Teacher guide

AQA GCSE History revision

These activities are mapped to AQA GCSE History 8145. Thirty-eight of them, seventeen to twenty minutes each. **Check the options before anything else.** AQA History is four independent choices: one period study, one wider world depth study, one thematic study, one British depth study, from sixteen options in total. We built one of each: Germany 1890-1945, Conflict and tension 1918-1939, Health and the people, and Elizabethan England. If your department teaches Russia, or Migration, or Norman England, this content is not about your course. What the whole set does do, whichever options you teach, is the writing. Every activity ends with an extended answer of a hundred and fifty to two hundred words and an explicit structure to follow.

This page lists what we actually have for AQA GCSE History 8145. It is built from the live activities, so it is accurate on the day you read it.

Four of sixteen, and which four

Most specifications on this site describe one course. AQA History describes sixteen.

There are four independent slots, and a department chooses exactly one option in each: a period study, a wider world depth study, a thematic study, a British depth study. Four choices, from four, five, three and four options respectively. Sixteen options, and no two schools need be doing the same four.

A revision site has to pick. We built Germany 1890-1945, Conflict and tension: the inter-war years 1918-1939, Britain: Health and the people, and Elizabethan England c1568-1603. They are four of the most widely taught, and Germany and the inter-war years share a good deal of context, which makes them coherent to revise together.

The twelve we did not build are worth naming, because a teacher should be able to leave this page in ten seconds if it is not for them:

Period study: America 1840-1895, Russia 1894-1945, America 1920-1973.
Wider world depth study: the First World War 1894-1918, East and West 1945-1972, Asia 1950-1975, the Gulf and Afghanistan 1990-2009.
Thematic study: Power and the people, Migration, empires and the people.
British depth study: Norman England, the reign of Edward I, Restoration England.

If one of those is on your scheme of work, that half of your course is not here. There is no partial version of it hiding further down the page.

What carries across even when the options do not

AQA assesses the same three objectives whichever options a school takes. Source utility and interpretations sit on Paper 1 and Paper 2 in the same proportions regardless of period, and the question stems are identical: how useful, how far do you agree, write an account.

So a department teaching Russia can still use these activities to rehearse the shape of an answer, with the honest caveat that the student will be writing about Weimar hyperinflation instead of the Provisional Government. That is a legitimate use and a limited one, and it is not the same as revision.

The longest written tasks on the site

This is the set's real strength, and it is unusual here.

Every one of the thirty-eight activities ends with an extended written answer of a hundred and fifty to two hundred words. Across this site as a whole, a great many writing tasks ask for far less, and a thirty-word answer does not rehearse anything a GCSE examiner will see.

The structure is also handled properly. These tasks carry the moves of the answer as a separate, explicit frame, open with a factor and explain it, then a second factor, then a link phrase, then a judgement, rather than burying the instruction inside a long list of content to include. A student can see the shape and the content separately, which is the point a teacher makes with a writing frame on the board.

The historic environment

AQA rotates the Elizabethan historic environment site every year, announced in a bulletin rather than a specification change. Anything naming this year's site would be wrong next year.

Two activities cover the part that does not rotate: what the historic environment question actually asks for, and how to connect features of a site to the wider depth study. Whichever site AQA sets, that is the reasoning the student needs.

Using them

The three activities embedded further down are playable here without an account.

The lists below group by classroom use, worked out from what each activity contains. For how each is meant to be run, see ready-to-run revision activities. To put several in front of one class in order, build a sprint and share one link. Everything else, by subject and board, is on the revision pages.

Edexcel GCSE History covers a differently shaped course, with breadth and depth assessed inside a single paper.

For a shape to drop these into across a year, see how to structure a GCSE revision programme.

What this page does not do

It does not cover twelve of the sixteen options. Listed above, in full, rather than implied.

It does not name this year's historic environment site, on purpose.

It does not mark the written answers. They are there to be written, and the structure is there to be followed, but a human still reads them.

It does not track anything, so there is no completion list to check.

Every live History activity for AQA

38 activities, all mapped to AQA GCSE History (8145).

