GCSE History, explained properly

Clear guides to the GCSE History topics that students find hardest, and the exam skills that turn what you know into marks.

Topic guides

• Elizabeth I: problems, plots and the ArmadaThe 1558 problems, the religious settlement, Mary, Queen of Scots, the Armada, the poor and the theatre.
• Elizabeth I after 1588War, money, Ireland, the hungry 1590s and Essex's rebellion: did her government decline?
• From Versailles to war, 1918-1939The peace treaties, the League of Nations, Manchuria and Abyssinia, Hitler's steps and appeasement.
• Boom and bust: the USA, 1919-1941Why the 1920s boomed, who missed out, the Wall Street Crash, the Depression and the New Deal.
• 'Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?'How to judge a 1932 hit song as a source on the Great Depression.
• Was Haig the 'butcher of the Somme'?A source investigation in four parts: what happened, Haig's view, soldiers' views and the view from Britain.
• GCSE History exam guideHow the papers work, the main question types, source skills and PEEL paragraphs.

Free downloads

• Was the Treaty of Versailles fair? A card sort (PowerPoint)
• Why was there no major war in the 1920s? (PDF revision sheet)
• PEE paragraph writing frame (Word)

Free to print and use in class.

Five habits that make history revision work

1. Start every topic with a timeline. Ten to fifteen dates in order make everything else easier to remember, because you can see what caused what.
2. Learn two or three precise facts for every point. "The army was cut to 100,000 men" scores, "the army was made smaller" barely does.
3. Practise explaining, not just knowing. Most marks go to answers that say why something mattered. Our PEEL guide shows how.
4. Ask who made a source and why. Every source question rewards thinking about the author, the date and the purpose.
5. Sit timed questions. Writing a full answer in the time you'll have in the exam is the fastest way to find gaps.

The story of this website

From about 2005 to 2015, ilovehistory.co.uk was a history teacher's revision site. Students and teachers used it for GCSE topics like the Treaty of Versailles, the USA in the 1920s, the Battle of the Somme and Elizabeth I, and other history sites and revision lists linked to it. The site closed in 2015 and the address lay empty for years.

I Love History is a new, independent site that picks up the same topics with new guides written for today's GCSE courses. We're not connected to the original author or their schools. Some of the old site's best-known addresses, like its Haig lesson, now have new pages on the same topics, and other old links take you to the closest new guide. Read more about the site.