impact on my professional practice from inspiring lesson resources to ideas for supporting colleagues, there’s so much you can take away from EduTwitter (see my A-Z of EduTwitter for more info). So here it is, my simple idea is to share 5 tweets that have inspired or interested me each week that I think others may find of use.
Now I just need to work out which day is best to publish? Monday, Friday or Sunday? Hrm… I’ll have a think and set it up from the first week of the next term.
For now, here’s 5 tweets that I think might be of use or inspiration to others:
Knowledge Organisers for Religious Studies GCSE from @MrSmithRS
I really am very proud of these knowledge organisers I've made for AQA Religious Studies A GCSE
When I taught Geography and History through the umbrella of Humanities, we did a lot of thematic topics; exploring concepts over time and space.
I thought I’d share with you the unit we did on conflict, fortification and armour.
Outline
The unit took students through technological advances in conflict, fortification and armour, finishing with a personal interest project.
I remember my year 8’s really enjoying the topic. It gave them insight to different time periods and encouraged them to research and find out more.
Here are some example resources:
The topic covers a range of content and whilst I’ve produced much of it, some elements such as the ‘top trumps’ were free resources available online. Since it was so long ago since I made the lessons (2015) I can’t remember the original sources but if you find one of them is yours please let me know and I will add your name and the source to the piece.
Castles – Type and Location
Siege Warfare
War at Sea
World War 1 – Technological Change
Homework
Homework gave students choice and different levels of challenge.
Week 1 HomeworkWeek 3 – 7 Homework
Examples of the homework produced
Levels You will notice some of the resources use National Curriculum Levels and some use GCSE ‘grades’, I’ve just uploaded the resources I had. I clearly hadn’t backed up all of the resources at home before leaving the school. Doh!
If you’d like to access the resources you can do so here.
I’m not a historian, so my apologies if there are any historical inaccuracies, I put a lot of research into the materials and got them checked by my historian husband…. but I’m sure there will be something to be found.
Inference can be a tough skill to teach, particularly at KS3. The nuance and context that surrounds a source can be incredibly complex, but, like any other skill, improving a students’ inference can be achieved by the consistent repetition of good practice (easily said, I know).
During my training year, my SENCO emailed me a template of a ‘source viewer’ he had seen on Mrs. Humanities (a website which then became my professional life-raft), I decided to adapt the source viewer to make it suitable for my lower attainers (Figure 1).
Originally, I was trying to create a resource that would help them with the basic provenance of Time, Audience, Author and Place.
Figure 1
The students enjoyed using the laminated source viewers and asked to use them again. So following this mini success, I decided to adapt another version of the viewer (Figure 2) or ‘source window’, as the students had named it.
Figure 2
This one focused on the exam specific interpretation and source skills needed for the AQA GCSE History papers. This viewer had three sides which were colour coded; the purple panel included generic versions of all the source and interpretation questions found in the AQA papers. The orange and green panels featured questions that broke the required skills down, making the students’ answers more of a step by step process. The challenge for each student is then to attempt one question from the colour above at some point during the lesson.
Feeding Back
The students are directed to the colour panel of questions that is appropriate to them on feedback sheets I use to mark their books. I assess their source analysis using the AO skills sheets (Figure 3) and assign them one of the three colours.
I was then able to say to a class “Everyone answer questions 1-4 on the source window for Sources A, B and C” and the class would then be answering three versions of a GCSE question differentiated based on their level without me having to micro-manage three tasks to one group.
Figure 3
This was a big hit with that same SENCO as I was then able to
differentiate by task on all my source work without any extra resources and at
any point during the lesson.
Feeding Forward
After source analysis tasks students then consult their AO skills sheets (Figure 3) and assess their own answers and identify one skill from the next level of difficulty that they will work on in the future. I even make them write it in the ‘progress focus’ box to ensure each student is aware of their target. I then encourage them to refer back to this the next time we are doing source work.
Figure 4
I then stared to create other resources (Figure 4) that all use generic versions of KS4 questions which also break the required skills down into the same three levels. These resources allowed me to create ‘circuits of progress’ in students’ books that make the students’ progress clearer to the student themselves. This enables them to move up through the tiers refining their skills as they go, outlining a pathway so the students know exactly what they need to do to improve. I have shared my adapted source viewer on Twitter and other people, (some from around the world) have made their own versions adapting the questions to their own exam papers. Create your own and share it!
