Cover lesson · History · Year 11 · Advanced
Fact-checking historical claims
DCF: Producing → Evaluating and improving digital content
Name: Class: Date:
Cover teacher — you need no subject knowledge
Print: this sheet and the stimulus sheet “Six claims about the Aberfan disaster”, one of each per pupil. Computers or tablets are useful here: the five approved sources are listed on the stimulus sheet. If there are no computers, the lesson still works — read the four numbered facts in the box below aloud and let pupils check against those.
Run: 5 min — set the topic and the tone (144 people died; this is not a game) · 5 min — read the six claims · 20 min — fill the verification log, one row per claim · 12 min — write the correction note for the worst claim · 5 min — compare verdicts in pairs; disagreements must be settled by naming a source · 3 min — collect and ask who used “not established” and why.
Collect: this sheet with all six rows of the log filled and the correction note written.
Facts from the sources, for use if you have no internet access
- On 21 October 1966 Tip 7 above Aberfan, saturated by water, slid into the village. 144 people were killed: 116 children, mostly aged between seven and ten, and 28 adults, five of them primary school teachers. 109 of the dead were in Pantglas Junior School. It was the last day before half term. (British Geological Survey)
- A Tribunal of Inquiry was appointed on 26 October 1966, chaired by Sir Herbert Edmund Davies. It interviewed 136 witnesses, examined 300 exhibits, heard 2,500,000 words and sat for 76 days — the longest inquiry of its type in British history to that date. It retired on 28 April 1967 and published its report on 3 August 1967. (UK government inquiry summary)
- The report concluded: “the Aberfan Disaster is a terrifying tale of bungling ineptitude by many men charged with tasks for which they were totally unfitted, of failure to heed clear warnings, and of total lack of direction from above. Not villains but decent men, led astray by foolishness or by ignorance or by both in combination, are responsible for what happened at Aberfan.” (UK government inquiry summary)
- Lord Robens, chairman of the National Coal Board, appeared in the final days of the tribunal and admitted that the coal board had been at fault. The Mines and Quarries (Tips) Act 1969 was passed afterwards. (UK government inquiry summary; legislation.gov.uk)
What you are doing
You have six claims about the Aberfan disaster of the kind that circulate in comment threads, captions and revision sites. You will check each one against a named source, record a verdict using the four fixed verdicts, and then write the correction you would post underneath the worst of them.
A fact-check is worthless unless it is traceable. Every row of your log must name the source you used, not just the answer you reached.
Step by step
- 5 min — Read the six claims and the four verdicts on the stimulus sheet. Note which claims you already doubt, and be ready to be wrong about that.
- 20 min — Work through the verification log. Use the sources in the order given: the government inquiry summary first, then the British Geological Survey, then legislation.gov.uk, then news reporting.
- 12 min — Choose the claim that would do the most damage if believed. Write a correction of 100–150 words that names the source and the figure.
- 5 min — Compare with a partner. Where you disagree, the person who can name a source wins. Amend your log if you lose.
- 5 min — Finish the reflection question at the bottom.
Verification log
| Claim |
Source used (name it) |
What that source actually says |
Verdict |
| 1 | | | |
|---|
| 2 | | | |
|---|
| 3 | | | |
|---|
| 4 | | | |
|---|
| 5 | | | |
|---|
| 6 | | | |
|---|
Your correction note
Claim number you are correcting: ______
Write 100–150 words. State the claim, state what is wrong with it, give the correct figure or fact, and name the source. Do not insult whoever posted it — a correction that reads as an attack gets ignored.
Reflection
One of these claims cannot be settled with the sources you were given. Which, and what exactly would you need in order to settle it?
Success criteria
- Every row of my log names a specific source, not “the internet” or “a website”.
- I quote a figure, a date or a sentence from the source rather than paraphrasing loosely.
- I use “partly supported” and “not established” where they are the honest verdict, instead of forcing every claim into true or false.
- My correction note gives the right fact and tells the reader where to check it themselves.
- I rank my sources: primary inquiry material above news reporting, news reporting above an unsigned revision page.
If you finish early
- Claim 4 is wrong about the length of the inquiry by a factor of roughly twenty-five. Work out why a wrong number like that spreads more easily than the right one.
- The tribunal called those responsible “not villains but decent men”. Write 80 words on why that phrase angered many families in Aberfan, and whether a fact-check can settle that argument.
- Design a three-question test that a reader could apply to any historical claim in under a minute. Try it on the claim you found easiest to check and the one you found hardest.