Causes of the First World War, taught nine ways.

On 2 August 1914 the British Cabinet was split over whether to go to war, and two ministers, John Burns and John Morley, resigned over the next two days rather than support intervention. Each Year 9 student writes a one-page memo to the Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, dated that day, arguing for or against British intervention with at least three pieces of evidence from the source pack, such as the 1839 Treaty of London guaranteeing Belgian neutrality, the Entente with France and the 1912 naval arrangement that left France's Channel coast to the Royal Navy. Students draft and write in their own Google Docs on school accounts, using the department's memo layout, with no comments or shared editing. The department set this memo in Microsoft Word until the school moved to Google Workspace, and the teacher marks it after the lesson against the same success criteria, and reads out the strongest argument on each side at the start of the next lesson.

Tools: Google Docs Nine ideas for your own version in Generate

Over two lessons, Year 9 pairs make a five-minute podcast episode answering one question: was Germany to blame for the First World War? One student argues Fritz Fischer's view that Germany's leaders deliberately pursued war, and the other Christopher Clark's view that the powers 'sleepwalked' into it together, each backing the case with evidence from the unit. Pairs script, record in Soundtrap for Education in the class group, listen back and re-record weak sections, then add a short sound ident from the loop library. Episodes are shared on the school learning platform, set to school login, with first names only, and the teacher plays two to the class at the end before a vote on which side made the stronger case.

Tools: Soundtrap Nine ideas for your own version in Generate

Over three lessons, groups of three build a playable simulation of the July Crisis in Twine. The player takes one of three roles, the Kaiser, the Tsar or Sir Edward Grey, and makes a decision at each of six points from 5 July to 4 August, while the story tracks variables the group sets up, such as the stage of Russian mobilisation, Germany's war plans and Britain's commitment to France, so that later passages and the ending depend on everything decided before. Every rule must rest on the source pack: once Russia orders general mobilisation, for instance, the group must decide from the evidence whether the Schlieffen Plan leaves Germany any choice but to attack France through Belgium. Groups then play each other's simulations, record how many runs end in a general war, and change any rule the players show to be unhistorical, before each group explains what its simulation claims about whether war could have been avoided.

Tools: Twine Nine ideas for your own version in Generate

Year 9 read the ten demands Austria-Hungary sent to Serbia on 23 July 1914 with a 48-hour deadline. Each student opens their own copy of a Google Doc holding a translation of the ten numbered demands and a summary of Serbia's reply of 25 July, and highlights each demand in one of three colours: accepted, accepted with conditions, or refused. Beside each qualified or refused demand they add a comment on why Serbia might have found it unacceptable, starting from the example the teacher models, point 6, which asked for Austro-Hungarian officials to take part in the investigation on Serbian soil. The teacher circulates and questions students' reasons, and the lesson ends with a written answer in books to the question: was the ultimatum written to be rejected?

Tools: Google Docs Nine ideas for your own version in Generate

The teacher takes Year 9 through the July Crisis in five moments: the assassination on 28 June, Germany's 'blank cheque' to Austria-Hungary on 5 and 6 July, the ultimatum to Serbia on 23 July, Russia's general mobilisation on 30 July and Germany's invasion of Belgium on 4 August. After each moment, students use a Mentimeter scales question on their own devices to rate how responsible Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia, Serbia, France and Britain are so far, from 0 to 10, and the board shows the class average for each power, with the previous slide a click away for comparison. When a power's average jumps, or the answers are widely split, the teacher stops and has the class argue it out using the source extract for that moment before moving on. Students end by writing which moment changed the class's judgement most, and whether they agree with the change.

Tools: Mentimeter Nine ideas for your own version in Generate

Over two lessons, Year 9 work with a partner class at a school in Vienna whose students are learning English, through a shared Google Doc and a Microsoft Teams call, both on school accounts and hosted by the two teachers. In the first lesson each class reads its own country's newspapers from 29 June, 24 July and 1 August 1914: Year 9 from the free Welsh Newspapers Online archive, and the Vienna class, with their history teacher's help, from ANNO, the Austrian National Library's archive, which Year 9 could not read without them. Each class chooses the passages that mattered most in its own papers and adds English translations or summaries of them to the Doc, with notes on the words that mattered, such as how each paper described Serbia and the ultimatum. In the second lesson the teachers host a whole-class call on both boards, where named speakers from each class ask about the other's reading and each class gives its own verdict on how far Austria-Hungary was responsible, and Year 9 finish by writing how the Austrian papers and the Vienna class's verdict change their own judgement.

Tools: Microsoft Teams, Google Docs Nine ideas for your own version in Generate

Year 9 are working through the long-term causes of the war, and today's focus is the Anglo-German naval race. The teacher plays a twelve-minute documentary extract on the board covering Tirpitz's Navy Laws of 1898 and 1900, the launch of HMS Dreadnought in 1906, which made every older battleship obsolete, and the 1909 campaign in Britain summed up in the slogan 'We want eight and we won't wait'. Students take notes in their books under three headings, what Germany did, how Britain responded and why each side felt threatened, and the teacher pauses the extract twice to check the headings are filling up. The lesson ends with a paragraph on whether the naval race made war more likely, using at least two dates from the notes.

Tools: YouTube Nine ideas for your own version in Generate

Before reading accounts of 28 June 1914, Year 9 need to see where it happened. On the board, the teacher opens Google Earth over Sarajevo and flies along the riverside Appel Quay, now Obala Kulina bana, as the archduke's motorcade did, then drops into Street View at the corner by the Latin Bridge where Gavrilo Princip fired, outside the building that was Schiller's delicatessen and is now a museum. The teacher pulls back from the street to the city, then to the Balkans to show how short the distance is to the Serbian border, and then to Europe, with Vienna, Belgrade, Berlin and St Petersburg on the same screen. Students annotate a printed street plan and a map of Europe in 1914 in their books as the teacher narrates, and finish by explaining in writing why a shooting in a Bosnian city became a crisis for the whole continent.

Tools: Google Earth Nine ideas for your own version in Generate

Year 9 are weighing up whether the Anglo-German naval race made war more likely. Before the lesson the teacher took the commissioning date of every British and German dreadnought battleship and battlecruiser, from HMS Dreadnought in December 1906 to August 1914, from published ship lists and typed them into a short Sonic Pi program that plays one bar per month: a high bell for each British ship and a low bell for each German one. The class listens once with eyes closed: nearly three years of British bells alone, the first low bell in October 1909 when SMS Nassau entered service, then both voices quickening, with the high voice always ahead. On the second playing the teacher shows the years on the board and stops at spring 1909, when the naval scare and the cry of 'We want eight and we won't wait' swept Britain, and asks what the class has heard from Germany by that point. Students finish by writing a paragraph on whether British fear in 1909 rested on ships Germany had or ships it was expected to build, and what that says about the naval race as a cause of war.

Tools: Sonic Pi Nine ideas for your own version in Generate