Ideas to liven up history lessons

The School of Life, authors of Big Ideas from History, have put together some teacher resources around the history curriculum. These are suitable for both primary and secondary schools, depending on the topic. These are their aims for the book:

Here are some of their ideas for history lessons, many of which you can use without the book.

Pre-history

Here are some suggestions for when the children are learning about pre-historic times:

The Middle Ages

A truly global approach to the medieval period can be richly rewarding:

The Beginnings of the Modern World

From the people of the Americas who were colonised by European exploration, to the Renaissance cultural flourishing, there are many topics to explore in this period:

Industrialisation

There are many themes relevant to today’s world that arose in the nineteenth century. Here are just a few:

The Modern World

From voting to the influence of the media and advertising, modern society has a lot of issues to explore in class:

The Future

It’s always fun to explore what children think might happen in the future.