Good for cover lesson (26)

Control and Resistance 20 min
Establishing the Dictatorship 20 min
From Fourteen Points to Versailles 20 min
Germany Under Kaiser Wilhelm 20 min
Hitler Becomes Chancellor 20 min
Jenner and Vaccination 20 min
League Successes and Failures 20 min
Medieval Medicine Ideas 20 min

Good for independent study (26)

Control and Resistance 20 min
Establishing the Dictatorship 20 min
From Fourteen Points to Versailles 20 min
Germany Under Kaiser Wilhelm 20 min
Hitler Becomes Chancellor 20 min
Jenner and Vaccination 20 min
League Successes and Failures 20 min
Medieval Medicine Ideas 20 min

See all 38, by topic

Try it with your class

AQA History 20 minutes

The Rise of the Nazis

16 steps, 11 interactive, 10 activity types.

Best used for

Intervention Mock preparation Cover lesson

Intervention: Mostly questions, so it finds the gap quickly.
Mock preparation: Asks students to build an answer, not just recognise one.
Cover lesson: Teaches and tests in one go, so a non-specialist can run it.

Try one question

The Nazis offered the same programme in 1928 and 1932 and won 12 seats the first time and 230 the second. Which explanation best links the slump to the rise?

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AQA History 20 minutes

The Germ Theory Revolution

15 steps, 10 interactive, 9 activity types.

Best used for

Intervention Mock preparation Cover lesson

Intervention: Mostly questions, so it finds the gap quickly.
Mock preparation: Asks students to build an answer, not just recognise one.
Cover lesson: Teaches and tests in one go, so a non-specialist can run it.

Try one question

Microbes had been seen through microscopes since the 1670s. Which explanation best accounts for the theory that they cause disease arriving only in the 1860s and 1870s?

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AQA History 18 minutes

The Spanish Armada

14 steps, 10 interactive, 10 activity types.

Best used for

Homework Intervention Mock preparation

Homework: Set it as a link. It marks itself.
Intervention: Mostly questions, so it finds the gap quickly.
Mock preparation: Asks students to build an answer, not just recognise one.

Try one question

The Spanish fleet anchored near Calais. What did the English do to break it up?

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Common questions

Which options do these activities cover?

Germany 1890-1945, Conflict and tension 1918-1939, Britain Health and the people, and Elizabethan England c1568-1603. One option in each of AQA's four slots, out of the sixteen the specification offers.

What if my department teaches different options?

Then the content does not fit, and there is no point pretending otherwise. The skills carry across, because AO1, AO2 and AO3 are assessed identically whichever option a school takes, but the material a student needs to recall would be about a different country or century.

Which twelve options are not covered?

Period study: America 1840-1895, Russia 1894-1945, America 1920-1973. Wider world depth: the First World War, East and West 1945-1972, Asia 1950-1975, the Gulf and Afghanistan. Thematic: Power and the people, Migration empires and the people. British depth: Norman England, Edward I, Restoration England.

How long are the written tasks?

Every one of the thirty-eight activities ends with an extended written answer of one hundred and fifty to two hundred words, with the structure of the answer set out as explicit moves rather than buried in a checklist. These are the longest writing tasks on this site.

Is the historic environment covered?

The method is, not the site. AQA rotates the Elizabethan historic environment site annually, so two activities cover what the question asks for and how to link a site to the depth study, which stays true whichever site is set.

Will I see who has completed them?

No. Following a shared link records nothing about who followed it, which is a deliberate choice about children's data.

Put one in front of a class

Tell us the subject and how long you have. You get a link to hand out, and it marks itself.

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Related for teachers

Edexcel GCSE History revision for teachers Every live Edexcel GCSE History (1HI0) revision activity. All eleven sit on Paper 1, which asks for two quite different kinds of knowledge, and this page is direct about the two papers it does not touch.
How to structure a GCSE revision programme The five decisions a department has to make before a revision programme is worth writing down, and the problem each one heads off. Deliberately about the shape rather than the calendar.
Ready-to-run GCSE revision activities A working list of GCSE revision activities, each with the thing it makes students recall, the moment they find out whether they were right, and what they do about it. Some run on a screen and some need nothing but a board.