As you can tell we are very keen on using games for the history classroom. Why? Because games are fun.

Here is our guide to using Connect 4 to make knowledge stick.

Whilst upstairs talking to the MFL team in our school I stumbled across ten Connect 4 games. This was an opportunity not to be missed!  So, at a rare faculty meeting, we discussed how we could use Connect 4 – and other games – to make revision more fun for year 11s.

The problem with revision in our school has been the fact that our students are needy. They are not independent and, because everyone is under pressure to get good results, the teachers take all of the responsibility for the learning and the students are spoon fed.

Being relatively new to the school, I know that this is wrong. We need to make our students more responsible for their own learning. However, bridging this gap is hard for year 11 because they have always been taught in such a way, therefore they are allowed to be demanding.

So, I have been aiming to come up with some fun ideas that help the students take more responsibility. I also want the learning not to have to come through the teacher but be more student orientated.

So how did we use Connect 4?

What we wanted to do was draw on  knowledge that our students had acquired in year 10, in this case about the Cold War, and help them try to remember this in a fun way 6 months later.

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