2018 was quite an incredible year for me, it went from being offered a book deal to appearing on BBC Breakfast. In 2016, when I went through depression and a breakdown, I could barely envisage a future in teaching, to be able to use the experience to help others has been life changing for me. But I’m not here to talk about that but you can read more in my review of 2018 here.
What I am sharing in this post are the top 5 most viewed posts of 2018. They were bloomin’ popular. So here goes…
In this post I shared a revision booklet to facilitate student independence in the revision process. Designed for AQA Geography but easily adaptable for other specifications.
The booklet provided students with a list of case studies, templates to summarise the case studies and exam questions to apply the content. With over 5,000 downloads of the booklet, I hope it’s helped students (and teachers) across the country.
Creeping in just behind was the ‘How to Revise in Geography’ guide. Inspired by Greg Thornton’s post on How do we revise for history? which I recommended in my post on Mrs Humanities shares… 5 Epic History Revision Resources I decided to make a resource for my Geography students. It clearly hasn’t just been of benefit to my students, with almost 5,000 downloads of the document I’m hoping it’s been of help to many young people beyond my own classroom and school.
I’m starting to see a theme now. Clearly revision has been on the minds of many this year. Perhaps it’s the pressure of accountability measures, maybe the tougher nature of the new 9-1 exams or maybe teachers just want to improve their student’s approach to revision, either way most popular post number 3 was another revision one. This time I shared and highlighted the work of a range of Geography teachers from the Twittersphere including @teachgeogblog , @Jennnnnn_x ,@InternetGeog , @GeoNewbz and other. Many of these I have made use of in my own classroom.
This one is always a popular post. In it I have shared resources to the scheme of work I produced to develop and embed atlas and map skills through the scenario of a zombie apocalypse. I’ve taught it a couple of times and every time it has been loved by the students.
I’ve seen it (via twitter and emails) used in classrooms across the world, which is incredible. It’s been adapted into other languages (Welsh and Chinese) and has been download over 40,000 times since I first published it back in Autumn 2015.
Next up was a resource I produced to support teacher training on differentiation. The presentation provides a variety of tried and tested strategies for differentiation and scaffolding to support and challenge students. You can even download the ready-to-go PowerPoint presentation.
Unsurprisingly the next few most read posts of 2018 are associated with feedback and marking. In this one, I shared 5 examples of whole class feedback to support teachers, departments and schools making the move from marking to feedback.
Since publishing this post in January 2017, it’s been a popular one. In this post I share the strategies that make up my marking and feedback toolkit. I tried and tested a range of strategies over a couple of years to find what worked best for me, my style of teaching and most importantly my students. In that time I changed schools and had to start again with the narrowing down process but it didn’t take me long to find what worked. This post goes on to highlight those 5 strategies.
Back to revision again, this one shared 6 epic resources for revision in History. I no longer teach history but I do like to keep up with pedagogical developments and resource sharing just in case I ever return to it. This post needs up-dating as I’ve seen many more fantastic resources since I first posted it, that will happen in due course I promise.*
*but please don’t hold me accountable if I do completely forget 🙂
This is one of my first posts on marking and feedback from way back in June 2015. The area of interest has come along way since then, but it’s a great post for those new to the profession or those being introduced to the idea of #feedbackNOTmarking.
In the post I share a range of strategies I’d tried in order to improve feedback but reduce workload. These then made up part of a CPD session for new and current staff at the school I was working at. The post also provides a downloadable resource with all the strategies included.
The final most popular post of the 10 was this one where I shared 10 fantastic display ideas for Humanities. The post shared 10 great examples of displays I’d come across on Twitter from the likes of @mrsrgeog@sehartsmith @MrJPteach@EduCaiti and several more.
And that sums up this post on the 10 most popular posts of 2018. Hope you’ve found something of use and inspiration this year. Thank you for the continued support throughout 2018.
As part of the themetic topic on Law and Order I developed at my last school, we explored the origins of Parliament. After having looking at the origins the students explored why and how Parliament turned on Charles I.
The students spent a couple of lessons on the topic in order to uncover the cause, consequence and significance of Charles’s execution in 1649.
They started with a card sort, which they used to develop an interpretation of events.
Students read, sorted and linked the cards by writing on the tables with whiteboard pens to create their interpretations.
This was then followed up with a piece of extended writing which involved them using the card sort, our discussions and their annotations to write 3 paragraphs on the cause, consequence and significance of Charles’s execution.
You can download the resources here, along with some resources for LA students.
