Your students act as Nazi school and youth group inspectors to assess the evidence and work out how well the state achieved its policies for young people.
How effective were Nazi policies towards the young?
Lessons
Can you solve the mystery of the Nazi-Soviet Pact?
Using the hook of a broken film clip, students are encouraged to explore the decision making behind the Nazi-Soviet Pact. This is the antidote to a potentially dry topic tacked onto a causes of World War Two unit.
How far did the Nazis achieve their aims?
This enquiry asks your students to recall / remember as much as they can about Germany 1933 by answering the simple enquiry question: How far did the Nazis achieve their aims? With the use of clever resources and careful handling, your students will re-visit the core knowledge they need to[…]
What can a song tell us about life in a Nazi Labour Camp?
The protest song Peatbog Soldiers was written in a labour camp. What might the lyrics say? How do they compare to the available evidence? Why are some things not included?
Guide to teaching AQA conflict and tension between East and West 1945-1972
Lots of thinking has gone into planning and resourcing the AQA wider world depth study; conflict and tension between East and West 1945-72. The rationale behind this comes straight from successful classroom practice. The entire course has been structured around 10 core principles designed to support learning. The Cold War course with fully[…]
Guide to teaching Edexcel Period Study: Super Power Relations and the Cold War 1941-91
Lots of thinking has gone into planning and resourcing the Edexcel Period Study: Super Power Relations and the Cold War 1941-91. The rationale behind this comes straight from successful classroom practice. The entire course has been structured around 10 core principles designed to support learning. The Cold War course with fully resourced lesson enquiries has[…]
Yalta ‘Big Three’ World War Two Conference Role Play
How would you have coped at Yalta? Put your students in role and let them negotiate the best deal for their country
What and where was the Cold War?
This enquiry acts as an introductory overview to the Cold War unit. It allows your students to work out what the Cold War was and where it happened. It is important to see the big picture before delving deep into the content. As a classic introductory overview your students will look[…]
Stalin wasn’t stallin’: How much can a song reveal about who really won WW2?
Who really won WW2? Over the past two or three decades Hollywood has led us to believe it is the Americans. However, a song from 1943 seems to give a different view. It is all the more surprising that this song was made in the USA. Can you students work[…]
Was a 1980 hit song right about the B-29 bomber ‘Enola Gay’?
The aim of this enquiry is to allow students to investigate the effect of the dropping the atom bomb on post-war superpower relations. This enquiry enables students to know not just the causes and consequences of the atom bomb (touching on the arms race), but also consider its role in[…]
Why couldn’t the USA and USSR be friends?
If you are going to get your classes to really understand the Cold War, they need to know how the two sides were diametrically opposed politically and economically. This enquiry does just that. Starting with a classic image of US and Soviet soldiers shaking hands with each other in Berlin[…]
Why did the Grand Alliance begin to fail in 1945?
Starting with this famous flirty cartoon of the Big Three and Hitler playing cupid, can your students work out its message with reference to the Tehran Conference? Next they find out what happened at happened at Yalta and Potsdam and learn the fundamental reasons why the Grand Alliance began to[…]
Who did most to develop the Cold War 1945-47?
By juxtaposing Churchill’s Iron Curtain Speech with a statement made by Khrushchev in 1971 you will establish two very different views about who did most to develop the Cold War? Who was more important in the development of the Cold War 1945-47 Stalin or Truman? Your students will collect evidence[…]
Who should win cartoon of the year for 1945?
This quirky enquiry gets your students to use their skill to judge which cartoon from Yalta and Potsdam period deserves to be cartoon of the year. Using criteria from award winning cartoonist Steve Bell (The Guardian) can your students work out the message and apply contextual knowledge to three very[…]
How much can we trust internet sites to tell the truth about The Berlin Blockade?
Fake news sites have recently been all over the internet. This enquiry deals with this issue of ‘fake news’ head on. History is the subject that equips students to be fake news detectors. Your class is tasked with evaluating a fake news site about the Berlin Blockade. They need to use[…]
Why were the two biggest communist countries not best friends forever?
