History at key stage 3    (Year 7-9)

• Brainstorm pupils' knowledge of a famous historical individual (gained through study of another unit or at key stage 2, or through experiences outside school). Ask the pupils to use cards to sort and classify the individuals according to their main known activity and what they did, eg leader, explorer, inventor.
• Introduce the idea of why certain individuals have been 'famous', and, therefore, 'remembered'. Give pupils 'sentence stem slips' to complete, eg Because they ... were powerful/made things better/helped win a war. Ask the pupils to reclassify the historical individuals under the different sentence starters.
• Draw out pupils' best ideas about why only certain people become famous, eg because they played some part in changing events. Ask pupils to identify similar features in all the people's lives, ie define criteria. Ask pupils to apply the criteria to check if they are valid and appropriate.

• Introduce the idea of a 'mystery character' to be investigated by pupils in groups.
• Pupils to sort and classify a series of statements about the individual to establish: Who? When? Where? What? context categories.
• Pupils to write a brief chronological profile of the 'mystery character' which highlights some of the key events in the person's life.
• Ask pupils to speculate on the identity of the individual before revealing the person's name.

• Pupils should analyse the individual's involvement in a significant event. Tell them a story of the event. Ask the pupils to present their recollection of the story as an eight-frame storyboard. Ask them to make sure their frames show the role played by the individual in the event.
• Extend the exercise by asking pupils to work in groups to produce a two-minute news report which considers the following two questions:
• How and why did the individual become involved?
• What difference did they make to the outcome of the event?
• Give the pupils additional sources to help them with their news reports. For the first question it may help to ask the pupils to consider whether the individual: became involved by chance or design; had a ready-made plan to put into operation; was in the right place at the right time; simply 'seized the moment'. For the second question it may help to get the pupils to start by speculating what would have happened if the individual had not been involved.

• Introduce information on the recent death of a famous, contemporary person and the idea of 'obituary' to summarise achievements.
• Ask the pupils to write an obituary of the individual they have been studying, stating the person's contribution to life at the time.

• Introduce sources that give a view of the individual that is different from some of the contemporary views. Ask the pupils to use their knowledge of the individual, context and contribution to assess this new view of their individual, eg I thought that ... was kind/cruel, but the (source) said that ... was ...Use the diverging views as the basis of a whole-class discussion. As well as pupils' views, feed in prompts, eg Are there any different views about how the individual changed events? What are some of these differences? Why have they arisen?

• Ask the class to build up two 'spidergrams' - one with 'good' at the centre and one with 'ill' based on their recent work on the individual and that person's impact.
• Develop pupils' thinking by posing the question: How can we decide what is 'good' and what is 'ill'? Introduce the idea of value judgements and whether or not some values are absolute or will change over time.
• Ask the pupils to write a balanced account of whether the individual's impact was for good or ill.
• Conclude with whole-class questioning to cover issues, eg How much control over events does an individual have? Do changes in history always result in progress? Was it only certain individuals in society who could attempt to influence events?