Resources for Educators

Guidance for Teaching Controversial Issues

Advice from the National Education Union – Conflict in the Middle East: Issues for Schools. National Education Union (NEU)
This guidance identifies challenges which teachers may face teaching this topic and provides guidance on how to approach the topic skilfully.

Independence or Catastrophe? Teaching Palestine through Multiple Perspectives Samia Shoman, Rethinking Schools

Teaching About Palestine & Israel Through the Lens of Human Rights. Global Learning London (GLL)
This resource supports teachers to hold critical conversations about this ongoing crisis by sharing new and existing activities and resources, basing the teaching around human rights and evidence and a global citizenship education and anti-racist approach.

Teaching Conflict: Israel, Palestine, and the Classroom. Principled Learning

Teaching Controversial Issues – A Guide for Teachers 2018. OXFAM


Syllabi and Online Classroom Courses

Conflict in Israel Palestine. Parallel Histories  
Parallel Histories offers a new way to study history which is still contested, controversial and relevant to those studying it. These teaching materials are aimed at KS3, GCSE and A Level and take students from the late Ottoman period through to the present day. These involve learning narratives, analysing sources and debating. Resources include schemes of work, lesson plans, sources and videos.

Palestine & Israel – How will there be a Just Peace? Sadaka The Ireland Palestine Alliance
A citizenship KS4 education resource intended to support to critically explore conflict and peace building within a framework of Human Rights and International Law. The resource aims to increase knowledge and understanding, develop skills of critical analysis, and share the experiences of those working towards a peaceful outcome.

Palestine and Israel, Understanding the Conflict. The Educational Institute of Scotland
Student and teacher resource packs pitched at CfE Levels 2/3 and Levels 3/4, most relevant for the teaching of Social Studies, Literacy and English, and Citizenship.

Understanding Palestine. Makan
An online interactive course for learners with little prior knowledge which provides a cohesive story of Palestine through the lens of history, identity, and politics and covers key issues such as the Nakba, refugeehood and apartheid. Makan also offers historical timelines and a glossary of key words.


Lesson Plans

Fireworks by Dalia Taha. Performing International Plans
Set in an unnamed Palestinian town under Israeli siege in the early part of the twenty-first century, this play and lesson plan aimed at 12+ offers a new way of seeing how war fractures childhood.

Palestine and Israel. Council for Arab British Understanding (CAABU) 
Worksheets, lesson plans, activities on the main issues of the Israel Palestine Conflict. 

Teaching about the Current Conflict in Gaza and Israel. The New York Times Learning Network
Lesson plan and supporting media which cover the roots, causes and impact of the escalating violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

The Kites are Flying by Michael Morpurgo. Amnesty International
Aimed at upper primary/lower secondary, this lesson plan uses an uplifting story which highlights the conflict on the West Bank to teach human rights. It includes themes of love, loss, hope and the desire for peace.

The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. TeachMideast
Collection of international articles, lesson plans and teaching materials, YouTube videos, films, documentaries, filmed debates, podcasts, fiction and non-fiction books intended to spark meaningful discussion.


Reference to any specific resource or materials does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by the Balfour Project.

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