The aim of this enquiry is to allow students identify significant events in Asia during the cold war, particularly understand the changes in Sino-Soviet relations. Some historians now suggest the Sino-Soviet split was one of the biggest turning points in the cold war, equal (if not greater) than the European[…]
What do 1950s sci-fi movies reveal about American fears and attitudes to the Cold War?
This enquiry gets your students to become 50s B movie film buffs and analyze 4 Sci-Fi classics through the lens of the Cold War. By arming them with knowledge about the Cold War in the first task, you will draw out the four main themes of the conflict from a[…]
Why did America really get involved in Vietnam?
The aim of this enquiry is help students understand how the Americans really got involved in the Vietnam War. The USA had been financially supporting the French against communism since the early 1950s, but why did they seriously ramp things up in 1965? You class with act as investigative journalists.[…]
Who can tell us most about the nuclear arms race, Robert McNamara or Dr Strangelove?
Dr. Strangelove, it is a classic dark comedy film by Stanley Kubrick. It is sometimes introduced to undergrad history degrees to exemplify cold war nuclear rivalry by the 1960s. Eric Schlosser from the New Yorker claimed in 2014 it was all very realistic. Really?! Isn’t it bit of a farce….?[…]
Who was winning the Space Race by 1968?
Starting with a quote from the American journalist William Shelton, can your students work out whether or not he was telling the truth about the pattern of the Space Race? And, when they discover that he was exaggerating, can they use their history skills to work out why? This helps[…]
What caused the Hungarian Uprising in 1956?
This enquiry will take your students through the events of the Hungarian Uprising firstly, before evaluating the different causes based on how much impact they had on various members of society using a classic Venn diagram. It is important to give the context of the Hungarian uprising before establishing its[…]
What were the consequences of the Hungarian Uprising?
This enquiry is intended as the second stage of a two-part lesson sequence about the Hungarian Uprising. It was written to follow the ‘what were the causes of the Hungarian Uprising in 1956’ enquiry. It allows an opportunity for students to recap on their prior learning before evaluating what happened[…]
Was the Berlin Wall really built to just annoy the West?
The aim of this enquiry is to have students be able to reach a justifiable conclusion about the reasons behind the building of the Berlin Wall. Students will examine a series of sources and use them to evaluate Khrushchev’s contention that he saw Berlin simply as a means of making[…]
How should we tell the story of the Berlin Wall?
This enquiry places your students in the shoes of researchers for a documentary. The producer is making an hour long documentary about the Berlin Wall. What should the programme show? You students have to work out the story of the wall, then they need to decide how long to spend[…]
What does Steven Spielberg need to do to improve his history grade for ‘Bridge of Spies’?
The aim of this enquiry is to get students focussing on the chronology of the cold war. By using a recent film by Steven Spielberg, they will begin to identify his eye for historical accuracy. However, are the audience watching ‘Bridge of Spies’ (2015) aware five years of history is[…]
What went wrong at the Bay of Pigs?
They take on the role as caption writer for the JFK official library. Can your students write the caption for this exploding cigar cartoon? Starting with no knowledge about the cartoon they speculate its meaning. You then build up their knowledge by creating a living graph about the Bay of Pigs[…]
Cold War Cuban Missile Crisis Decision Making
Could you survive Camelot during the Cuban Missiles Crisis? This lesson allows students to investigate the events of the Cuban Missiles Crisis at the height of the Cold War in 1962 by using a decision making activity. This lesson allows students to investigate the events of the Cuban Missiles Crisis[…]
What really prevented war during the Cuban Missile Crisis?
This lesson forms part of a series on the events surrounding Soviet involvement in Cuba. It is expected that by this point students will have studied the events of the Bay of Pigs invasion as well as having completed the decision making activity on the Cuban Missile Crisis. The aim[…]
How close did the Cold War come to Nuclear War?
Was the Cuban Missile Crisis the closest the World ever came to nuclear war? Allow your students to investigate this question using protest songs, desk-top timelines and Geese.
Was the Prague Spring another Hungary?
Similarity and difference is a key second order concept. Yet how often do we really teach it? Well, in this enquiry we compare the events of the Prague Spring with the Hungarian Uprising. You start by re-capping / recalling all your class can about Hungary. Next, your students sort out[…]
