HOW TO REVISE FOR GCSE HISTORY

KEY SKILLS IN THE EXAM  Knowledge of the topics  Able to weigh up the importance of different factors  Eg) Who made the more significant contribution to fighting disease; Pasteur or Jenner?  Able to identify different causes of an event  Eg) Why was Hitler able to create a dictatorship in Germany between January 1933 and August 1934?  Able to engage with the sources to answer a question  Eg) What do sources A and B suggest about attitudes towards young people in Nazi Germany?

TIMELINES…  Can be long-term timelines – eg Germany – or shorter, Germany  Use them to identify key trends in the topic areas  Eg – is a bad period for the Weimar Republic as it faces a lot of violence, lack of confidence and events like the Invasion of the Ruhr.  are often called the Golden Years – this timeline would help students to remember the dates associated with this positive period.  Annotate them to include short descriptions of the events as well.  Colour-code them to show trends – economic, political, social etc

WAYS TO MAKE TESTING THEM ON THEIR NOTES MORE FUN….  Give them three minutes to read a side of notes and then ask them simple questions based on the information.  EXTENSION – then ask them to explain what impact the answers had.  Eg – How many marks would Germans receive when they had children?  IMPACT – this would help to increase the birthrate as more people would want to benefit from the state loan. This would also have meant that more women were having children and therefore fulfilling the homemaker role the Nazis wanted for women (kinder, kuche, kirche).

EXAMPLE QUIZ 1How many jazz bands were there in Berlin by 1927? 2Before the First World War, there had been a period of strict what in Germany? 3What school of modern architecture flourished during this time?

GLOSSARIES / FACTFILES  Challenge your child to find TEN key events or people for a five year period. Can they explain them? What were they? What was their impact?  Eg – Germany Himmler Head of the SS which oversaw the Terror State in Nazi Germany. Was responsible for the Final Solution. Goebbels Minister for Propaganda. Responsible for promoting Nazis views through the media and creating impressive scenes like the Nuremberg Rallies, or Berlin Olympics Kristallnacht 1938 – Following the assassination of a German by a Jew (in Paris), the SS encouraged their member to launch attacks on Jewish property across Germany. Many windows were broken, hence the name – Night of the Broken Glass. Nuremberg Laws 1935 – Laws which removed German citizenship from Jews, and forbade marriages and sexual relations between the two groups. Strength through Joy Formed in 1933 shortly after Trade Unions were abolished. They provided incentives for workers and improved some working conditions.

EXPLAIN THE SIGNIFICANCE OF AN EVENT  Challenging students to weigh up the most important aspects of an event / person is one of the most effective ways to get them to revise  Prompting them to answer wider questions and use quality phrases to explain their impact. Key Questions: How important was Stresemann in Germany’s recovery, ? Why was it difficult for Germans to oppose and resist the Nazis after 1933? How important have science and technology been in improving surgery compared with other factors? Connecting sentences: This was important because… This meant that… The impact of this meant that… This led to…