When I set up the Humanities department at my last school, I decided to that students would study thematic topics; One of those was Law and Order.
Students in year 9 explored the origins of government and parliament from 1066.
As part of the topic on Law and Order students explored a variety of historical events that led to the development of parliament and government here in the UK as well as the consequences. This was later followed by looking at law and crime in Victorian Britain.
Part way through the topic students had a simple recall test and an assessed extended writing task.
The assessed extended writing task I favoured. Students got to explore their understanding of the topic content drawing upon their understanding of cause, consequence and significance.
The feedback sheet looked like this, to feedback I used one colour highlighter to identify successes and another for next steps to work on during feedforward time.
This was then followed by the English Civil war and a mystery inquiry on why did Parliament turn against the King? We finished the topic with a look at modern day.
Students came away with a thorough understanding of how and why parliament and governance has developed.
To access the assessed task shown above click here.
If you’d like the resources as well for the topic, get in touch. I’ve magpied a variety of resources from a range of free sources such as the UK governments education pages so don’t want to publicly share them.
I’ve just been going through some of my resources I realised I’ve a lot of history resources I’m unlikely to use any time soon but I don’t want them to just there on my computer.
This scheme of work starts by looking at key events between 410 AD and 1066 before going on to explore life in Anglo-Saxon Britain. The topic then goes on to look at the contenders for the throne, the Battle of Stamford Bridge and on to the Battle of Hastings. Finishing with the Harrying of the North after an assessment.
Each lesson has a range of resources suited for mixed ability and ability set classes. When I taught these lessons I was teaching in a school with a wide range of abilities from students that could barely read and write to students that had moved out of grammar schools. Classes were in ability sets and the work created to suit their varying needs and abilities.
There are a wide range of activities from timelines to historical detectives; campaigns to extended writing tasks. As well as a wide selection of support material.
The lessons use a range of resources that I have both created from scratch and adapted from freely available resources over the years. I can’t credit any work I’ve magpied since I don’t know the sources after having used and amended them over two years ago. If you see anything that belongs to you please don’t hesitate to let me know and I will either acknowledge you or remove it.
It was pointed out to me after sharing my last Mrs Humanities shares… post on History Revision Resources that many people share their resources via Facebook groups now instead of other online platforms yet I still speak to people who are completely unaware of this.
In order to inform those that might be interested I’ve collated the variety of Facebook teaching groups in this post to help you find them easily. I imagine this is not an exhaustive list so if you know of others please let me know.
Following last week’s Mrs Humanities shares… post on geography revision resources I thought I’d collate some of the epic free resources being shared for history. Whilst I may no longer teach history I still like to keep in touch with subject content, good practice and pedagogical developments in the subject. Unfortunately there’s not so much in the way of free revision resources that I could find, so many of these are revision sites with useful material.
This resource is fantastic. Greg has created a history specific help sheet that offers ways to revise within the context of History. The sheet outlines methods with clear ‘how to use in history’ sections, linking to the knowledge and skills GCSE students need.
A simple but effective revision strategy that can be used as starter or plenary or even as an activity during revision sessions. Quite simple to construct simply set up the structure and add a range questions that require students to retrieve and recall information from last lesson, last week and even further. A useful revision strategy to recap and revisit subject content.
This site is an incredible revision resource for students and teachers alike. When I first started teaching GCSE History, this was one of my go-to sites. So much content for such a wide range of topics across GCSE, A-Level and IB.
4 // RogersHistory Online Revision Courses from @RogersHistory
Now I will admit I’ve not accessed the courses myself but I know Tom is a great educator and I have undertaken 2 of his Teacher CPD courses. I imagine the student revision courses are of the same high quality.
Flipping History is a set of history lessons from Mr Guiney that can support students with their revision and teachers with their planning. Wide variety of content.
I originally saw these as a tweet from @sehartsmith and thought they needed to be shared so contacted her to see if she would be willing to share them. Luckily for you lot, Sarah has been generous and popped them into a google drive you to access and download. Just click here.
I would love to add more resources, but after an extensive search for FREE revision resources I couldn’t find much so if you can point me in the right direction PLEASE do.
Seeing as I’m no longer teaching history but have hundreds of resources, I thought I might start sharing them for others to make use of. So I’m starting with one of my favorite topics from the AQA Specification B (Final exam 2017) on the Changing Role and Status of Women.
I loved teaching this unit so hope you can make use of the resources which can be found here.
Part way through the topic students had a simple recall test and an assessed extended writing task.
Mrs Humanities 